Every Day Savings on Food

For a lot of families who take the nine week course Financial Peace University, finding frugal ways to feed yourself and family seem the quickest route to make immediate progress in savings. If you fail to plan with grocery shopping, you will bust your budget every month. Here’s a few steps to get started with saving on food purchases.

Step One - Pay with Cash. Each month decide how much money you intend to spend at the grocery store, and then withdraw it from your bank. Put that money in an envelope labeled “Food” and only purchase food from that money. Shopping with cash will limit your urge to impulse shop at the grocery store, and allow you to stay within your budgeted amount. The first month or two you may find that you have significantly over or underestimated how much to spend on food. Look through your pantry to see if you can get through the month to stay on track or subtract from another place in your zero based budget. It takes a few months to get a budget right, but making this single change with your food purchases will make a huge difference.

Step Two - Create a Weekly Meal Plan. I am not very good at wandering through a store and throwing things in the cart and figuring out what to prepare based on what I bring home. Instead,  my husband or I sit down and write out the weekly plan for our meals and what ingredients we need before we go shopping. We are nerdy enough that we even put the items in the order of the way we will walk though the store. When our kids were little, they knew that if it wasn’t on the list, we weren’t buying it and this 10 minute exercise saved us a bunch by curbing our impulse purchases. I use this meal plan/grocery list. I love that it has both the menu and the grocery list on the same page.

Step Three - Shop from Your Pantry. As you creating weekly menu, keep in mind what you already have on hand and be sure to use it up before it expires or spoils. Check if you already have the spices and herbs on hand so you don’t buy another container. This is a simple step that is often missed when you shop without a plan.

Step Four - Try Aldi. We LOVE this store and when we first made the change saw our monthly grocery bill go down by a third. That’s a lot of savings in a short period of time. If you’ve never shopped there before, know that you’ll need a quarter deposit for a cart (which you get back when you return it), and bring your own grocery bags or purchase them from the store at 7 cents each. It is a small store and you will not have as many options for products and there won’t be as many name brands as in a typical grocery store. For our family, less is more, and we can get our weekly shopping done in less then 30 minutes.  Aldi also has a guarantee on their products and if you are unsatisfied, they will refund you the full price AND replace if you wish. Their staff works hard and is empowered to make managerial decisions. I love shopping at Aldi and hope you’ll give it a try.

Step Five - Stick to your menu. You made the plan, now stick to it. Resist going out when you don’t want to cook and instead make eating out a special occasion. When I was a kid, going to McDonald’s was a big deal and eating out at a sit down restaurant was an event. Getting back to this mentality will go a long way in saving money.

Step Six - Freeze from your Excess. When you only need to use three stalks of celery for a recipe, but purchased a whole bag, wash, cut, bag, label and freeze the remaining for a future meal (when you only need three stalks again). Food that is thrown away is money wasted. Get into the habits of making use of your entire purchase.

Step Seven - Eat Your Leftovers. With all the guys in our house, there is not a lot left at each of our meals, but if there is, we make an effort to turn those leftovers into lunch the next day. Creating a new meal from leftover is also a great way to consume that purchased food. For our family, it’s easiest to make stir fry or fried rice with the vegetables and meat and smoothies with the fruit. 

When people first begin Financial Peace University or their Total Money Makeover, they usually are living without a plan that translates to eating with out one as well. Being thoughtful and intentional about how you spend your money on food is a great tool to managing your money well. 

What are your tricks and tips for saving money with your grocery bill?