Kathy Spencer Reveals How She Feeds Family Of Six On $4 A Week (VIDEO)

In these tough economic times we could all learn something from Massachusetts mother Kathy Spencer. Spencer has figured out, using coupons and other money-saving tricks, how to feed her family of six on just four dollars a week!

Spencer spends a few hours a week gathering coupons from newspapers, circulars and the Internet before she hits the supermarket:

Once you have a stockpile, you're good to go and you go through the ads, find out what works for free and then cut the coupons and go to the store. When I go to the store, I only buy what works out free or close to free, and that's how I do it for as little as I can.

Watch ABC's Good Morning America tag along on one of her shopping trips below, and click here for some of Spencer's money-saving grocery tips.

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Comments

[wbarley]

05:10 PM on 11/01/2009

I'm glad she buys fresh stuff as well, but that pantry of hers is stuffed with crap. I don't care if all that food was free! Why would you want to feed the kids so much processed food? We don't use coupons at all because they're all for processed stuff.

Want to cut your grocery bill? Stop buying meat (or cut down), buy fresh food in season and shop locally at places other than the big chain grocery stores. Smaller stores like Sprouts, Trader Joe's or Fresh & Easy have much better prices and healthier food.

[jessicajuliette]

09:20 PM on 11/01/2009

love Trader Joe's as well...

toiletries, paper products, etc are great for coupons, as there is usually always toothpaste, detergent, that can be had with coupons..

i went to Whole Foods today to get fresh fish, didnt have any coupons..

for the most part, you're not gonna get any fresh quality food items for free. it's like BigFoot, i've heard he exists, but if there is a plethora of coupons for seafood, meat , veggies, etc. it's still urban legend to me.....

[Giselle25]

12:06 AM on 10/31/2009

This is what happens when people don't read a story and then think they can comment on it. So many people saying she doesn't purchase fresh foods, etc. when she actually did. What's the point of reading the news these days? To blindly comment at will?? Is everyone just after their 15 seconds of attention?? So many people these days don't have the attention span or intelligence or even the mental will to read a story and gain some knowledge.

Everyone thinks they can comment on something they not only don't know about but don't even want to take the time to know about. Sames like a complete waste of time and mind. Yet these are the same people that cant take a few minutes a day and save themselves some money. WHATS WRONG WITH PEOPLE!!

[BunnyX]

11:39 PM on 10/31/2009

I read the article, I saw the video. Aside from some seafood, I saw her purchase nothing fresh. No fruits, no vegetables. Not even any decent staples that you can turn into good food - no milk, no eggs, no beans, no flour, no rice. Just preprocessed store-bought junk-masquerading-as-food. So you tell me, person who commented without really paying attention, what's wrong with people?

[420921]

05:38 PM on 11/01/2009

Actually I went a step further and googled her. What isn't mentioned in this article is where the coupons come from that she uses. She BUYS them off ebay or BUYS them when she buys the paper, or BUYS them from other auction sites. Is that figured into the money she saves?
And while what she does may work well in her neck of the woods it's not going to work everywhere in the country, particularly in more rural areas that have only one or two supermarkets within an hours drive of home. It also won't work if you're feeding people with allergies to wheat, eggs, dairy, corn or soy as those ingredients are common in most of the basic "staples" she buys.
Then there's the storage issue. Lucky her, she appears to have a large amount of space to store 100's of rolls of toilet paper. How many people here have that kind of storage room? I know I don't. Sorry, but in my book this woman is a freak who's feeding crap to her family for the sake of 15 minutes of fame.

[CommunistUtopia]

10:20 PM on 10/30/2009

In the Obama economy, she may want to knock that down to $1.

[BunnyX]

11:42 PM on 10/31/2009

I believe you mean the Bush hand-me-down economy....

[AlaskanToo]

10:11 PM on 10/30/2009

No milk, eggs, or fresh produce. No thanks

[uncc49er]

10:09 PM on 10/30/2009

Yea, do it in "Whole Foods" if you can !

[chefbabyryan]

09:39 PM on 10/30/2009

Too bad the media red flagged her now, she won't be doing that much longer i bet. Good for her though for sure. Also a cashier's worst nightmare! LOL

[PigsOnSoma]

08:16 PM on 10/30/2009

I was going to congratulate her - after all it's pretty amazing to have the dedication to beat the system like that. I know I neither have the need nor the will power to do this, but I can applaud someone who does. But after viewing her pantry, which looks like a supermarket shelf, I must say I wonder if all those preservatives won't manifest themselves in medical problems later on. Insurance or no - is it worth it?

[uncc49er]

10:12 PM on 10/30/2009

Excellent point. I was wondering about the same thing too. What kind of quality of food does she get with doing that? I doubt she can get high quality, fresh and more importantly healthy food by doing all this tricky stuff.

[amirtalai]

02:36 AM on 10/31/2009

I was thinking the same thing.

[MadHeart]

07:20 PM on 10/30/2009

Does she give any of that free food to food drives, food pantries, homeless shelters, etc?

[PartyPartyParty]

06:44 PM on 10/30/2009

I was just struck by the irony of the name Ms. Spencer's forum:

Shop For Free

Wouldn't it be better to not shop so much in the first place?

[MadHeart]

07:15 PM on 10/30/2009

Agree. And she charges to join her group, of which she claims "thousands." This is a full time job for her, you betcha. ; )

[old lady]

06:32 PM on 10/30/2009

Another way - tried and true - skip prepared foods learn how to cook & buy sale items in quantity

[MadHeart]

06:31 PM on 10/30/2009

I'm w/other commenters about the fresh stuff. One reason I don't use very many coupons, also, is that many times I can get a product cheaper when it's a buyone/getone (getting only one at half price) than using a coupon for a more expensive item. It's always a crapshoot, and sometimes I hit on something that is on sale AND I have a coupon for. But I don't want to spend my time scouting for coupons, either. Frankly, I don't want 6 mos worth of frozen pizza rolls or cans Spam (which I wouldn't buy anyway) just because I had a dozen coupons for those products. And if you don't keep food rotated on the shelf, you may wind up w/garbage after a year or so.

BTW, this is supposed to be about FOOD--many coupons are for non-food items. I'll do it my way, thanks.

[Myndi Orr]

07:18 PM on 10/30/2009

Jealous you can't do it

[MadHeart]

07:22 PM on 10/30/2009

I cook and bake from scratch. Quality food, not crap.

[POLINUT]

06:15 PM on 10/30/2009

Put her in the US Senate and make her Chair of the Finance Committee. NOW!!!

[mykebee]

06:15 PM on 10/30/2009

I know a gal who takes this a bit further....Quite a bit further in fact. File cabinets, logistics and planning are involved. This gal actually MAKES money with coupons, rebates and free stuff. Her back porch is actually stocked with piles of nonperishables....laundry detergent, canned food, cleaners, etc....

[PartyPartyParty]

06:45 PM on 10/30/2009

I wonder how much stuff on that porch goes bad before it's used? Even canned food has a shelf life.

[MadHeart]

07:18 PM on 10/30/2009

I wonder if Mrs. Spencer donates any of that free food she gets to a food pantry or homeless shelter, etc.?

[Myndi Orr]

07:18 PM on 10/30/2009

jealous you can't do it!

[InYourWorld]

05:58 PM on 10/30/2009

Why attack a lady that is thrifty and trying to save money?

How many of you people that talk schit abot this lady live beyond your means; expensive car, eating out, cable TV, fancy cell phones. If more people were thrifty and responsible with money our country would be a better place.

[PartyPartyParty]

06:29 PM on 10/30/2009

My spouse and I are a one-car household, and our current household car, an economy model, was purchased in 1995;
I still have and use the one and only cell phone I've ever had, and it was free when I signed up for my basic, bare-boners cell plan,and I have not spent one penny on ring tones or apps;
I don't own an i-pod or an mp3;
I've had the same PC for six years, and I'll have it until I can't run my essential software on it;
I've had the same sound system for ten years;
I don't have a cleaning service;
The one and only TV in my house is not a flat screen, and there's not going to be a flatscreen in my house until the current screen dies;
I take my lunch to work every day;
I save 15% of my salary;
I wear my clothes over a period of years, even decades;
We rent our house from a former employer who thinks the world of us and keeps our rent very low to keep us happy; and
Our major form of entertainment is cooking real food for our family and friends, and we eat very well for very little money, without clipping coupons or buying packaged, processed food.

InYourFace, InYourWorld.

[pfods]

08:39 PM on 10/30/2009

that's nothing to be proud of. you're just a stingy penny pincher now.

you can't take it with you.

[uhles]

10:25 PM on 10/30/2009

That sounds like me. And, my eyeglasses have been tapped together with electrical for six years. Beat that for saving money....

[old lady]

06:37 PM on 10/30/2009

Not many since last crash

[donnybrkgr]

05:50 PM on 10/30/2009

I never see coupons for fresh veggies or fruits

[Paul Dee]

06:22 PM on 10/30/2009

I thought I would mention that Kathy does say that she gets fresh foods for cheap as well. Here's a link and a Q&A from an interview:
http://www.workitmom.com/interviews/detail/8393/kathy-spencer-founder-how-to-shop-for-free

Q: It seems like so many of the coupons you get with the Sunday papers are for overly processed junk food. How do you keep a healthy diet and still save money?

A: Despite what most think, no I do not feed my kids garbage. I get free fresh fruits, meats, and vegetables (as well as junk food)! I regularly get free organic food, mainly Muir Glen, Wild Harvest and Cascadian Farms through the use of coupons and sales.

Also, it has been claimed in these comments that she "sells" a newsletter. Strictly speaking that is sort of true, but it's worth noting that her online club charges just $1 a year, mostly to discourage spammers and the like.

For the record, I'm a vegetarian male, no kids, never heard of her before this video/article, and I don't have a horse in the race. I was just curious because it seemed that so many people are somehow invested in this woman being a bad mom, and I wanted to find out more.

BTW, I joined her club. Why not?

[old lady]

06:33 PM on 10/30/2009

Buy in season veggies and fruit and buy local