Save money at the Farmers Market
July 26, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Frugal Gourmet, groceries
Farmers Markets can be an effective way to cut your food costs, and as a bonus it’s free entertainment for kids. My son loves the Farmers Market – there are usually lots of other kids, sometimes free music, and a wide array of cool stuff to see.
When you go make sure you maximize your savings by doing the following…
- Choose one market you love and stick to it. This saves you cash in a couple of ways. One, you better know what to expect which can help you plan what you’ll be spending money on, and two regulars tend to forge relationships with sellers and can sometimes score friendly deals.
- Be flexible. Don’t try to totally plan what you need to buy. There’s not always berries but you may find some killer eggplant on sale. If your taste buds and menu are open and flexible you’ll save more cash.
- Take a trade. If you make homemade candles or other crafty projects consider taking some for a trade. Many sellers are open to this option.
- Buy a lot at once. You can often score a better deal by offering to take ALL the blueberries off a sellers hands. Consider what you can do to make the most of a bulk purchase. Berries freeze well for example or you can jar up a lot of tomato sauce at once.
- Go early for best selection (if say you REALLY want that organic squash) but go late to save money. it’s more up in the air that you’ll find everything you need, but sellers like to leave with zero load so come the end of the day they often lower prices.
Find a Farmers Market near you.
[image via stock.xchng]
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] a Comment // This week, Jennifer wrote that farmer’s markets can be an effective way to cut your food costs. I totally agree with her. Farmer’s markets provide some of the freshest products and allow [...]