GGTSSG (and other money saving tips)

[milano]

Any new ideas that you've come across to live greener and/or save $?

[milano]

I've been really looking at the home purchases I make (like toiletries, paper products, etc), and I think I could easily save some money by buying more store brands and some more non-organic items. For instance, there is no reason that I need to buy ziploc brand snack bags when the store brand is like $1 less per box.They're snack bags. I'm not freezing them.

I'm struggling a bit with food though. For example, J likes to eat pop-tarts in the mornings. It's something I know he'll eat, even if he is having an "I'm determined to survive only on air" eating week. But I've only ever bought the "organic" Nature's Path ones that are at least twice as expensive as regular pop tarts. Is that really necessary? I try to avoid artificial coloring so maybe pop tarts aren't the best example since I'm pretty sure the poptarts brand has that in them, but it's food like this that I struggle with whether or not it's worth the extra cost. And fruit snacks, is Annie's really worth the stupid high price as opposed to Mott's? Are kashi frozen waffles really any better than Ego? Arghh. I'm curious as to how y'all make decisions like this when you shop.

[rockies]

milano For fruits and veggies we only buy organic on the dirty dozen: www.ewg.org/foodnews/mobile/

And I agree about it being hard for everything else to determine.

[rockies]

I been trying to be better about keeping my freezer stocked with meat when it goes on sale and buying the big stuff from Costco for the house (detergent/soaps/etc) when they run a promotion, so I might buy it before I need it but I would be buying it in a couple months anyway.

[sarenu]

Do you have extra storage? I try to buy items in bulk that won't spoil quickly.

I also skip disposable products like snack bags if I have containers. Or I reuse them more than once (for dry items).

[mapleme]

FST and dryer balls have been my best GGTSSG choices ever and we will likely continue these for a long time. We've backslid on some other things, but overall do ok. Packaging is the place that I would really love to cut back.

We don't do a lot of prepackaged stuff, but definitely do waaaay more than pre-kid. It's not a lot of individually packaged stuff, but we're just buying way more food premade that comes in bottles, bags and disposable containers.

For making food choices I look at ingredients and nutrition facts first. Two things that seem similar (even from the same brand), might be really different. Then, if it's something that I buy a lot, I might see who the parent company is. Odwalla is owned by Coca Cola, for example. Annie's is owned by General Mills. I try to buy from companies that I want to see continuing to exist. So if they do more philanthropy or operate with ethics that I believe in, I'm more likely to buy from them. But I also know a lot about the food world and definitely wouldn't research all these things for everything that I buy. So often I go with my gut and try to buy from stores that will make their purchasing choices with similar ideals in mind. It's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be.