Stretching food dollars is something Gale Hethcoat knows well, but the double-whammy of high grocery prices and the holiday season is putting her shopping skills to the test.

The 67-year-old great-grandmother and occasional DoorDash driver is using several strategies to combat high food prices.

Hethcoat drives from her Wicker Park home — where her disabled daughter, granddaughter and her fiance, and two great-grandchildren also live — to a carniceria and an Aldi in Hammond, Indiana, where the sales tax and gas prices are lower.

She’s watching for holiday sales, still remembering a Christmas ham she nabbed a few years ago at a supermarket for 19 cents a pound. She also goes to the Common Pantry in North Center for milk, eggs, fruit and baby diapers.

“The way that groceries are going rig

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