Hey there and welcome to Thrifty Thursday's Thrifty Tips. This week's tips brought to you by my hungry tummy!

 I try to cook at home to save money. I try to make meal plans based on the local grocery deals. I price match at Walmart as much as possible (though I do not have a Super Walmart where I live so that's harder now). I shop local grocery ads, and I seek out local farmer's markets or "produce reclamation" type businesses.

My favorite thing EVER in this area was something I found In Arizona last year called Market on the Move. As I mentioned, we also check out Farmer's Markets (which can either be super pricey or super great deals-check them out and find the right one for you). And the most popular program I have heard friends speak of (and have yet to try) is Bountiful Baskets.

Let me tell you today about MOM (Market on the Move). From their Website:

Market On The Move provides a farmers’ market atmosphere at various locations throughout Metro Phoenix and Tucson areas where partners and supporters of this program can come on a regular basis and make their $10 donation to receive up to 60 lbs. of fresh produce. There is no need to pre-register or pre-donate on line. You can make your donation at the host site. 
Click here for distribution locations, dates, and times.

Basically you bring a $10 donation and you get a box of produce (sometimes other items as well) up to 60 lbs. We discovered MOM way too late in our year in AZ! Wes went down the first week and came home with SO MUCH stuff. So, the next week, I went to a different location and came home with all this:

Now, you may be thinking that is WAY TOO MUCH stuff and it would go to waste. Not so at this house of 7 people. It was all eaten and enjoyed (and I bought this about a week before we moved out). When you go to the location, you make your donation, grab a box and go down a line picking your produce. Some items will have limits (like only 2 watermelons, 4 tomato containers, 2 cantaloupe, 2 pasta boxes above) while others will be take all you can use (like zucchini, Roma tomatoes, and cucumbers above). 

If you do not have a huge family like I do, consider going to MOM with a friend and sharing the produce. Or if you can, this could be AWESOME for you to can up some great food storage! One cool thing a lot of the locations do is to hand out recipe ideas for the produce they give you that day! We used some of their eggplant recipes!

So, if you are in AZ, check MOM out!

As for me and mine in Washington, we will be trying out Bountiful Baskets and you can rest assured we will give a report when we try it!