I NEED support! Weight loss on super tight budget!

I knew about the chicken thing, but never really put much importance on it. my husband LOVES (and INSISTS) on the dark meat for him to take on his sandwiches, and when we grill) i on the otherhand, only eat white, cant stand the dark. i should really do this. i think this will be very helpful for us.

Definitely. And if you're not already washing your own salads greens, chopping your own veggies, etc., there's money to be saved there, too.

I live on Social Security Disablity, and $ is very tight. Some of the other things I do:

- Grocery stores' weekly sales flyers almost always have several real bargains (much more so, IME, than the Sunday newspaper coupons). I generally stick with four "go-to" grocery stores that are convenient & nearby, There are some stone bargains (like oranges for $0.47/lb), but there's also a lot of "the good stuff" (cage-free vegetarian brown eggs) for prices more like the "ordinary stuff" ($2.00/doz.).

- While at the grocery store, I always check out the "day old"/"manager's special"/"marked down for quick sale" racks. That's how I can afford (slighty stale) multi-grain artisanal breads.

- I found (on Yelp.com) a farmstand about 5 mi from my house with excellent prices on amazingly fresh produce. They also have a bargain bin "dent and scratch table with some real super-deals.

- Your freezer is your friend. I just finished the blueberries I bought at bumper-crop prices last summer & froze - but I still have some of last summer's strawberries . I also get a lot of my meat from grocery store 2-for-1 and/or Value-Pack sales, and freeze it untill I need it. (For a family like yours, you may want to invest in a stand-alone freezer - look for a good used one with at least some sort of warranty.)

- Eggs. Eggs are about the cheapest and best form of protein out there. To keep calories & cholesterol down, keep to all or mostly egg whites for yourself, and mix the yolks in with other whole eggs for any hollow-legged men living in your house.

- Complete proteins. Some foods don't have all the amino acids that comprise a complete protein on their own, but do when partnered up with certains other foods - rice and beans, wheat (bread, cookies, etc.) and milk, or mushrooms and spinach, etc. The best guide to all this that I know of is "Diet for a Small Planet" by Francis Moore Lappe (there's a lot in there about the virtues of vegetarianism, and the imperative need to do certain things in order to save the earth, which you can take or leave as you see fit; but the nutritional info is great regardless.)

- Consider applying for Food Stamps. I know, I know - that's just not what people like you and I do. But if you can get past that, they are a big help. (And they come on a debit-style card now, so no one but you and your cashier have to know. And if you use the Automated Cashier..) And the income requirements have been adjusted recently just to help families in situations like yours.

- Lastly, veggies, veggies, veggies. They're comparatively cheap, and are the closest I've seen to weight-loss "magic" - the more veggies I eat, the more I lose weight.

Hope this helps.

hi there! I didn't real everybody else's posts so please forgive me if I repeat anything.
I thought this blog might help you. This guy did some pretty extreme couponing while in a bet with his sister to see if he could eat on $1/day for a month. Much more extreme than what you need to do, but perhaps you could get some ideas?
http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/eating-well-on-1-a-day/

Also... this may be a stupid question as you said you are looking to buy a home so maybe you are in an apartment now... BUT... if you have even a balcony, you can plant a whole container garden and grow all kinds of produce. Cali has a great climate for that. A friend of mine in Cali has an entire container garden on her porch since her house was a rental. Corn, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, watermelon, pumpkins, strawberries, raspberries, cucumbers... I didn't even know you could grow so many things in containers but you can. Think how much you could save since produce is so expensive! Definitely do some googling and see if that might be an option for you.

Other than that, I know that things like soups/stews/chilis are very economical because ingredients aren't too pricey and it goes a long way.

Hope this helps some!

I really would rather cook from scratch than do couponing. Every time I look in the paper at coupons it's all nasty boxed stuff. I would only very rarely feed my family that stuff. Ack.

We started our own garden, too, and it's so fun picking your own fresh produce! I thought you said you homeschool, maybe you and the kids could start a garden as a school project?

There are a lot of great deals on 'real' foods too. I got 36 oz of spinach today for $1 using coupons. You can also save a lot of money on toiletries. Which frees up more money in your budget to purchase fresh foods. I buy more name brand prducts now for soooo much less than I used to spend on store brands.

Um, hey - I've just started a group for this topic: "Healthy Eats on the Cheap."
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/4366-healthy-eats-on-the-cheap

There have been several threads on this lately, so there seems to be a need for it. And I know I certainly have a need for it.

I've never done a group before, so I don't really know what I'm doing (if I'm making some terrible group-starting-related mistake, some please tell me.) Fancy badges & banners and wittily descriptive front page text aren't quite up yet, but you can join anytime.

Asian markets have great prices for produce. Google Asian market and your city to find one near you.