20 Frugal Tips for Buying Fresh Produce Fruits and Vegetables Save Your Grocery Budget

One of the joys of summer is the abundance of beautiful fresh fruits and vegetables in your grocery store produce aisle. These frugal produce shopping tips can be used year round, to cut the cost of your groceries and maximize your budget.

1. When buying a head of iceberg lettuce, it is usually priced per head, and not by weight. To get the most bang for your buck, feel for the heaviest and most densely packed head of lettuce and weigh a couple on the produce scale. You will be surprised how a head of lettuce can vary so much in weight. Choosing a heavier head of lettuce you pay the same price and it could yield up to 2 or 3 salads more than one of the looser lighter packed heads.

2. Keep your celery fresh longer. As soon as you return from the grocery store remove the fresh celery from the plastic bag it came in and wrap it tightly in aluminum foil and keep it in your vegetable crisper drawer. You celery will last 3 weeks longer if you keep rewrapping it tightly this way.

3. Don't let ripe bananas go to waste. You can peel, chop and freeze those bananas in plastic food storage bags to be used later on in smoothies you easily can make in the blender by just adding cold juice. The same holds true for strawberries, raspberries and peaches.

4. If you love avocado and can only eat half at a time, you can refrigerate the unused half with the pit still in it, by wrapping the avocado tightly in food plastic wrap and refrigerating. This is different than using a food bag, which has extra air and creates faster browning. The tightly fitted plastic wrap will let the avocado last another 2 days and you will have prevented waste.

5. When bell peppers, such as green, orange, yellow and red peppers are priced by the pound, choose peppers based on the lightest weight. The lighest weight peppers will have far less seeds. There is no point paying for seeds you will not be eating. Hold the pepper in your hand and give it a little shake. You will see the huge difference in price between 2 equally sized peppers if you weigh them on the produce scale. The pepper with the most seeds can cost up to 50% more than the more hollow pepper.