Book 13 of my 2014 Goal

2012 Family Guide to Groceries under $250 a Month by Melissa "Liss" Burnell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Family Guide to Groceries Under $250 a month by Melissa Burnell was a book I had high hopes for providing me with new ways to cut my grocery bill down. I already do mostly everything mentioned in the book including the coupons, vacuum sealing, and my own recipes. I also am aware of the packaging deception, placement of items on store shelves, and the club stores bulk buying. There really was nothing in the book that I found new or useful except some of the recipes which I can just substitute frozen vegetables in place of the canned.

I am not sure where the author lives but the prices (too low even for 2012 in CT) and some of the suggestions in the book are unrealistic to me and don't take in account for special diets such as low sodium, gluten free, or for a diabetic. Stocking up on canned vegetables my be cheap but unless we are putting together a survival shelter, we don't eat them. They are full of sodium among other things so we only have frozen or fresh.

Even on sale, there is just so much room to store frozen items and fresh don't stay 'fresh' forever so stocking up on these things is not an option. If we bought another freezer to put these items in, the cost of the freezer and running it is more than what few cents we would save while the item is on sale.

I really don't even know how to rate this book because if someone is just starting out with their family and didn't have some parent that told them this information about groceries, it would be very useful to them but for me and everyone I know, it really is just common sense.

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