I live in a state where groceries are expensive – I save by rarely shopping

An ALASKAN woman has revealed she saves a bunch of money by rarely going grocery shopping.

Mercedes O’Leary, of Homer, Alaska, lives approximately a five-hour drive from the closest Costco in the state.

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She recently took to the blogging platform Medium to share that she only goes grocery shopping unless she really needs something.

“Anytime I’m in Anchorage, the big city in Alaska and a five-hour drive from where I live, I stock up on as much as possible at Costco,” Mercedes explains. “I freeze bread, milk, and lunch meats. I pour 25 lbs of flour into buckets.”

Mercedes also urges her children to refrain from eating any “special snacks” too fast as she only takes trips to Costco every few months.

“I don’t go to the grocery store until I absolutely have to,” she adds.

“I try to eat through what we have and put off going to the grocery store until we need something important, like coffee creamer, toilet paper, or lettuce,” Mercedes says. “Everything else can usually wait.”

And for those times Mercedes actually makes the lengthy drive to Cosco, she spends at least $200.

Within the days leading up to the shopping trip, Mercedes says she looks for what hasn’t been eaten.

“I find a bag of frozen broccoli in the bottom of the freezer that I pair with the fresh fish we caught. I take the leftover broccoli and cut it up finely and put it in couscous the next night,” the mom says.

“I constantly re-envision last night’s dinner into tonight’s dinner. Or I simply microwave leftovers.”

In Mercedes’ eyes, when her family doesn’t eat their leftovers, they are wasting their mone and the earth’s resources.

“We’re also wasting MY TIME,” she concludes.

Another way she saves money is by fishing for food. Earlier this summer, Mercedes went salmon fishing and cleaned the fish themselves afterward.

She writes: “My husband gutted and filleted, I removed the fish collars from the heads to barbecue for dinner that night, and my oldest daughter used a spoon to scrape any remaining meat from the ribs to make into salmon burgers.

“(My younger daughter busied herself with feeding seagulls the scraps when no one was looking.)

“We try not to waste anything from the fish.”

Mercedes and her family eat salmon all winter long until they get tired of eating it and learn new ways to prepare it, like in pot pie, enchiladas, or chowder.

Meanwhile, a popular beverage sold at Costco is urgently being recalled over fears it could make you sick.

And a Costco expert has shared deals on healthy foods that are much cheaper than at the grocery store.