Saving on Groceries

As I've written before, I have been saving a TON on groceries lately. I've gone from spending $200/week to $100/week for a family of 6. (This does not include the kids lunches for school. It cuts down on a lot of stress to just let them buy their lunch and I'm not buying food that gets eaten before I get a chance to pack them.) Now that I'm playing my "Grocery Game", I'm having fun watching my savings grow!


Every time I see an article about how to save money shopping, I read it. I'm always looking for a good new tip. I usually don't learn anything new. Amy asked me if I had any tips on saving on grocery shopping and I thought, that's a great thing to blog about. I'll share what works for me, and you can share what works for you. I'm always looking for new ideas (other than doing the obvious like buying what's on sale and using coupons). Here's some of mine:


1.Bringing my calculator. This was my friend Dee's idea. I use a budget of $100 that I don't want to go over. If I get to the end of my shopping and I'm over, I have to put things back until I'm under $100. This is my "Grocery Game".


2.Not many snacks. I don't buy the kids favorite snacks much anymore. They really don't need them. I want them to eat better at meals. Snack should eaten just to tide you over until the next meal. If I buy cookies, they eat the whole box in one day. If I buy pretzels, they only eat them because they're hungry and can't wait until the next meal.


3.Using supplies sparingly. I count make-up and cleaning supplies in with my grocery budget. They are expensive! I use every last drop of make-up until it's all gone. I use every scrap of lotion. I try to hold off buying more until I absolutely have to. I use just a tiny bit of cleaners to clean. Cleaning supplies are my gold. Sometimes I dust using a damp cloth so I don't use too much furniture polish. I use just a quick spray in the bathroom. Did you know dish detergent works great for cleaning off soap scum? It's cheap, too.


4.No juice boxes, cans of pop, or fruit snack. I use to buy these and my kids just ate and drank them all up because they were there, not because they needed them. I only buy 1 container of apple juice a week and two liters of pop (once in a while). I want to kids to drink water if they're thirsty.


5.Cheap fruits and vegetables. Every week I buy the ones that are the cheapest, like lettuce, bananas, apples, carrots. I only buy apple cider when it's on sale. I buy more expensive fruits and vegetables when they're on sale, in season, or when they fit in my budget.


6.Eat leftovers. I REALLY eat leftover. If there's a piece of meat from dinner leftover, it's my husbands lunch for the next day. If there's leftover pork, I'll make BBQ pork sandwiches. I even eat the kids leftover breakfasts! I never buy anything special for myself for breakfast because there always seems to be some waffle pieces and orange juice sitting there when the kids go to school, usually just enough for me.


7.Have super cheap dinner nights. A few nights a week we eat REALLY cheap dinners. I'll make french toast sprinkles with cinnamon and applesauce, Kraft mac n cheese with peas, hamburgers on the grill (sometimes with bread as the bun).


8.Do without. Leslie said she does this, too. Sometimes, if I can, I just do without certain items so I can make it to my next shopping day. If I notice we're running low on milk, we might just have water with our dinner. You only need 3 servings a milk a day and one serving is 1 cup, a pretty small glass. My kids get their dairy from a lot of other things, too, like cheese. I'm sure they already get plenty of calcium.


9.Limiting food. Believe me, my family is hardly starving. I think there's nothing wrong with not letting the kids eat as much as they want at dinner. My husband looked at my little meatloaf I made once and said that was never going to be enough for all of us. I told him there would be plenty if we had no more that two slices each. Why should we eat until we're stuffed?


Now, you can't eat like this all the time. I love to cook. I bake a ton of Christmas cookies. I just try to offset the costs a little when I can. I have my favorites that I refuse to give up, but I like to think about Laura Ingalls and how she ate. They ate whatever they had, sometimes just molasses and bread. And Laura lived to a ripe old age! Hopefully you might be able to use one of my ideas about how I watch my grocery bills. Does anyone have any other ideas that work for you?

Update on past posts

I thought I'd give an update on a few of my past posts:

About yesterday... My 7 year old came home from school perfectly fine! When I picked him up, he was walking down the street with his friends and waved goodbye. He jumped in the car.

"Hi! How was your day?"

"Hi mom! Good."

He questioned if big brother was home. I told him yes and he just said, "I knew it!". That was all. Then he ran off to his friends house to play when we got home. I'm really glad I sent him yesterday. This morning his brother felt better and went to school, but he still tried to tell me that he was going to throw up. When he walked out the door he forgot all about throwing up and was fine.

About my new budget... It's going pretty well. Considering it's Christmas shopping time, I can't worry as much this month because I have to buy presents. But the grocery shopping, wow! I took my calculator with me to the grocery store for the past two weeks and saved a TON of money! Usually my goal is to spend $150/week for my family of 6, but when I actually added up what I spent it was closer to $200! That's $800/month! For the last two weeks I spent only $100. I think that's pretty good. If I keep it up that will be a savings of $400/month. What do others spend on their groceries?

About potty training... My 3 year old is not doing very well at staying dry at night. By the time I go up to bed (which has been pretty late because I'm always on the computer), she's usually already wet. I guess waking her to go has helped, but she still has a way to go.

About my 3 year old getting into everything lately... She all of a sudden is SO much better! I'm relieved. She has been going right to sleep at night, without getting out of bed and going into big sister's room and ruining her stuff. She hasn't sprayed her hair with perfume. She hasn't painted her nails. She hasn't broken her brother's Nintendo DS. Life is good.

Just got to work on 7 year old not hating school, and keeping 3 year old dry at night.

Living on a Budget

It's official. I'm now on a budget. Husband and I decided we want to start saving more money. Where does it all go? It doesn't seem like we spend that much, but how come we're not seeing it in our savings. We have lots of plans, vacations, college funds, retirement, cottage on the lake. We decided to take a closer look at how we're actually spending our money.

We like our credit card. I put all my groceries, gas, and other expenditures on it and the card gives a percentage back based on how much we spent. I recently received a check for $78! That really was free money. I wouldn't have gotten that check if I had used cash. The problem is, it's too easy to use the card. We took a closer look at what was put on the card. Our biggest expense - groceries! I almost had a heart attack when I added up what we spend in one month. I DO have 4 kids, but I still think I'm spending too much. That's when I talked to my friend Dee.

Dee told me she's been on a budget ever since she and her husband got married. They sat down and decided how much they can spend each month, and how much will go into their savings and emergency fund. They call their emergency fund anything that comes up each month that they weren't planning on , such as fixing their car all the way down to a birthday present! For Christmas, she has a Christmas club that she contributes to all year. She only spends the money allotted for it. I asked her how she handles the grocery bill. She told me she has an amount she can spend at the store and uses a calculator to add everything up as she puts it in her cart. She puts some extra items that she wants, but doesn't actually need in the corner of her cart. If she gets to the end of her shopping and sees she's over her limit, she has to put back some of the items in her "extra" corner until she's back within her budget. Dee said it's fun. It's kind of like a game.

Really? Hey, I like games! I could do that! My husband and I decided on a grocery budget. This week I even decided to spend $50 less than that, to make up for some of the Christmas presents I was buying. I took a calculator to the grocery store. I entered the price of EVERYTHING, right down to the price of my eggplant. I must admit, I felt a little embarrassed at first. What would people think of me and my calculator? I tried hiding it at first. Then I realized what Dee was talking about. It really was like a game! I found myself watching every single penny I spent! I wanted 4 bananas, so I looked for the smallest ones I could find. This was the first time I bought generic ketchup. It was so much cheaper! I never even looked at the price of sprinkles for my cookies before, $2.99? Forget it, I'll think of something else. Would you believe I came in $6 below what I wanted to spend? By watching EVERYTHING, I had enough money to buy supplies for Christmas cookies and some fish that I really wanted. It really wasn't that hard. I had fun doing it, too. Also, by the time I got to the end of the store, I didn't care who saw my calculator. My husband is very happy about this, too. A calculator, such a simple thing.

Everyone I know tells me they spend so much on groceries, too. Who says, "Honestly, I don't spend very much on food?" Try this the next time you go to the store. It's amazing. I can't believe I haven't tried this before. I'm going to call Dee now to thank her. THANK YOU!

Please tell me any budget tips you have!