We shop mostly dollar store and thrift stores & in the spring/summer the yard sales. We did use coupons until the save a lot opened near us. Now it is cheaper to shop there than to use coupons. There is also a mennonite store near us where we buy oatmeal, flour, sugar, etc in bulk. We garden & preserve the yield, keep a few chickens for the eggs. DD is an excellelent "scratch" cook & baker so we seldom buy convenience food. We don't eat a lot of meat. In fact, DD just last week made 3 meals (with leftovers, from 4 chicken breast she got on sale for .98 #. They were very larg bone in breasts. She took off the rib meat from 3 of them & fried them. DSIL ate one, DD & I split one they were so large. We ate the other one for lunch the next day along with the leftover veggies from the meal. She boiled th last one & the ribs from the other 3 with onion, celery, parsley, & shredded carrot, then made some noodles & we had a big pot of chicken & noodles. We had leftovers from those too. A small chuck roast will make pot roast & leftovers make beef stew. A pork tenderloin will provide not only loin chops but a loin roast. We have antenna tv. We use cloth napkins instead of paper, seldom use a paper towel & when we do, we reuse if at all possible. I shop sales only for yarn & fabric & it has to be an excellent sale. The only non-frugal craft item I buy is good sock yarn & even that I buy on sale. I make almost all the socks we wear & they have to feel good on our feet, but they last forever, so I think the cost evens out. Basically, if we can make it, we don't buy it. We don't use credit cards & since the stores have to pay the cc companies for taking the card, we always ask for a discount when paying cash. You would be surprised how many times we get it. I've recently heard that some stores are going to be passing that cost on to the consumer so that little "savings" may go away. Even though we don't use a cc, if I do shop at any of those stores I will be sure to write a check instead of paying cash, since checks are inconvenient now for most businesses.