{"id":677100,"date":"2026-07-06T18:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/677100\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T18:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T18:07:10","slug":"how-one-yellowknife-mom-is-stretching-her-monthly-grocery-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/677100\/","title":{"rendered":"How one Yellowknife mom is stretching her monthly grocery budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

After she realized how much money her family was spending on groceries in a month, Yellowknife mom Kassandra DeFrancis decided to challenge herself and find ways to slice her budget. <\/p>\n

It all started when she noticed how much food her family was wasting.<\/p>\n

\u201cStuff would get buried in the freezer, in the back of the fridge, or I\u2019d buy a very specific ingredient that would just end up rotting after I used it for one little piece,” said DeFrancis. <\/p>\n

“It just started to bother me.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

She looked back at her family\u2019s grocery spending and calculated that they were shelling out an average of $1,700 each month for her family of four.<\/p>\n

That was an “eye-opener,\u201d she said, and it prompted her to see how she could bring those expenses down. She set a budget of $500 for groceries for the month of June.<\/p>\n

She said she did her research before shopping, using flyers and comparing prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like my grandmother,\u201d DeFrancis said. \u201cI ended up getting a raincheck for meat because they were sold out, and I\u2019m like, ‘who am I?’<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was at a really good price point!\u201d<\/p>\n

DeFrancis spoke to CBC’s The Trailbreaker host Shannon Scott when there were two days left in her month-long challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fridge is looking very bare,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her fridge had a few veggies and some meat, and leftovers. She had eggs from a trade she made with a friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a girlfriend who brought me eggs from her chickens and I exchanged it for bread that I had made,\u201d DeFrancis said. \u201cThat was fun and that cost me nothing. It was stuff I had in my pantry already and we got eggs out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shoppers balk at cost of groceries<\/p>\n

DeFrancis is far from alone as she struggles with the cost of groceries these days.<\/p>\n

Ray Brazeau said he spends about $500 for groceries per month for his household of two people, and that’s without buying much fresh produce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a tower garden in the house, so we grow a lot of vegetables in the house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He estimated growing vegetables at home saves up to $400 on their monthly grocery bill.<\/p>\n

\"RayRay Brazeau said his household spends about $500 per month on groceries, for two people. They grow some of their own vegetables which saves them some money. (Julia Parrish\/CBC)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not much you can do [about the cost of groceries],\u201d Brazeau said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t like it, you don\u2019t eat \u2026 it\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saif Sarhan moved to Yellowknife from Ontario a few months ago and was surprised by “just the staggering price of everything, and not just groceries.”<\/p>\n

He says he usually spends between $200 and $400 a month on groceries, which is more than he spent in Ontario.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully I have a pretty high income, so for me it\u2019s not as much of an issue as for other people,\u201d Sarhan said. \u201cEven with the higher income, I still feel the impact of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SaifSaif Sarhan moved to Yellowknife from Ontario in the spring. He said his grocery bill has grown significantly since moving north. (Julia Parrish\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Beth Rasmussen, also in Yellowknife, said she spends up to $1,200 a month on groceries for two people, and said she mainly chooses organic fruits and vegetables.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stuff that\u2019s not cheap to get,\u201d Rasmussen said.<\/p>\n

She said in the summer they try to grow as much food as they can in their yard, and she buys ingredients to make food at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[I] watch for things to be on sale as best as possible, and if it\u2019s something that can be stored and it\u2019s on sale, we\u2019ll buy it in bulk and freeze it,\u201d Rasmussen said.<\/p>\n

\"BethBeth Rasmussen says she spends about $1,200 a month on groceries for her household. She tries to buy in bulk and freeze foods when they’re on sale, and grows some vegetables at home during the summer months. (Julia Parrish\/CBC)<\/p>\n

As for DeFrancis, she didn\u2019t quite make it through the full month on her $500 budget. She said they had a lot of food in the freezer starting out, which helped. <\/p>\n

She expected to be about $40 over budget at the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still pretty happy with that,\u201d DeFrancis said. <\/p>\n

She also plans to continue to challenge herself to save money at the grocery store.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | Shannon Scott’s interview with Kassandra DeFrancis:<\/p>\n

The Trailbreaker11:56Yellowknife mom challenges herself to chop grocery bill<\/p>\n

A lot of people in the N.W.T. are familiar with some staggering grocery bills. Kassandra DeFrancis is a Yellowknife mom who challenged herself to reduce her family\u2019s grocery bill. CBC\u2019s Shannon Scott checked in with her at the end of her first attempt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-677100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}