KANSAS CITY - As groceries get more expensive, people are looking for ways to cut costs.
Khris Juelfs, nutrition and wellness educator with the Illinois Extension Service says “finding those sales is probably the first step. So make sure you’re checking those store circulars, looking for coupons."
"I always like to shop in the sale aisle and then kind of do my meal planning that week on what is on sale, so that’s always a good idea. When they put certain things on sale, so of course those staple foods like your beans, your pasta, your rice, all those canned goods, anytime those are on sale and if you have the space for them, you can store those for quite a long time.”
“We don't often think about milk and eggs and dairy products, storing those, but you can actually store those in the freezer. So milk can be stored in the freezer, so if you find a good bargain on some gallons of milk, if you have the room again, you can put those in the freezer. Again, the quality might not be what you're expecting after, so a lot of times it might be better for baking goods, you might just have to experiment” says Juelfs.
She points out eggs you can freeze as long as you’re not freezing them in the shell. The shells can be cracked open kind of like you’re making scrambled eggs and stored that way.
“Purchasing meat that goes on sale, they always have different bargains on, you know, ground beef or chicken, so it's always a great idea if you can buy those in bulk and then get some freezer safety bags and put those in the freezer as well, divide that up for your, depending on your family size and your portion size as needed” says Juelfs.
Total Information A.M.’s Megan Lynch asked do you have to be careful with the meat you buy on sale? "A lot of times, like I will see certain things on sale and maybe it's like just about to hit that best buy expiration date, what do we need to know about that?"
Juelfs says, “The sell-by dates and use-by dates can always be quite confusing, so that sell-by date is the date that the item needs to be removed from the store shelf, so it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be bad that date. And for meats and things, if you would get that and you would probably want to cook it within the next couple days, but no, it shouldn't be a problem that is just the date that they suggest to reach the best quality. And of course, meat products, we want to be a little bit more careful on those, so you would want to cook those right away or put them in your freezer right away if, you know, they're getting ready to go out of date.”