Lower your monthly food bill 50% (without coupons)

[booklvr777]

Yes, I agree, this is a great find!  I am always happy to see organizations that are trying to actually help people with no strings attached.  When I allow myself to think happy thoughts about the dismal future we are heading into, I dream about people coming together to help one another with a community spirit of "we're all in this together" and organizations like this give me a wee bit o' hope.

[TheDignityofStruggle]

Dumpster diving is AMAZING! Panera Bread and Einstein's bagels throw out ungodly amounts of food every day. Grocery stores are good, so long as they have dumpsters at all.  Most new places have trash compactors (the bastards).  I dumpster Odwalla Juice, and use half of it to turn into wine.  It's good stuff, and is thrown out in droves at the distribution centers.

With a bit of creativity, you can pretty much NEVER buy food.

[TheDignityofStruggle]

Excuse me for offering alternatives to people who are not near this service, or have no money left.  I've been poor, and I have eaten out of dumpsters, it is not irrational at all.

[rbrgs]

This is LATOC.  Thread drift is a given.

[TheDignityofStruggle]

This is LATOC.  Thread drift is a given.

And this is "thread drift lite."

[swampman]

I personally do not have access to Angel Food distribution as do a lot of people on LATOC do not either.  However, I do have access to a very fine dumpster behind a grocery store who's manager hates how much food is wasted.  Many of us are in survival mode and need to eat.  Many of us do not have access to home gardens and need to eat, hence my original post on dumpster diving.

[risenshine]

I tried the angel food last November and thought that it was just a great deal!  I ordered on line with a credit card and then went by to pick it up on their delivery day. It was very well organized, took about 10 minutes. Just so you know it is for everyone, the more people that order the better prices they can get.  The quality was just OK, but remember I only ordered once and it won't stop me from trying it again.  What I mean by quality is for example the chicken had tons of fat and skin that had to be cut off and the beef steak was the thinest I've ever seen.  I don't mean that it was not good food.  The thing I came away with was that if you had time to coupon shop you could do just as good at the grocery store, maybe better.  But the way I do coupons it's a part time job!  So if you work at a regular job all day it would be a real blessing to just go by and pick up the angel food.  Hope you give it a try, good luck!

[booklvr777]

They have made a note on their web site that the steaks are thicker now, so that must have been something that people brought to their attention.

[wiccawench]

well i ordered the meat pack so i will let you know about the quality.... pick it up on the 14th.

(and i am vegetarian)... but my kids and husband are not. I will take photos if you like so people can get an idea of what to expect.

[metaforge]

No pickup near me

I used to work at a big name franchise sub shop, and the policies there were incredibly wasteful.  Cut meat & cheese could only be kept in the fridge for 2 days - then it has to be thrown out.  You can also get a lot of bread, as once one of these long loafs gets a single mold spot, it is supposed to be thrown out.  If you offer to hold a banner out by the road from 11:30am til 1pm, I bet the manager of such a store would be more than happy to give you all of that day's throw outs.

[Erin]

I just ordered the standard box, it includes ribeyes which willl simply delight my husband!  Ribeyes are not usually in our budget.  And, like Redreamer, my pickup spot is closer than any grocery stores in the area.

A few folks I work with have used this program before and say that they've never been disappointed.  The food is good quality food.  Pickup on Nov 14, will be sure to post an update then. 

[sweeks]

We used to use a similar program (SHARE) in our local area. If I remember right it was $25 for the basic package and $10 more for a bonus meat package. All of it was well worth what we had to pay. All they asked that you do a couple hours community service over the month between pickups. Since my wife volunteered at the church food pantry it was no big deal to get the hours. They would accept just about anything for the time as long as you didn't get paid for it.

My wife has since become a master at coupon clipping and it makes better economic since for us that away. She matches coupons with items on sale and saves a unbelievable amount, especially at Dillons where they double coupons. It's rare for us to pay more then we save, i.e. this last weekend we caught Dawn dish soap on sale for $1.00 a bottle and she had $1.50 off coupons, she had 6 coupons so that was $3.00 towards other items. Most places don't pay attention if you buy quite a bit of stuff and let you have the overage, they get the money back form the vendor anyway. And no we didn't need 6 bottles of dish soap but we donate a lot of stuff to the church pantry that way. As my wife says if it's free I'm not leaving it at the store, I'll give it to the needy first. If you have the time and access to multiple papers coupons are the way to go.

[wilted rose]

I've ordered from Angel Food for the last three months, and I love it.

The signature box (variety of foods) is always very good.
The meats are high quality and tender, I especially love the ribeye steaks. They are vacuum-packed and frozen, and very tender and flavorful. The breaded chicken was surprisingly good - plenty of chicken and not much breading. The breaded fish fillets were good too, but I didn't like the fish sticks. The ground beef is surprisingly good, too. (I've raised my own beef before, so I'm rather picky.) The pork chops are also vacuum packed and frozen, and average to better quality.
The frozen vegetables are generically packaged, but the quality doesn't suffer because of it. They are good.
The fresh veggies in the signature box are always in good shape.
If you've never had shelf-stable milk before, you are in for a pleasant surprise. I don't drink milk often, and I love being able to go to the pantry, pull out a carton, and not worry that it has gone sour. It is regular milk that has been specially packaged. The cartons I got have an expiration date on them from eight months to a year after the date of purchase. The carton I got last month expires in August 2010. It also keeps much longer in the refrigerator after being opened than any "fresh" milk that I have purchased from a grocery store. I hate canned evaporated milk, so this stuff is a godsend.
The dessert is always a surprise, I got a yummy lemon cake last time.

The Senior/convenience box is 10 frozen dinners. I give those away to old folks in the neighborhood, and people like them so far. I haven't eaten one myself yet. They look good, though.

The Specials vary. The new york strips, sirloins, t-bones, ribeyes and pork chops are all good. I don't care for chicken breasts, I prefer dark meat chicken, so those get given away. I have been disappointed with the bacon-wrapped beef and chicken fillets, but it might be my cooking method, I like my beef well-done.

The fresh fruit and veggie box is more food than you think it is, and it is very good, and fresh. I still have a couple of bags of apples that I need to make into apple pies.

If you order from them, remember to bring boxes to put your food in. They don't usually provide carrying containers for the "signature box" products, but the meat "specials" come in their own boxes.

[wiccawench]

If you order from them, remember to bring boxes to put your food in. They don't usually provide carrying containers for the "signature box" products, but the meat "specials" come in their own boxes.

THANKS for your review and mentioning the boxes! I would have NOT thought to take any....... so you saved me an inconvienience

 

[metaforge]

This is supposedly a good cheap eats, healthy diet plan - just found it today though, haven't read much of it yet, but thought I'd add to the mix: http://www.10in10diet.com/