Kalmia wrote:
> No - I never overstock, and couponing is a royal pain, not to mention
> that it doesn't really save you anything if you are stocking up on
> junk food you'll never get thru. About the only coupons I ever cut
> are for Tabasco and a certain brand of t.t. I'm gonna buy this stuff
> anyway, so that's my rule of dumb on clipping coupons.

We don't eat junk food.

> I not only avoid overstocking, but I also get a laugh out of that ad
> which says Americans throw out 500 dollars worth of food a year. I
> sure don't. I use leftovers the next day, use green bags, keep a
> freezer inventory etc. I doubt if I throw 20 bucks worth away a
> year.

Well I don't know what it's like where you're at but here we can get snowed
in for a week or more at a time. So during the winter it is necessary to
keep extra food. I also try to stock up on the non-perishables when they
are on sale. Or buy some things at Costco where they are cheaper but you
have to buy a large amount.

Our current situation required me to stock up on extra food because we
didn't know when the next paycheck would come in or how much it would be.
And we still don't for sure. So we have plenty of beans, rice, pasta, and
other non-perishable things. Yes, I do have to buy some fresh food each
week. But if we really had to, we could eat off of what we had and we would
be fine.

I do not have time to go shopping every day. Yes, I could do that at the
Albertsons near the dance studio but by shopping only there, I would not
necessarily be getting the best prices or getting what I need. We generally
spread the bulk of our weekly shopping between 3 different stores and that's
not one of them. And there are still other stores that I have to shop at.
For instance to get turkey broth concentrate, I can only get it at three
stores and they are not the ones I normally shop at. And their prices are
higher. But they are necessary to go to sometimes.

I don't know how much food Americans throw away. I do know a very common
scenario in our house and my friend's house. Someone will decide that they
really, really like something. Say... Yogurt. So they are eating it every
day and you wind up stocking up on it when it goes on sale. Then all of a
sudden they are sick of it and never want to eat it again. And nobody else
in the house likes it. So out it goes. If this happens here with a
non-perishable, I will just give it to the food bank. But if it is
something like yogurt, they won't take it and I don't know anyone else who
will.