I grew up in what was then a small suburb of Los Angeles. Citrus orchards and onion fields dotted the landscape. Lombardi’s Ranch down the canyon provided fresh pumpkins at Halloween. My dad’s garden provided most of the vegetables we ate every day. Not everyone has a green-thumbed relative — or a penchant for zucchini en masse — so how does one find great deals on in-season produce?

Summertime is the season to do all kinds of fun food things, like throw a big party, can batches of preserves and pickles, and stock the freezer for the fall. This growing season produces all kinds of opportunities for buying ahead, cooking ahead, and celebrating. But what if there really isn’t room in the budget to buy 40 pounds of pickling cucumbers, as perfect as they look? What if you just can’t foot the bill for a month’s worth of meals?

The Internet and our grandmothers’ recipe boxes are stuffed with quick-fix recipes that go something like this: “Pour a can of cream of mushroom soup over chicken breasts. Bake one hour.” For most of my childhood, that style of dish was one of my favorite things to make. I felt like a real cook, preparing dinner all by myself, yet doing it so quickly and simply. As I get older, I crave the simplicity of those recipes, but without the preservatives and tinny, canned flavor.

Shopping the holiday sales is a sure-fire way to save money on groceries. It’s also an opportunity to save money on “seasonal” items you use year-round. Some of these may be ingredients that just get marked down for the winter holidays — like baking supplies, holiday beverage supplies, and cold-weather foods at rock-bottom prices — and others may be items that are really hard to find any other time of year.

The holiday season always tempts me a little toward excess. It might be the year-end bonus or all the fun food in the stores or simply a desire to celebrate that sways me toward letting go and splurging a little more than we need to. Over the last couple days I’ve been reminding myself that going “whole hog” this season is not going to help us meet long-term goals. “Eat, drink, and be merry” doesn’t pay for that trip to Scotland.

It’s interesting to me how financial experts, mothers-in-law, and total strangers on a Facebook page all have distinct opinions on how much you should spend on groceries. The thing is, while food costs certainly shouldn’t be complex, they can vary from person to person and household to household — even region to region.

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I’m not sure what it is, but I love going to the grocery store. Even on vacation, it’s one of my favorite pastimes. I think it’s because the grocery store holds a world of possibilities. For me, it’s not a dispensary for processed foods, but rather a doorway to untold delicious opportunities. Ooh! What could I make with this beautiful Camembert? Ah! How should I serve this gorgeous asparagus? Huh, I wonder what you do with summer savory?

I’ve been closely tracking my family’s grocery spending for well over 10 years now (nerd alert!) — and it’s been, um, paying off. Staying on top of things and keeping a low grocery budget has enabled us to get out of debt, stay that way, help our kids pay for college, and even save up for extended European vacations.

Have you ever seen that John Cusack movie, Better Off Dead? It’s totally weird, but there’s an element of the film that comes back to me, over and over again — especially when I’m grocery shopping. You see in the flick, Lane (Cusack) is pestered continually by the paper boy coming to claim his two-dollar pay. Lane’s mom is never home when the paper boy comes, but the boy is insistent that he be paid, shouting through several scenes, “I want my two dollars!

I’ve always looked at my freezer as one of the best kitchen tools at my disposal. Not only does it hold my hoard of butter pecan ice cream, but it also serves as a staging area for any number of meals that I can pull together in minutes — without resorting to flimsy TV dinners.

I like to think that one’s freezer is a lot like one’s medicine cabinet. A peek inside reveals so much about the character and lifestyle of its owner! I suppose a refrigerator can offer you a similar insider perspective, but the freezer? Well, the freezer really gives you a look at the person’s future hopes and dreams — what is she stashing away in cold storage? — as well as one’s everyday habits and preferences.

How do you create a food budget that works? I mean, you could just buy what you want and let the chips fall where they may. You could buy only what you need, but sometimes, uh, you really need a gallon of high-end ice cream. As boring as it sounds, having a food budget — a distinct allowance for grocery shopping — really is important. In fact, it’s key to living within your means and achieving your financial goals.

It’s been seven years since I first started doing a regular pantry challenge, and it’s never failed me in saving money and helping our family stay under budget. If you’ve never heard of a pantry challenge, know that it’s not complicated; it’s simply making the effort to use up what you already have. By not buying more (because you already have what you need), you lower your grocery budget for that period of time.

My husband and I love to travel. After years of scrimping, saving, and paying off debt, we reached a point in our family life where we could swing the costs of family travel. While our family particularly loves Santa Barbara and Mammoth Lakes as closer-to-home locations, we were able to introduce our children to England and France when we spent a month there last fall.

Best-Ever Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Over the last four weeks, our family has celebrated Father’s Day and two birthdays, as well as hosted houseguests three times. We’ve absolutely loved the feasting and fun, but my grocery budget has definitely been challenged. While I am rarely tempted to splurge in a clothing store, the supermarket is another story.

One of my favorite strategies for saving money on food costs is stocking my pantry and freezer to serve me all year long. Packaged foodstuffs generally last for many months, which means I can stock up on a great sale and use those items far past their typical “season.” Also, learning a few tricks in food preservation allows me to extend the shelf life of seasonal produce and enjoy summer fruits in the dead of winter. Here are few of the seasonal deals I look for throughout the year.

Does it matter where you grocery shop? I mean, aren’t all stores basically the same? No, they aren’t. In fact, there can be a huge range of pricing for the very same item in a number of stores. Where you shop can save you money. But did you know that shopping at the same store can also reduce your grocery bill week after week? Familiarity can breed contempt — but I prefer when it saves me some coin.

I started grocery shopping when I was a teenager. I worked as a “bag girl” at the local Lucky Store so my mind was literally on food at least four hours a day. I convinced my dad to let me do the family grocery shopping. I made a list of meals I wanted to eat during the week and bought the items on the list. Rarely did I take inventory or adhere to a food budget. I just bought what I wanted. This habit followed me into my college and newlywed years.

So, you’ve got some goals for your money — that big trip, the new car, the debt-defiance — and you’ve got a food budget to help you tell your money where to go. You might think that the plump grocery fund is your carte blanche to go shopping, but there’s something you need to do first before heading out. Nope, I’m not talking about meal planning or grocery list making, though those are super important.

Years ago my husband and I thought we were frugal people. We looked for sales, drove used cars, and otherwise opted out of an extravagant life. However, it somehow missed our attention that we were still living beyond our means. Since ours was a one-income, self-employed household, we’d never learned how to budget. In fact, we’d kinda dismissed it as being impossible to budget on an irregular income. Credit cards and home-equity loans fooled us into thinking we were doing just fine.

Whether you have an itty-bitty fridge freezer or a large deep freezer in the basement, it doesn’t help you a whole lot if you don’t know what you have in there. Often we forget about something for so long that we end up chucking it. They say Americans waste 25 to 30 percent of the food they buy. Think of the resources — and money! — we could save if we never wasted food. Over the years, I’ve learned how to keep a freezer inventory that works for me.