Hi team, I'm Fitz Kohler, your very happy fitness expert from fromfitness.com, and welcome to The Fitness Show. Today, we are going to talk about saving money on groceries, which, oh my God, is a real freaking issue. As a grown-up, I don't think I have ever, ever seen such an issue with the economy, with prices, and OMG, with food. Last week, I went into the grocery store. I shop at Publix, usually, where shopping Shopping is a pleasure.
Those of us in the Southeast are blessed by public supermarkets, right? They are not my sponsor. I just grew up loving Publix and I was happy to be there. Anyways, I was picking up things that I normally would want to buy and looking at the price and saying, ah, forget it. And it happened multiple times in one shopping adventure. And I just thought, oh, this sucks. So I went to my Hottie Body Fitness Challenge group on Facebook. If you're not a part of that, you should be.
But I put out a prompt and I said, hey, guys, how are you saving money on groceries right now? And my crew, as per usual, showed up hardcore and they gave such wonderful suggestions. And then I thought, you know what? If this is such a big deal to these people, it probably is a significant issue to everybody, right? Because last I checked, we all have to eat food. And then unless you're Oprah Winfrey and you've got all the money on planet Earth, good for you.
Most people are pinching pennies right now and they're cutting corners and trying to make alternate plans, make alternate moves so they can save instead of spend. Because when all your money goes towards housing and utilities, which are also through the roof and food, then you have far less money for fun. And you guys worked far too hard not to be able to have some fun and be able to enjoy some leisure time, right? So since food is essential, again, as I've been told, we all require food.
I thought this would be a really relevant topic for almost everybody. And of course, at the end, we're going to talk about our speaking tips and our song of the week. But first. If I miss out on something that you think is a real big cost saver, please message me and I will add that to the show notes or use my social media channels to say, oh, by the way, Tom Sawyer thinks that you could do X, Y, Z and save money too. So I want your ideas.
I've used some of my own and I'm incorporating some of the suggestions from my hotties. But yeah, hot topic and I think an important topic. Looking for the perfect gift for a loved one battling cancer? The Cancer Comeback Series by Fitz Kohler offers hope, inspiration, and practical guidance. With your healthy cancer comeback, my noisy cancer comeback, and the Healthy Cancer Comeback Journal. These books are a lifeline for all patients and survivors.
Right now, you can order autographed copies at a special discount. Show your support and help a loved one go from sick to strong. Visit Fitzness.com today. That's Fitzness.com. That's F-I-T-Z-N-E-S-S dot com. Fitsness dot com. If you are not part of my Hottie Body Fitsness Challenge group on Facebook, you should join. It's free. And I have about 2,000 of the coolest grownups on earth. And I guide them towards fitness, towards exercise, the exact formula, blah, blah, blah.
And then they are all the most kind, supportive, just lovely people on planet earth. and you would do very well for yourself to join us and take part. And by taking part, I don't mean just join the group and stay silent forever because that means you're a lurker.
And lurking is weird. What I want you to do is join the group and then introduce yourself and then start taking part because we all have fitness goals and it's nice to have the encouragement and the accountability ability and the kick in the pants, right? Right. Okay. So these, I have a long list of tips for saving money on groceries, but I'm going to start with this.
Make a list, right? So as you're sitting at home, do a little survey of what items you do or do not already have at home, and then you can add to it. Say, this is what I really need. Perhaps you're someone who meal plans, which is very wise. You know what you're going to be making within the next few days or the next week. Jot those items down. Make sure you don't already have them in your closet or your cabinet or your fridge. So you're not duplicating things you already have.
But yeah, sit at home, make a list, and then make sure you're not adding things you already have. While you're at home, it's also a nice idea to do a little coupon clipping. Oh my gosh, I said it. You got a coupon clip. So it's funny, when I was a kid... I was very, very standard. I think I was a basic, very basic kid in a very basic family, but my parents always had the newspapers.
And of course I wanted to read the Sunday funnies, but when the Sunday newspaper came in, the funnies came and, and, and for kids, you don't know what that is. That's a comic strips, ha ha funny comic strips, animated art, black and white paper. If you cannot figure this out, but I'd read the funnies and then the coupon section would come out. And I took incredible pleasure in clipping coupons. I have no idea.
This is a passion of mine since I was probably about six or seven years old, but checking out things that I liked and then clip, clip, clip. So clip those coupons. And then of course you're going to have your little coupon pouch thing, folder, whatever it is you would like to keep your coupons in. But coupons actually work. If you show them to the checkout person, your cashier, they will reduce the amount of money you have to pay, which is pretty darn cool.
And I know some people are Cuban queens and kings. They truly know how to shave $30, $50, $100 off of each shopping trip and more power to them. I am not that. In fact, I haven't actually gotten a coupon section or a funnies from a newspaper because I stopped buying our terrible newspaper long ago. The one that's local here. It's just so God awful. And they were charging a fortune and it was maybe like four pages long. It was so bad. But anywho, I do clip online.
I go to Publix, to Publix.com or download my Publix app. And then I clip the items that I'd like to buy. And I can poke in my phone number because I have joined their loyalty program. That's another tip is join the loyalty program at your favorite store or stores. And so hopefully you can get discounts as you shop today day and rewards for things you'd like to shop for in the future. They might even give you $10 cash back or bonuses.
I know my Walgreens does that. So. Join the loyalty program, make the list, clip the coupons and the real paper coupons or digital coupons. You can go to your favorite websites for your favorite products. And quite often they have coupons online that you can print and take with you. And so coupons, coupons, coupons, loyalty program, take what you can get. I also have loyalty program with the Circle K near my house.
And that's where I get gas. They take, I think it's five or 10 cents off of each gallon of gas I buy. And that's another one of those essentials that are just through the roof, right? Nobody likes the price of gas. In fact, every single time I fill up my Wrangler, I do a little cursing. I do a little cursing. That's right. It's foul. And on occasion, the other people filling the gas up into their cars hear me. And then they look around the little gas pump and they snicker and laugh and
we're all in this together, right? Nobody likes this economy. So anywho, coupons, loyalty programs, why not? It costs you nothing. And I say that, I am a person who I will never sign up for, you know, save $10 if you take our credit card now. That's a terrible, terrible thing to do to your credit. it. You have a couple of credit cards, which serve me very well, but I never go into, I don't know, Macy's or TJ Maxx and save 20% on today's order to get a credit card. I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about actual loyalty program where you pay nothing to join and then you get rewards for continuing to shop at those stores. So there you go. So make that list, take inventory, inventory, and then shop alone if you can, right? So don't bring your kids or your spouse or whoever is with you. If you don't want to buy unnecessary things, leave them at home. Just go alone so you can be disciplined and you don't have to be guilted into buying their favorite nonsense and, you know, whatever.
You decide what you're going to buy and what you're not going to buy. But having someone over your shoulders and, hey, let's get this, let's get that, especially when you're paying for it, they're not looking at the price tags. They're not looking at that barcode to see how much that feta cheese costs or how much those Doritos cost. They just want what they want. And so if you're the one paying for the groceries, just don't take someone with you. Do it alone.
And yeah, do it alone. Also don't shop hungry. On occasion, I do that, and I feel like I want to buy everything in the store. So try to fill up, and then you go in, and then the food doesn't look so interesting, right? You need to buy some food, but you're not desperate for food. You're probably not grabbing something that you can nosh on while you go up and down the aisle. So, yeah, be disciplined. Don't bring anybody with you, and don't shop hungry.
Oh, and then here's the other thing. Don't shop for entertainment. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I think we've all been guilty of it. We're bored. We've got nothing to do. I used to go to the mall. I mean, this is many, many years ago. Now I hate the mall. And I don't even like the word hate. Hate is a problem for me. I say, I loathe the mall. But I used to go just because I had nothing else to do.
And then, of course, I'd end up buying stuff and I'd be $130 poorer or $30 poorer just because I was bored. And so try not to use the store for entertainment. I also, my son still lives at home and I like to do stuff with him. So I say, what do we want to do? Let's go walk around the sinkhole. That's Florida, right? There's a really cool sinkhole nearby. So let's go walk the dogs at the sinkhole. Let's go to the botanical gardens. Let's go do this or that.
But I try to avoid saying, let's go to whatever his favorite stores are just because I'll end up a hundred dollars out just because I wanted to do something nice If I'm going to spend money, I would rather go play air hockey, go bowling, go roller skating. I'd rather pay money on activities than just rumming around, killing time and buying stuff because we had nothing else to do. So same thing goes for the grocery store. I think sometimes people go just,
you know, maybe lonely. Yeah. We can admit to being lonely sometimes, maybe going just to get out, just to be around other people. Try to find other places to be around other people. If you have a dog, go places dogs go. Go to a dog park. Go walk your dog. Go to the park. Go try pickleball. Go to the gym, for crying out loud. There's a whole bunch of great options, but just killing time at a store is not good for your bank account.
Okie dokie. My next pointer is to have a few favorite grocery stores, not just one, because they're not all going to serve you, right? Maybe one has a better deal on this and one has a better deal on that. So I just confess to being a Publix shopper and I love Publix. It's clean. Oh my gosh, it's so clean. The service is spectacular and they have all the food products I need. However, they don't always have the best prices. is. The thing they do have is BOGO. Buy one, get one. A lot.
And I often shop the BOGOs. So they have a little cart or a little, I don't know, what do we call it? And it's not a cart. It's a shelf when you walk in the store and there's always the BOGOs. So maybe you want to buy the cans of black beans there, or you want to buy your bags of nuts, things that are non-perishable that you can stock up on when they're BOGO.
Do that. And you don't have to buy 10 months worth of stuff when you get a BOGO because usually those same items will go back on BOGO one month or two months later, but you can get quite a bit of those items and literally you're chopping the price in half when you do that. Publix is famous for their BOGO deals. The place where they don't really do BOGOs is the produce section and the meat section. Sometimes they do have good deals on meats. To be honest with you, I'm not a big meaty lady.
I buy chicken for my son, but I don't buy too much So I'm not such an expert right there. But what I can tell you is Aldi, which I believe is nationwide. Aldi is where we go for chicken and produce. So I do buy items at, I do buy fruit at Publix and vegetables, but the prices at Aldi are way better. And I haven't figured Aldi out. I don't know why their prices are way better because they're still fresh produce.
It's not rotten. It's not old. It's just really good pineapples and good peppers and tomatoes and all of those things. It's wonderful stuff, but it's at a significant discount. counts. So I shop at Aldi's, especially for my son who will eat me out of house and home with chicken and cherries. Oh my gosh. Have you bought cherries lately? Yikes. Fresh cherries are not cheap, nor is pineapple or watermelon, his other favorite thing. So Aldi is the place we go for that.
And with chicken, they're boneless, skinless chicken. It's funny. I think I used to go to Fresh Market and they had boneless, skinless chicken breast for $1.99 and then it went up to $2.99. So then I ended up hearing that Sam's Club had chicken breasts, boneless, skinless for $1.99 a pound. So I was going all the way across town to Sam's Club, which I love doing because it's in that really busy shopping part of town.
I just don't want to be there. I could whine all day about going into Sam's, but I would go buy, I don't know, $80 worth of chicken just to buy a bunch and we would wrap the chicken breasts separately so we could freeze stuff so it didn't go bad and leave X amount in the fridge so he could eat it over the course of the next week. But then I found that Aldi had even less expensive boneless, skinless chicken breast.
I don't want to call it cheaper because cheap makes me feel like it's garbage, right? Aldi does not have cheap stuff. It's good, boneless, skinless chicken breast. And he very much likes it. It's just less expensive than even Sam's Club. So it's worth it for me to go there. I don't go there every day.
It's a little far from my house, nor do I need to go every there every day, but usually about once a week or once every two weeks when Parker's getting low on his Parker food, we go straight over to Aldi. I drop 80 bucks every single time I go there, but I do the math in my head and I think, okay, well, this is 80 bucks. If I took him out to a restaurant for this food, he would maybe get three or four meals out of it. And yeah, Aldi's, Aldi's has great prices on meat, great prices on produce.
And my hotties, they all, or many of them, recommended Aldi. And they live all across the country, from California to North Carolina to, I believe, even New York. There's Aldi's everywhere. If not, hopefully you have an Aldi similar type food store. And perhaps you just got to ask your neighbors, does anyone know where I could get some produce at a better price? So when it comes to grocery stores. Be flexible and you may even want to have a route, right?
You may want to start with your local grocery store, your Publix, and then you go to your Aldi's and then you go to your wholesale, big box discount store, Sam's or Costco. So have a few. And if you do them all in one day, maybe you save gas on your routes. So yeah, be flexible and know where you're going to get which food items. When it comes to Costco and Sam's, so they sell things in bulk, which could be great if it's a non-perishable item or you're feeding a lot of people.
But perhaps you buy tangerines at a much better price than that as you would get at your grocery store. But if you can't eat all the tangerines and half of them go bad, you may not be saving You may be doing worse. And so know what makes sense for you to buy at Sam's or Costco and which is just better for you to buy at your favorite grocery store. Maybe you've got a coupon. Maybe you're looking for other discounts over there. But yeah, the per unit price is what you should be looking at.
And so sometimes we get to, I don't know, let's say paper towels, go to paper towels at my grocery store. And one package may be less expensive than the other. But when I look at the little barcode, it'll tell me how much I'm paying per sheet of paper towel.
Towel and so if one says I'm paying one cent per sheet and the other one is 1.5 or two cents per sheet well I'm going to buy the one cent per sheet on paper towels even if it's more expensive at the moment it might be three dollars versus two dollars but if I'm getting way more for three dollars okay fine so that price per unit that is a very big deal and I couldn't have been any prouder with my son, we were buying dog food. We buy fresh pet, which is meat and vegetables.
It's fresh in a package and it's in a refrigerated case in the grocery store. It's very uptown, I assure you. Anyhow, we go there and I was going to buy one version of fresh pet. My son said, no, get this one. It's less per unit. And I thought, oh, I'm so proud of you. You ever had of those real proud parental moments. I was so pleased that he knew what a price per unit is. And then I was slightly embarrassed that I didn't check it myself, but whatever.
I was more overwhelmed with pride over his intelligence than I was with my embarrassment. So yeah, price per unit goes a very long way. The other thing, if you are at Sam's or Costco or BJ's, That's the other one that's in a similar vein. Maybe you want to partner up with a neighbor, right? So these tangerines that we can't handle, My neighbor Kim and her boys may really like the tangerines too. So you might find friends to partner up with.
You know, if you have commiserated over the price of everything with someone and they too are wishing they could save some money, perhaps you just make a list together, split the costs, or you go shopping, you go to BJ's and then you figure out what you do and you don't want and go from there, splitting some costs. But I think that's a really nice way to get things done is just coordinating, right? And the same thing goes for the people who have gardens, right?
So maybe someone grows a lot of vegetables and the other person grows a lot of fruit. Why not trade, right? I'll grow the fruit and you grow the veggies and then we go have these, right? I give you some of this and you give me some of that. And, you know, it's a win-win. I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed of for asking.
You know, if you've got a garden that overwhelms you and you just simply can't eat that much grapefruit or that much, that many onions, well, offer them up and see if you can do a little trade-z. I think that's what the pilgrims would have wanted you to do. That's right. And the Indians, they would have wanted you to trade. So let's go back in history and share food that we go from the ground. I think that's a really good idea.
Okie dokie. So what else? Okay. Here's another big one is buy foods in their least processed states. So most people think of processed foods and, oh, Fitz, I don't eat any processed foods. I don't eat processed foods like Doritos and I don't know, packaged cupcakes or whatever.
Yeah, that's processed. But when someone cuts open and cuts up watermelon for you, that is processing your food, right so that's minimally processed but it's still processed so you might get I don't know a 10 pound watermelon with eight pounds of usable fruit consumable fruit for five dollars and if you also got eight pounds of usable consumable watermelon that was chopped up it may cost you 20 bucks we pay so much to have our fruits and vegetables cut for us not just me but everybody buddy.
If you are buying pre-chopped fruit or pre-chopped vegetables, know that there is a premium on the chopping and you may just want to chop yourself. That's right. You may want to chop your own fruits and vegetables. So that's when I say minimal processing is, you know, if you can buy the whole darn thing, the whole darn produce item, and then pull it apart, broccoli, how, How difficult is that to pull broccoli florets apart? I don't think it's hard at all.
Lettuce. You can do the same thing with lettuce. Buy a whole head, chop it up. Boom, you got lettuce. Salad. You don't need to buy a bagged mix of lettuce for $3.50, right? So minimally processed. The same thing goes for your meat. If you buy a, I'm going to use, I have these words, since I don't eat meat, I forget the words, a blob of ground beef or ground turkey, because that's healthier, right? We're going to say ground turkey.
You might pay $2 per pound, right? $2 per pound of ground If I'm wrong on that, sorry, I don't buy it. But if you buy it that's already shaped into little patties, right? Maybe they're going to shape the ground turkey into little burger patties for you. They might charge $4 a pound, right? They may just totally jack up the prices and they do. Chicken, if you're buying a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast, might be $4 a pound.
If you buy tenderloins or tenders where they've just sliced it for you, I'm not talking about breaded. I'm just talking about slivers of chicken breast. You're going to pay $6 a pound. So cut it yourself. Go get some knives. Get a cutting board and do that stuff yourself. The other place you can save by doing the work yourself is on trail mixes. So buy your favorite nuts and then maybe buy raisins or craisins or maybe a couple M&Ms, whatever it is.
You can make your own bag of trail mixes. is. And I think you should, you'll save a fortune that way. Just get some Ziploc bags or use some generic, right? Generic's a way to go, especially with those products you're not eating. Get yourself some sealable bags and just make your own little trail mix. And then you get to, you get to put your favorite things, maybe like Brazil nuts and cashews and craisins. Okay.
Make it, make it yourself. You're going to save way more money and get things in a way more interesting way if you do it yourself. The other little tip I have on purchasing nuts and, you know, depending on what kind of nut you're purchasing, they could be less or more expensive. So peanuts, really affordable. Cashews, less so. So it depends on how unique the nut is you're buying. But I will go. I like to eat walnuts. I'm very much pursuing walnuts. I've said this before on the show,
but I struggle a little bit with my memory since chemo. It's not where it should be. I forget some names. I forget words, which is not good for a professional speaker. And so walnuts are supposed to help with your memory. And when I buy walnuts, I do go over to the section of my grocery store where they sell all the nuts together. You can get your cashews and your Brazil nuts and your sunflower seeds and your peanuts and pistachios and walnuts.
But I also go over to the baking section. So where they sell all the Betty Crocker stuff, the cake mixes and sugar and cream cheese, frosting, frosting, right? They sell nuts over there because a lot of people bake with nuts. Sometimes I find a great deal on nuts in the baking section and there's not the same deal over in the snack section. So when you're looking for nuts, take a ride over to the baked goods section
and you may get yourself a much better deal. And those are the type of things that I look for on BOGO shelves. When I walk into Publix and they have the BOGO shelf, I'm always looking for nuts of any sort. They're great sources of protein, especially for someone like me. I'm a vegetarian. And if I like the fancier nuts, like the walnuts, then it's much wiser to get them at a great deal. And they'll last. They'll stay in my cabinet for months at a time. And I'm...
I'm serious about making my little baggies. I do it before I get on a plane. You know, Delta. I love Delta. They're going to give me some almonds. Whoop-de-doo. That's fine. That's fine. But if I can bring my own favorite mix, it's much better. Oh, also, big shout-out to Kelly Prevett, who gave me a great can of cashews at the last, I think it was the Detroit Mother's Day 5K, which I appreciate. Some of my runners bring me snacks when I show up for race day,
and I love snacks. Snacks and nuts definitely make me happy because sometimes I forget to bring food to races and then I'm starving. And yeah, Kelly to the rescue. Tim Patton always brings me snacks too. So thanks, Kelly. Thanks, Tim. But for y'all, make your own mixes. What else? Oh, purchase things, things that you can freeze. I think having a deep freeze in your garage or your back porch, wherever you want to keep your deep freeze, is a very wise idea.
In fact, one of my neighbors got one on Facebook Marketplace for $20. A beautiful deep freeze for her garage on Facebook Marketplace. And when people are moving, if you live in a college town like I do, oh my gosh, you could get so many great deals at the end of a semester. When the students are moving out and graduating or switching dorms or switching apartments, whatever it may be, you can get some fantastic deals.
So she paid 20 bucks for a deep freeze and now she saves so much money because she goes, let's say she'll go to Aldi. Maybe she buys 20 pounds of chicken and then she can individually wrap that chicken, put it in her freezer. If you get the sale items at your grocery store, perhaps you can freeze some of them and put them away. One thing that's very important for you to know is that frozen foods are not less nutritious than fresh foods.
And so that's a big misnomer. People believe that frozen foods just aren't as healthy, frozen produce items, I should say, aren't as healthy as a fresh stuff. And that's, that's absolutely the opposite of true. Cause what happens is when fresh fruits are picked, as they make their way to you, they start losing nutrients. Every hour, every day that they They are not in the ground attached to the vine or the stalk or wherever they were on their way to you. They are losing nutrients.
When produce items are frozen, they are usually frozen almost immediately after being picked. That preserves their nutrition. That preserves all the nutrients and they're shipped in a frozen compartment, right? They're on the train that's in the frozen cart or whatever. Anyways, they're maintaining their nutrition. So when it comes to your grocery store, it has the same amount of nutrition that it had the moment it was frozen.
So that actually makes them likely more nutritious than anything in the fresh produce section of your grocery store. Unless, of course, it was picked local. That's cool. That's cool. We're going to talk about that. So one of the other things that I really like about frozen produce is you can get BOGO deals. You can get heller deals in the frozen fruit section or frozen fruit and vegetable section that you normally can't get in the fresh side. And I almost, oh, I don't want to use the word never.
Sometimes it's buy one, get one, strawberries or blueberries. But for the most part, I don't see a lot of BOGO deals in the fresh produce section. But when I go over to the frozen stuff, lots and lots of BOGOs. And the buy one, get one, again, when you're chopping the price in half, that makes me very happy. So you could buy your teriyaki vegetable mix or just broccoli or just snap peas or just frozen strawberries, right?
They're great to add to smoothies and to cakes and desserts and yogurts and oatmeal and things like that. And so frozen produce is a very wise investment. And so, yes, I think it's nice to have some fresh stuff too. And I get a combination of both. But when I'm pinching pennies, would I rather purchase a pint of strawberries and then freeze it for smoothies?
Or would I rather go over to the frozen section and just buy the frozen strawberries because they are likely healthier and probably on way better sale? You betcha. So the frozen section is a great choice, whether you've got a deep freezer, just a freezer on the other half of your fridge. Storing food that you can use later when it's on sale is such a wonderful idea. you. Oh, and Deb White. Okay. So this is, these are some of my hotties giving their feedback.
So Deb White says that she buys in bulk at Costco and then for the meats, she brings them home and she uses her food saver machine to portion and freeze each item. So food saver, a couple of people mentioned that. I don't know what a food saver is, but I feel like it's probably plastic wrapping your food. So food saver, look that up. It's apparently handy dandy if you're trying to individually wrap and preserve food items for freezing.
Okie dokie. The other great choice for produce is canned products. And you're probably so surprised to hear me say this, but yeah, canned products can be wonderful. Just check to make sure there's very few ingredients, right? When we want a can of corn, just make sure there's corn in there, corn and salt. When you're you're buying canned fruit, you want to make sure there's not a lot of sugar or syrups added. That takes away. So peaches.
Peaches in a can, great, especially if they're in their own juice. Peaches in a can full of syrup, not so good, not so good. You might as well have cheesecake, right? So canned products are a wonderful choice. And again, those are where you're more likely to get better deals. And if there's a difference between you just serving your kids pasta for dinner or you you serving your kids pasta and beans or corn or peas that you got in a can,
I'd say go for the canned stuff all day, all day. Forget the pasta. You don't need the pasta. You can just have all the canned stuff and feel really good about it. Okay. And the next thing is buy things in season. So meat's different, but produce, it is such a wise idea to shop your seasonal items. And so So my son, he loves those watermelon and it's August now. He's running out of watermelon time. That's what I'm telling you is Parker Kohler will not have watermelon come November
because I'm not paying for it. It's crazy. You might get paid five bucks for a watermelon today. Same watermelon is $15 in a few months. Forget it. I want to buy fruit and veggies that are in season. Some are very stable, right? So I'm always getting good prices on carrots. I'm not sure where the carrot factory is, where they're growing all the carrots. Thanks to those folks. But I do know that the produce items grown in the tropics aren't always pumping
out what I want when I want them, right? So shop in season. You might be a blueberry person today and a watermelon person next week. Oh, and then squash, your squashes, your spaghetti squash, so much less expensive in the fall. I'm really looking forward to those prices to drop. So, you know, be flexible. You might not get everything you want all throughout the year, but there should be something that you love for the moment. And perhaps that's just good enough. Okie dokie.
Okay, so Kelly Prevett, great addition. She says, I work at a grocery store that focuses on local products. Purchasing produce, dairy, and meats that are sourced in the region provides exceptional freshness and quality. And she's also, well, that store is also providing products that don't have expensive shipping costs attached. So if you are getting your bananas from South America, you have to pay for those bananas to be transported to wherever you are.
But if you are shopping products that are grown locally, you're benefiting the local economy or you're helping your neighbor out, your neighbor that's been working hard to grow these fruits and veggies just for you. And of course, you're preserving nutrition because it's likely going straight from the farm to the store right to your table. So I'm a big fan of that. And there you can get fantastic deals at local flea markets, local fresh markets, farmers markets.
There's a lot of choices there. Those little stands on the side of the road with those people and their kids sitting in the lawn chairs underneath the tent, stop by. They probably have better prices for you. And again, they may be the farmers or they may have come straight from that farm with those items. And you can't go wrong with that. Okie dokie. So Jennifer Rias has been a fantastic contributor lately. And she and I went to elementary and middle and high school together. other.
Jennifer says that she only buys two or three days of groceries at a time so that her produce stays fresh and doesn't get wasted. Yeah, that's a big problem. When I buy bananas here in this house, I buy three bananas. That's it. I know that if I buy more than three bananas, at least one banana will rot. So I just, we have to go back, right? We have to go back for the perishable items, produce. If you're buying fresh, just buy enough so you can use it without losing it.
She says she also buys generic when possible. Why not? There's so many wonderful equivalents and I buy Publix brand stuff all the time. Do I feel guilty about it? No. Where do I find it really valuable to buy name brand stuff? Probably footwear, running shoes. That's where I want good stuff. I actually buy a little too much fitness apparel with name brands on it too. But. Anyways, when it comes to fruit, I don't care what logo's on it. When it comes to snacks, I just don't care.
Although I do need my Diet Coke, right? I need official Diet Coke, decaffeinated. Decaffeinated Diet Coke has to be the real thing. Okie dokie, generic. Oh, and then generic for stuff that you're not eating. Paper towels, tissues, toilet paper, Advil, Tylenol. All of those things are the same, right? Most of those products are made in the same exact factory as the name brand stuff.
They just also create the same product with an off-brand label and don't do marketing, and so they can offer it at a cheaper price. The other thing that I do invest in, when I was in college, living at the dorm and the sorority house, I thought the toilet paper was trying to kill me. It was always the cheap, hard, abrasive toilet paper. And I committed to myself that one day when I owned a home and I had a job and I was the one purchasing the toilet paper that I would buy the fancy kind.
That's right. So when my toilet paper is Charmin Ultra, that's right. Not just Charmin, Charmin Ultra. And I never accept less. And the other thing I need is Puffs Plus for my nose because I used to have respiratory infections regularly and you blow your nose and then it just, it would make my nose raw. I would cut my nose on tissue. So I stopped doing that. I invest. I'm all fancy town with my nether regions and my nose. I'm just...
I don't know. I don't have any name brand purses though. I think it's important for everybody to know this. I've never owned a Dunium Burke or a Coach bag. I just have purses and yeah, that's just fine by me. Now I don't even really have a purse. I just got a backpack or a phone. I carry my phone wherever I go, but I got that off my chest. I hope you feel like a smarter person because of that random information. Fitz Kohler pampers her nether regions and her nose.
And if If you come to my home, I will pamper your nether regions and your nose as well, because yikes, you could really go wrong with tissue paper. Okay. Oh, here's a, here's an easy tip is to reduce food waste. Don't cook more. Don't prepare more than you plan to eat, right? So maybe you measure things.
You say, okay, this is one serving size and there's one of me, or I have three people I'm going to serve, I'm going to actually measure and cook three serving sizes, especially if you're trying to maintain your weight or lose weight. It's probably good not to have extra floating around or you just commit to packaging the extra up and eating it for lunch or dinner, take it to work, eat it for breakfast.
I don't care, but make sure that food gets used because if not, you're wasting and that makes everybody sad. That's right. People walk by your house and they cry. Tears fall from their face. They leak out of their eyes because you are wasting food. So just be, be reasonable with the amount you cook. And if you're not, set it aside for another time. Okay. You want to save money?
Florida, you don't have to do this, really, I don't think. But in other states, you should bring your bags to the grocery store. Now, mind you, in Florida, we can do that too, right? We can bring our bags, but we're not going to be charged. I go to Publix. I am not charged for grocery bags. I think in other states, you get charged out the yin-yang for buying a little plastic bag to carry your stuff home with. So So get one of those reusable bags and bring them with you.
Mind you, I do that sometimes. So don't send me hate mail. Sometimes I bring my reusable bags, but we're not going to be punished in the wallet. You could save yourself 10, 20 bucks a year, depending on how much you shop. If you've got a family and you're one of those people who brings 10, 20 bags of groceries in every time you shop, yeah, you're spending a few bucks on bags, stupid plastic bags, which just unnecessary. necessary.
We always recycle our plastic bags, but yeah, you could save a lot that way. Okay. Pam Armagast came out with a great post on the Hottie page and I thought I'd read it. She says, first she shops at Aldi's and then she goes to Publix for buy one, get ones. She buys all the meats at Aldi's and BOGO meat at Publix. She said she has a food saver. There it is again, food saver to freeze the sale meat and they never buy bottled water.
So they use refillable, reusable bottles with tap or the Brita filtered water. She says, we rarely eat out. And when we do, we often share an entree, which I think is totally reasonable because most, not all, but most restaurants are serving monstrous portions. So try it. You know what? If you go to a restaurant and you and your favorite person share a meal, if you're still hungry when it's over, when you're done, you can order more, right?
You can ask for a side or an appetizer, but why not? Why not give it a go and and see if that fajita dish satisfies both of you. Okay, so she continues on and says, the portion sizes are so big, there's usually plenty for two. We rarely order drinks or soda when we eat out either. It's amazing how much less the bill is without drinks. We do have a small veggie garden, bon appetit. So thank you, Pam, that was a great ad.
And yet even a small veggie garden could make a big impact in your grocery bills. I like the people who grow the tomatoes. If you grow tomatoes and you live nearby, please bring them to me, I love tomatoes. Okay, Jennifer Barrett Nilles says, It's too late this year, but plant a vegetable garden. I've already canned about a dozen, a dozen quarts of tomatoes. Okay, this is who I need to go show up at her house. And she's probably eaten as many.
She's frozen four batches of pesto and frozen 20 plus bags of corn grown by her favorite farmer. As soon as the bell peppers ripen, she'll make stuffed peppers and freeze a bunch of those too. So I don't even think you need to live on an acre to have a garden. I think you could live in a studio apartment in New York City and grow something on your balcony. I think there's options for that. So why not give it a go? Okay, my pal Patrick Bass, listen to this.
Patrick, there's a whole episode of the Fitzeness Show dedicated to him, published about two weeks ago, but he was 508 pounds when he got started with me about three weeks ago. He's lost 24 pounds so far using the exact formula for weight loss. So freaking thrilled with Patrick and his wife, Tracy, is on board now too. She's losing weight and getting active. Really exciting. But he says that they have a vegetable stand down the road run by a local farmer and he's going to
give it a try. So new habits, new adventures. I bet Patrick, as friendly as he is, is going to become besties with this local farmer. And the farmer is going to find out that Patrick's trying to lose so much weight and having so much success. Yes, I bet the farmer's going to throw you a free pepper or a free bag of kale, Patrick. I think you and that farmer are going to get along smashingly. Okay, Christy Marriott says she plans menus, does online orders. That's actually brilliant.
And pickup. Okay, so she gets on Instacart or whatever the equivalent is and says, I want this, this, or that. So she doesn't have to be tempted by all the things at the grocery store, the way they look and the way they smell and little samples. She just says, this is a food I want. This is a food I need, orders it. And then she shows up and picks it up. And when you pick it up, you're doing it for free.
They will gather that food for you in your grocery store usually, and bring it out curbside for free. You know, those little parking spots you go to pull in because it's empty. And and curse a little bit and back out and go, go find a spot at the back of the, uh, back at the parking lane. But yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. Keeps her from adding impulse items. That's brilliant, Christy. Okay. Kelly Gwynn. I love Kelly Gwynn.
Okay. She says, we shop at Aldi for something and also shop at Kroger and Walmart. Yeah, Walmart's great. You know what? I love decaffeinated Diet Coke. I've said that for the third time today. It's way too expensive at Publix. It's crazy. On a rare occasion, they have a BOGO and I'll buy it there. But I go to Walmart and I loathe going to Walmart, but it's way less expensive. So I go there and I buy everything on the shelf, bring it home,
and that lasts a few weeks. So anyways, Walmart, great choice. She says, I use cashback apps and receipt apps, which usually total up to about $400 a year in savings. And she said that goes to their family vacation fund. She said, I shop at Kroger on Friday, she gets four times fuel points. I don't even know what that is, but that sounds awesome. And I wish I had fuel points. She said, so that monthly we get about $100 off of, oh, gas. Okay. She gets about a hundred dollars off on gas.
And then she says they work coupons and deals to get free or close to free things like toothpaste, deodorant, body wash, et cetera, at CVS and Walgreens. Brilliant. And she follows that up by saying what we're all thinking right She says, this inflation is killing us, especially with four boys in the house. I don't know how you do it, Kelly. Four boys. I might start collecting change on the corner of the highway because I have one teenage boy in my house. I do not know how you do it. Woo!
That's crazy. Okay, and this is my last tip of the show. Remember, if you have tips and I miss them, please send them to me and I will share them in some capacity with everybody else. Because again, we all need this. Tammy Milliken, whom is awesome. This has got to, I got to do a little bragging about Tammy. Tammy is about, I think a year, almost a year out of her breast cancer treatment.
She crushed it. Now she's got some sort of broken wrist or something's going on with her arm and she's still working out all the time. She's got a great trainer, Mike, and she's lifting and she's doing, just working around her arm, which is what you should do when you're injured. You should be like Tammy and do things that just don't affect your injury. But she says it pays to get old. And aren't we grateful to get a little older, Tammy?
It pays to get old because her Publix has a senior discount day. I think she said it was Wednesday. But she shows up and she gets 5% off of her total grocery bill when she shops on the senior savings day. That's pretty smart stuff. Yeah? Because, yeah, getting older should have lots and lots of privileges. And kudos to Publix. I don't know if my Publix has that discount. I'm not there yet. I can't take advantage of that discount, but it would be nice to know.
So when I do, hopefully when I do get there one day, I would very much like and hope to be a senior citizen one day. Not that 55 is a senior citizen for crying out loud. Brad Pitt is 60. I'm going off on a rant. Anyways, 55, you should get some deals. Honestly, I think once you hit 30, just start giving everybody deals, We could all use 5% off on Wednesday. Anyway, she's smart. She found the deal and she shows up without an ego and
she says, hey, I'm old enough for that discount. Give it to me. And good for her. Thank you for listening to my rant about saving money. I am sorry that this economy sucks. It sucks for everybody. We're earning less and the money we have is going less far and nobody likes that. So it's tough on everybody. And I hope as you hear me know that we're all in this together and nobody's enjoying it. If you're so wealthy and it doesn't affect you, good, good.
I'm glad. I'm glad it doesn't affect you. But for regular Joes and Janes, which I feel very much to be a regular Jane, surrounded by regular Joes and Janes, it's tough. It's tough. So hopefully we start moving in the opposite direction sooner rather than later. But yeah, let's save some money at the grocery stores for crying out loud. And then we'll spend our money on fun stuff, fitness and an athletic adventure.
I'd much rather you be spending your money on athletic adventure than on high-priced groceries and high-priced gas, too. I just got to say that. I'm not going to curse the way I do at the pump, but I want you to know blech is code for all sorts of profanity. Okay. Song of the week. Are you ready for it? It's Hot to Go by Chaperone. It's a great song. It's super fun. this chick. She's kind of quirky and funky and fun, but she's come up with a summer banger that all the kids like.
My kids like it. I keep seeing it pop up on Instagram and I like it very much. And it's kind of like the YMCA where there's arm motions to the H-O-T-T-O to go. So I recommend you working out this week, whether you listen to it on YouTube or Spotify or your iTunes or whatever, download this song or stream it and enjoy it while you, let's see, while you do your cheerleading routine, while you play badminton, and while you play rugby. All your favorite exercises.
Chapel Roan's Hot To Go. Okay, and then the speaking tip. The day, which I'm very excited about these speaking tips because I am a little bit of a passionate person about the English language. I don't do it perfectly all the time. I'm sure this podcast specifically is riddled with me sounding like a bozo on occasion because I've been excited, right? I've been rambling on and on, which usually leads to errors. However, this is what I want you to do.
Speak up. Make sure when you are talking, the people that you're talking to can hear you. You remember Jerry Seinfeld's episode on the low talker where the woman just listened. That's so annoying. Oh, my gosh. When you say words, people should be able to hear you. And if you see them squinting as though they're trying to read what you're saying, that means you're not talking loud enough. If you see them lean in, leaning in weirdly, that means you're not speaking loud enough.
If they keep saying, what, what, can you repeat yourself? That means you're not speaking loud enough. Those are all not so subtle cues that you need to project your voice. And I get it if you're a shy person, fine, no shame on being shy. But if you're going to speak, don't waste your own breath unless you're going to speak at a volume where people can hear you. And note that if you're speaking to me, I want to hear from you. I want to know what's in that cute little head of yours.
I love you so much. I like to hear the things you're thinking. I like to hear your questions. I like to know about you. If I ask you a question, I certainly want to know the answer. So practice projecting your voice. Yes? Yes. Okay. Well, that was a lot of fun. And know that I love you. And I hope, I hope, I say I hope. I know that you are exercising.
I know that you are making no excuses, that you are getting up early, you are squeezing exercise into your workday, you are going for a walk with the dog, and then you're going to do some. Pilates in your living room after you're getting it done. And that makes me proud of you. I'm not going to hope today. I know that every last one of you are exercising and doing better and being better.
And that makes me super happy. If you have not already done so, check out fitsness.com, go to the Fitsness blog and look at the article that says seeking ambassadors or the post. I am seeking Fitsness ambassadors and maybe you could be a part of that, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, there's a simple application and bringing some folks on my team to help me spread the word and help more people live better and longer. So that's it. I love you. Get to work.
Hi, this is Rudy Novotny, the voice of America's marathons. We all love how much running has benefited every aspect of our lives, so much so that most of us only wish we'd started sooner. Wouldn't it be wonderful to gift the opportunity to children of today? Well, you can. camp. The Morning Mile is a before-school walking and running program that gives children a chance to start each day in an active way while enjoying fun, music, and friends. That's every child, every day.
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