tightening our belts without feeling the pinch

When I decided last summer to try to reduce our grocery budget, I wasn't sure how to do it without turning the whole family against me. They were used to a having foods around that they liked, but didn't need to have "name brand" items. Since July, our food budget per week is about 1/2 of what it used to be. So, let me share with you what worked:
1. Shopping at Aldi. When I compare Aldi's regular prices, they are about what a really good sale price is at any of our other supermarkets. I buy almost all of our groceries at Aldi and the quality is as good or better than other stores. Most dinners that I make cost around $5.
2. I bought a bread machine from Craig's list. Bread costs about 80 cents/loaf from the machine and it fills the house with a wonderful aroma that everyone loves.
3. Cooking more from scratch.
4. Buy more basic cereals. Things like raisin bran and corn flakes are cheaper than Honey Bunches of Oats and other things that I used to buy.
5. Baking cookies. My five-year-old loves to help to bake these and we really are creating some nice memories together as well as saving money and cutting back on preservatives and other ingredients that we don't want from packaged cookies.
6. Freezing yogurt pops. We blend strawberries, powdered sugar and plain yogurt and freeze with a popsicle mold and stick.
7. Planning meals. I used to wonder every night what was for dinner and who was going to cook it. While I have a fairly limited repertoire (which the kids basically like), I plan carefully, buy carefully and know what we're going to have. I don't plan night by night, but have a set of dishes I can choose from that day.
8. Using the produce I buy. Because I'm planning more meals, I actually use the produce I buy because it has more to do with a particular meal. Not perfectly so, some things still don't get used, but I'm much more conscious of what I am using.
9. Use leftovers. Either for lunch or I will have leftover night on Sunday, which I like to take as a day of rest, anyway.
10. Garden more. We have raspberries, apples, herbs and plant various things each year. This year, I would like to make a greater effort to garden more and maybe even learn how to can (I freeze raspberries and applesauce for the winter).

I hope these ideas are useful to you. Feel free to leave other ideas in your comments.

The Great Apple Discovery

We hike on a trail near our house. Once it was part of the orchards that used to surround this area, and after that, it was railroad land. It still is technically owned by the railroad company, but hasn't been used for many years and has been used by people as a dog-walking or mountain biking area. Well, our family discovered a wonderful apple tree. Most of the apples on the lower branches had fallen to the ground and had bites in them from squirrels and birds, but the upper branches were just chock-full of great apples. So, having an apple tree ourselves (that has been picked by our neighbors, by us, by our squirrels), we happen to have an apple picking pole and we brought it along to pick apples. We got a bag and a bucket-full and are checking out pie recipes. It's so much fun to get free fruit and I feel like we are making good use of something that no one would have used.