Wife has been canning for a few years now and we have a pantry of fruits, veggies, and dehydrated food. She goes to the farmers markets during harvest time and goes to town on entire cases of tomatoes, corn, beans, etc. That will last all year for our family of 5. We also pay a friend to raise a pig on her ranch and butcher that once a year. Just got ours (over 400 lbs!). Pork is A LOT cheaper that way. Haven’t found anyone to go half or a quarter in on a cow. We also would need another deep freezer and don’t really have room for it.
We also meal plan weekly so we only buy groceries for what we need to make meals. That saves a ton of money as you aren’t wasteful as much. Oh and we either do pick up or delivery as you spend more when you’re in the store and see things you want but don’t need.
We make almost everything we can from scratch. Wife recently found a recipe for baked oyster crackers with butter and seasoning on them that make dirt cheap snacks and they’re fantastic. The store brand oyster crackers are $1 for 16oz. That’s almost cheap enough to not make those from scratch too. We haven’t bothered yet.