Tips for Thanksgiving Grocery & Produce Sales: Week of 11/11

Nadia — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:49:53 +0000

Note: No, I’m not confused on the dates for this post. As most of you know, grocery sales run on a Wednesday through Tuesday cycle (rather than the traditional drugstore and supercenter cycle of Sunday through Saturday. For more information on sales cycles and planning your grocery shopping to maximize savings, check out this post and this post).

This time of year, the best savings can be seen on traditional Thanksgiving food items: turkey, stuffing, canned vegetables, cranberry sauce, etc. and Holiday baking essentials like flour, sugar, canned milk and chocolate chips.

There are a few specific Brands that are likely to fall to awesome sale prices this week:

* Swanson Broth
* Carnation Evaporated and Sweetened Condensed Milk
* Libby pumpkin pie filling, canned pumpkin puree
* Stuffing – all brands – Pepperidge Farms, Stove Top, Mrs. Cubisons
* Butterball, Honeysuckle White, and Jenni-O turkeys
* Foster Farms frozen birds
* Gravy Mix: brands to watch for include McCormicks and French’s

Most of these items have had coupons in the last two inserts, and watch your Sunday paper for coupons for these brands!

Produce Prices to Watch This Week:

Squash: Seasonal fall harvest items such as butternut squash, acorn squash, and smaller pie pumpkins will all be pretty cheap this week. Butternut squash tends to be the most expensive of the winter squash, but a great sale price would be around $.50/lb. Butternut squash in particular is a great one to stock up on this time of year because it keeps for a super long time and makes a great healthy side dish to almost any main course.
Celery: the best prices on celery tend to be “by the each,” meaning per bunch instead of per pound. Aim for pricing below $1.00/bunch and you’ve got yourself a deal. Look for the largest, freshest looking bunch and be sure to weight a few of the largest looking bunches to find the best deal for your dollar. If your store only sells by the pound, aim for around $.60/lb or less.

Onions: All varieties of onion including green, yellow, white and red should be fairly inexpensive due to the harvest season. 3 bunches for $1.00 is a great target price for green onion (remember to look for the largest bunches–weight them, if you’ve got the time to spare) while around $.30-.40 per lb is a good stock up price for white, yellow and red onions.

Remember to check all your weekly grocery stores Ads for loss-leader pricing on these items, and then hit each grocery store for maximum savings (or bring all your sales ads to one store and use price-matching to save time, money, energy and gas).

Stocking up on Thanksgiving produce? Make sure to store your food correctly so that none of it goes to waste!

by Nadia

DIY Recipe: Sweetened Condensed Milk

Nadia — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:54:17 +0000

During the Holidays, I bake–a lot. For the family, goodies to give as gifts, goodies to donate to bake sales, you name it. Though this is the prime time of the year to stock up on baking ingredients, all the various ingredients can get pricey–especially when you forget to buy a needed ingredient and then send your spouse to the local grocery store to pick it up while you are elbows deep in flour and sugar. One of the pricier ingredients to buy is Sweetened Condensed Milk. I recently came across a recipe to make your own sweetened condensed milk that I can’t wait to try!

DIY Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 c powdered milk
2/3 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons melted margarine
1/3 cup boiling water

Mix ingredients and blend until smooth with an electric mixer, hand blender, or in case you are lazy but blessed like myself, throw it in your kitchen aid for a few minutes.

*Note: It can also be modified to serve as a hot fudge topping if you add baking cocoa to taste while whisking all the ingredients. Be sure to whisk a little longer to avoid bitter little chunks.

by Nadia

A-B-C Frugality » holiday baking

Tips for Thanksgiving Grocery & Produce Sales: Week of 11/11

DIY Recipe: Sweetened Condensed Milk