14 Budget Stretching Dollar Store Grocery Buys…Do You Know How to Cook Cheap?

If you have never considered buying part of your groceries at the dollar store you are missing out on some of the best money saving deals EVER.

Many folks just don’t realize the savings that they are passing up every day.

Myths: Dollar stores only carry junk food and outdated no-name grocery products.

Realities: Many dollar stores now carry large grocery sections complete with bakery, produce, dairy and frozen foods. While many of the items you find are discontinued and generics, many are also major name brands that you will recognize. Perishables may be short dated, but not all are. Yes, they do carry a good selection of junk food, but there is enough healthy fare here for those who watch closely what they eat as well as fellow junk-food-junkies.

Dollar Store Do’s

1. Keep an eye out for name brands. On my last trip to the dollar store I found name brand bagged produce and salad fixings, salad dressings, granola bars, lunch meat, low-fat frozen dinners and ice cream, just to name a few. Buying name brands will bump up your savings, while helping to assure the quality of your purchases.

2. Not all generics are bad, in fact most are of more than acceptable quality. Try out the generics the dollar store carries and make notes on the ones of acceptable quality. You have not lost a lot if you try something and it is not the best product you have ever used. Consider the process as research and an investment in future savings.

3. Stock up when you find a really good deal on name brands. Products come and go quickly in the dollar store. Here’s my strategy for stock ups:

If in doubt of the quality of a product, buy one to test. Go to the car if necessary, try it and return to the store and purchase the rest. Case in point, I recently came across 8 1/2 oz bags of name brand kettle roasted peanuts (yes, this was many months before the peanut scare that has been in the news recently). The peanuts were flavored snacks in ranch and BBQ, but I was not sure that I would care for the flavorings. I bought a bag to test, and what a find! I went back in the store and purchased 10 bags with a total savings of $22.90 on just this one item. It’s a good thing I stocked up when I did, the next week this deal was long gone even though the store had literally hundreds of bags on a giant display the week before. My kids now happily carry peanuts as part of their lunches to school.

4. Shop the dollar store first and then fill in with sale items at the grocery store to round out your purchases. You never know what you will find and not find at the dollar store. Products come and go, produce ranges in quality and sometimes the shelves are wiped out with few bargains to be found. I shop at the dollar store first, keeping in mind what is on sale at the grocery store down the street. If there are few bargains to be found that day at the dollar store I move on to the grocery store. If there are many bargains to be found, I buy what is reasonable to buy and then buy less at the grocery store. It all depends on what is a good deal and where. My goal is always to get a good value for the money, regardless of what I spend and where.

So, which products are the best buys other than name brands?

1. Produce. No two ways about it, produce is a great buy at the dollar store. The fruit may not be the largest or the most beautiful, but the prices are certainly hard to beat. Don’t think that all of the produce is from a nondescript wholesaler either. There are many name brand items here to choose from.

2. Frozen Foods. Believe it or not, I recently found a large selection of low-fat, diet type entrées and French bread pizzas at a third of the price of the grocery store down the streets “sale price.”

3. Milk. If you use only a quart of milk a week buying at the dollar store will save you $52 a year instead of buying from the grocery store.

4. Cheese. Yes real cheese, not the processed American stuff. Frequently you can buy sliced cheese, shredded cheese, string cheese, and cheese bites in the dollar store. Keep an eye out for short dates, but the value for the money is hard to beat.

5. Lunchmeat. You can save a small fortune by purchasing lunchmeat in the dollar store. Lunchmeat is often short dated, but is a good buy if you toss it in the freezer immediately and use as soon as thawed.

6. Bread. Believe it or not large bagels come packaged in a 4-pack and are a bargain, hamburger and hot dog buns are also a buy.

7. Snack Foods. Prepackaged snacks for school lunches and other goodies like cookies, popcorn and potato chips are 40% off regular store pricing.

8. Nuts. Savings of 70% off grocery store prices, and a regularly stocked item in most stores.

9. Tortillas. If you are lucky enough to live in an area that caters to a Hispanic population tortillas are a great buy in the dollar store. I save 66% on this item buy purchasing at the dollar store rather than the supermarket.

10. Salsa and Hot Sauce. Another great money saver with prices well below that of the grocery store. Savings here ranges in the 60-70% range.

11. Beef Jerky and Turkey Jerky. Another great buy is the name brand beef jerky I get at my local dollar store. I save a whopping $3.29 per package off regular store prices.

12. Cold Cereal. You will be surprised at the name brand cereals that show up in dollar store grocery sections. Several of the dollar stores in my local area carry both name brands and generics. Prices are always reasonable and there is almost always good selection.

13. Hot Cereal. Huge boxes of cream of wheat, grits, and oatmeal at prices low enough to rival the bulk section of local health food stores. I generally opt for the packaged variety here, rather than the bulk bins.

14. Spices. Spices are spices, with very few exceptions. You will find that the bottles at the dollar store have 4 times the amount for less than 25% the price of those found on most grocery aisles.

There you have it, fourteen of the best hidden bargains on the dollar store grocery shelves. It is entirely possible to cook healthy gourmet meals only from the items found in dollar stores. The 99 Cent Only Stores Cookbook: Gourmet Recipes at Discount Prices, this it one cookbook with extraordinary ideas for great meals on a shoestring.


With the economy constantly tightening, you can still feed your family well and have money left over.

Cheap Meal Ideas: The Best Meatballs and Meatloaf Ever!

Whew! End of the summer already and getting the kids ready to go off to school again. A really busy time of the year for us all. Need a cheap quick fix dinner? How about the best meatballs and meatloaf recipe ever?

I love meatloaf and meatballs, the price is right and the prep time and clean up is only about 10 minutes.

What I do it this....make the recipe above, it comes out perfect everytime. This recipe calls for 2 pounds of ground beef and makes 2 meals for the 5 of us. Mix the recipe as directed, and then bake half as a meatloaf and half as meatballs.

Freeze the leftover meatballs and store in a ziplock bag in the freezer. The next time you need fast food, the meatballs are already cooked. Just nuke to warm and toss into your spaghetti and you are good to go.

Make it once, clean it up once, eat twice, and no waste to boot. A truly frugal meal and great time saver for evenings when you are pressed for time.

What Makes a Recipe Cheap?

As you are looking through your recipes trying to decide on a quick cheap meal have you ever wondered what makes a recipe truly frugal? A good example of a truly frugal recipe is the cheap breakfast recipe we posted a few days ago.

The cost of a recipe and how "good" a recipe tastes are actually two totally separate issues. Let me explain. The cost of a recipe is greatly influenced by your attention to controlling the price of ingredients, how well you shop, your desire to reduce spending, and your attentiveness to preplanned purchases. On the other hand, how good a recipe is perceived to be is totally subjective.

In truth, recipes are good if the meals they produce are both filling and satisfying. If the meal is flavorful, filling, and what you are craving then the simplest dish will taste good to you. You can go out to dinner, eat a $30.00 meal and still not be satisfied if the meal was not what you were wanting regardless of the price. To make cheap meals satisfying all you really need to do is select a cheap recipe to satisfy your cravings. Simple right? The trick is to amass enough cheap recipes to gaurantee a variety of inexpensive meals in your diet.

Take a look at the cheap breakfast recipe we posted a few days ago and tell me what you see. What did you notice about the ingredients and instructions for cooking?

At some point I asked the same questions. I figured, as a long ago starving student, if there was a common denominator for savings that I needed to find it. Saving money was not something I particularly wanted to do, it was a necessity. I needed a shortcut to spotting inexpensive recipes because my time was short between work and school. As it turned out, that common denominator was right before my eyes all the time.

The fewer ingredients you use, the cheaper your meals will be. Cheap and quick meal recipes all have one thing in common, they use very few ingredients. It goes without saying that the cost of each ingredient needs to be controlled to make the recipe be frugal in the end. Sorry, not steak and truffles with wine sauce here.

There are several advantages to using fewer ingredients besides controlling costs. First, fewer ingredients mean less time grocery shopping and we know what happens the longer we stay in the grocery store: we spend a lot more than we should.

Second, fewer ingredients make prep time much quicker. Cheap recipes are usually speed demons to prepare. We have less to slice, dice, chop and clean up. I love the simplicity of the preparation of most cheap meals.

Lastly, and most important is the controlling of waste. You can do everything right when you shop, but if only $5.00 worth of produce goes to waste then you have increased your grocery bill 5% on every $100.00 you spend. Cooking cheap recipes helps you control waste by using larger proportions of fewer ingredients. Less to buy means fewer perishables that can potentially spoil saving you from wasting what you worked hard to save.

All and all, I have to say that I love cheap recipes. They need not be boring, just creative. Be willing to try new frugal recipes every chance you get. Save the ones you love and build a solid list of easy and quick to prepare meals that are as satisfying as the recipes are cheap.