Groceries pro-tip: I worked part time at a save on foods for two months as a teenager. Most grocery stores cycle sales on items based on expiry dates and when they're received. Due to the sheer volume of items, every week (especially on thursdays, fridays, and saturdays) they'll have sales on a motley assortment of food. You can have something new to eat that's decently priced every week by simply wandering the store and window shopping. This can save you hundreds a year if you know what you're doing, plus you can occasionally get some really expensive goods at a steal of a price. If you can, find a way (typically online websites) to get catalogs in the mail. Yes, they're spam, but they're spam that comes with coupons for ice cream and tells you about impending sale cycles so you know when and where to shop to get really good food at good prices.
Also, as a general rule of thumb when you aren't doing sales shopping, Walmart has the cheapest overall prices, Costco is best for meat products like beef and chicken (do a "meat run" once a month and you can stock your fridge with three months worth of meat for under 100 bucks), Safeway & Save-On-Foods have 10% off all groceries (including sales prices) if you spend more than 50 dollars on the first tuesday of every month, et cetera.
As for books, check small-time book stores (IE: Not Indigo). They usually have competitive pricing and may sell second hand copies for far cheaper than you can normally get. If you like, you can also save your pennies and do a "splurge" on amazon searching through the second hand section to nab large quantities of books from a single seller to lower your S&H costs. Of course, if you have no money at all, there's also
other ways I shouldn't say here...
Oh, and get a membership with your local public library. They'll have hundreds (if not thousands) of books you can borrow and read at a price so cheap, even the most impoverished family can afford it.
