I am currently in love with the idea of frugal living. Especially with only one steady income and my rather scattered and scarce income, it's come to my attention that the way we spend money needs to change.
The first thing I looked at is what our biggest pitfall was. And that would be our grocery bill. Every week for two people I would brave the store with no list, no meal plan, and an empty stomach, and let my hunger to the shopping for me. I would leave the store with $130 worth of food, but not a single clue as to what my plans to do with it were (I mean, other than eat it of course!)
When you add the numbers up, $130 x 4weeks is a hella lot (a.k.a. $520- holy high heavens!) For two people that is seriously a sad sad number, and not to mention all the random runs for take out or fast food. What on earth was I spending all that $$ on? You would cry if you knew how much food got thrown out after spending all that money!
So I started a meal planning subscription to e-mealz, for essentially $5 a month (you have to buy 3 months up front), they send you a weekly meal plan of your choice (we picked the low fat Walmart meals for 2). On average for $45 a week you can make 5 meals with some leftovers for two people by following their meal plan. It went well the first week. I went over my budget by $0.15, and I was pretty proud of myself. However, I thought I could do a meal plan better myself the next week, well I left the store feeling like a sore loser, and went over budget by $20. But I like the meals I picked out to make better than the ones from e-mealz.
I started reading the blog Money Saving Mom, and she has a series on how to lower your grocery bill called 31 Days to a Better Grocery Budget.
First she says to keep an open mind and change your attitude about budgeting your groceries. Which makes sense, if you keep acting all "I can't do it" then I guess there is no point to even trying.
Next is to see how much you are currently spending, and curtail it a little bit. She doesn't recommend going all out and cutting your spending by 50% (but I've managed to skip that part and go balls to the wall as they say). I think though that I will try and give myself more wiggle room so I don't leave the store a sore loser again over $20.
She also talks about menu planning, and different ways to come up with ideas every week. I really liked the idea of having a themed night for every week. I guess my biggest struggle point is coming up with lunches and dinners for myself. I am a vegetarian, I can't really afford to go vegan right now, but I'd like to in the future. However 75% of what I buy is just for Josh. Some days I find myself in a bind because I don't know what to make for myself.
She then says to use the envelope system to shop. This is the part that makes me nervous. Having cash on hand. Cash is unaccounted for in this household. Once it's out of the banks reach we don't track it or keep track of it. I guess this is something we need to work on, and not see it as fair game. She says if you just bring what you can spend in cash to do your grocery shopping you can't be tempted to buy other things not on your list unless you part with something that is.
Next there is the buy ahead principle. I get this but it's not often I see a good deal. I am going to try it this month with her shopping at more than one store idea. At some point I'm going to venture out and buy $25-30 worth of meat at Arnolds, which is a lot! And should last us the month. I'll then do some minimal prepping and freeze meal size portions into freezer bags, which will cut on cooking time too.
Then there is of course coupons! I have yet to learn how to make couponing work for me. I went out and got a little file organizer and stuffed my coupons that I've been clipping the past two weeks into it. Josh's mom does the sunday paper, so I've been lucky to get a few extra inserts that way, as well as printing coupons from coupons.com.
She also talks about playing the drugstore game. However I will save that for next Friday after I give it a go at it and report back how this weeks grocery shopping went as well!
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