Lightening Online

From time to time, I get asked whether my $100 a week average grocery spend includes non food items.  To give you a bit of an idea, I’ll summarise below.

Items I DO Include Under Groceries 

• Toilet Paper
• Tissues
• Some cleaning cloths (such as for washing up dishes)
• Soap
• Shampoo’s etc
• Toothpaste, toothbrushes and floss
• Cleaning Products
• Dishwashing Liquid and Dishwasher Powder etc
• Laundry Detergents, Fabric Softeners etc
• Pegs
• Garbage Bags & Bin Liners
• Glad Wrap, Alfoil, Snap Lock Bags, Freezer Bags, Baking Paper etc

Items I DON’T Include Under Groceries

• Make Up and Skin Care - I have a personal care category for these and also use my own spending money
• Nappies &  Wipes - I used to have a “baby” category for these (and dummies etc) but now we only have a few dry nites to buy so these also come under “personal care”
• Houehold items like mops, mop heads, toilet brushes etc - these come out of our “household” budget
• Bandaids, Panadol and other “medical” type items come out of our medical budget
• Stationery items also come under “household”
• Toys and stickers for the kids - the kids have their own budget category which covers sporting activities, music lessons, tennis coaching and a few little bits and pieces that I buy from time to time (toys, stickers, craft supplies etc)

I hope that helps to clarify things for you.  One of the dangers of comparing your spending to someone else’s is that the term “groceries” is rather broad and while some people will include anything that can be bought in a grocery store, others will divide off certain items.

There is no RIGHT or WRONG way to organise things here.  It’s just a personal preference.  I find the larger costing items can throw both my budget and my tracking out and make it harder to see where we’re up to from week to week.

What I do works for ME and while you are more than welcome to do the same, please don’t feel that my way is the ONLY way.  This is also why I encourage you to compete with yourself when it comes to reducing the grocery budget.

The real victory comes not when you manage to achieve the same grocery figure as me.  The real victory is when you realise that once upon a time you spent $X and now you’re spending $10 (insert whatever figure you like here) less. 

No doubt there are some items that I’ve failed to include on either of these lists.  If you have a question about where I include certain items in my budget, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll endeavour to answer it.

Next week, I’ll go through those items that I DO include and explain ways that I’ve found to reduce our spending in the area of non-food items.  I *was* planning to include of all this in todays post but I’m rather tired after being away so you’ll have to forgive me for making you wait another week.

Image via WikipediaWelcome back to my series on Reducing the Grocery Budget. If you’ve not yet read the earlier posts in this series, you can review them here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Meat

Fruit & Veg

Given I’ve just begun my own personal financial budgetting year, I thought I’d share a little of my budget and tracking with you in more detail.

I’ve tried to scan a page from my own spending book for you to have a look at but it hasn’t come out very clear.

I’ll try and replicate what it says for you:

GROCERIES: FRUIT & VEG $170/MONTH

GROCERIES: GENERAL $300/MONTH

It doesn’t matter HOW you track your spending, but if you want to get the most out of your grocery dollar, I highly recommend that you DO track it somehow.

I prefer to use an exercise book. It’s not expensive or large and it’s very portable. On the occasions where I don’t get the chance to enter my receipt figures straight away, they can sit in the exercise book and are less likely to get misplaced.

I use this book to track ALL of our personal spending but even if you just start by tracking your grocery spending, it will make a difference.

Once it’s set up, it really only takes a few minutes to enter your figures after each shop.

You CAN do a similar thing by keeping your grocery money in a separate envelope or purse. Unfortunately, I find this is too easy to dip into now and then when you need cash in a hurry. I always *think* I’ll remember but it’s amazing what you forget. Doing it this way will hopefully help plug a few leaks. A dollar here or there really DOES add up over time!

At the top of the page, you’ll notice I’ve written the words “GROCERIES:FRUIT & VEG $170/MONTH. This is my budgetted amount. On the first day of each month, I write in a deposit of $170. If I have money left over in this category at the end of the month, I’ll ADD the $170 to whatever that figure is. If I have overspent in that category (minus figures get written in red to make them stand out), I will subtract that red figure from the $170.

Unless there is a MAJOR blow out which requires some budget fine tuning, I will base the whole YEARS spending on that $170 per month. If I finish the year in the red, we re-evaluate the amount budgetted in that category and if need be, allocate MORE the next year.

This works for us because for the most part my categories are in surplus throughout the year. I try to always spend UNDER our allocated amount. This allows for unavoidable purchases that cause 1 or 2 categories to go into the red. I also have a buffer amount sitting in the account just in case. If your budget is very tight, you’ll need to be VERY aware of any categories that go into the RED.

Here is my monthly budget for groceries for the coming 12 months (1st Feb - 31st Jan):

Hospitality $15.00

Fruit & Veg $170.00

General $300.00

Treats $30.00

Non Food $45.00

TOTAL $560.00 per month

If you work that out per week it comes to $129.23. So approximately $130 a week. I tend to shop in larger “stock up” shops with smaller “as we need it” shops in between so the only time I really use a weekly figure is if I’m discussing grocery budgets with others (who are less used to a monthly figure) or when I’m talking averages (eg. my $100 per week challenge is worked on an average spend over whatever time frame I’m talking).

So my BUDGET is around $130 a week and I currently SPEND $100. I’ve heard people say “I spend $xxxx per week” when what they are really talking about is their budget. The forget to include the $30 they were over a fortnight ago or perhaps they don’t even KNOW what they’re really spending.

That was me not that long ago. Our budget was $140 per week so if anyone asked me what I spent on groceries I’d say “$140 a week”. In reality I had NO IDEA what I was actually spending.

Whether you choose to break your groceries up into categories like I do or keep everything lumped in together is entirely up to you.

Once you know what figure you are actually working from, it becomes a LOT easier to set yourself little challenges. For example, I know I can feed our family for $100 a week average (at the moment), so for January and February I have challenged myself to only spend $50 a week. I do have a purpose in this though and that’s to recoup the cost of my 1/2 cow (which I haven’t had to pay for yet). So in essence I *need* to keep things down at that level in order to cover the costs of the cow AND stay within my $100 per week average.

Assuming that I achieve this, I will then have what is left of the cow, to help keep costs down during the coming months. One thing I’ve noticed with the grocery budget is that once you get yourself on a “good cycle” it seems to become easier to keep costs down.

I’m still trying to work out in my own head how this works. I’m not sure if it’s just a case of smaller savings starting to kind of compound or if it’s more a case of having a sense of “enough” because the cupboard and freezer always seem to be full (no matter how much I try to empty them a little LOL).

How is everyone else going with their grocery spending? Do you feel like you’re making headway? Or does it feel like you’re fighting a losing battle?

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Image by Wally Hartshorn via Flickr

This is part of a series I have been writing on how we reduced our grocery spending by around $3000 a year. If you’d like to review the rest of the posts you’ll find links to them in my sidebar under “Reducing the Grocery Budget Series”. I hope you enjoy and find these of some value.

The fruit and vegetable section of the grocery budget is always a tricky one when it comes to reducing the grocery budget. It’s the one category in my budget that I work hard NOT to UNDERspend in.

Now I know that some people like to claim that eating healthier is more EXPENSIVE. Personally, I haven’t found this to be the case but it would depend upon what you were eating/buying before you made the change to healthier eating.

Sometimes fruit and vegetables can SEEM expensive because we EXPECT them to be cheap. If you consider “value for money” fruit and vegetables really rate very highly in the sense of return for $$ spent.

Let’s take for example a snack for a child’s lunchbox. You might spend 25-50c on a packet of chips whereas an apple will cost more like $1.00. To look at it in pure “frugal” terms, it can at times be tempting to cut down on fruit and vegetables. To look at it in the overall scheme of what you’re getting for your money though, shows a different picture. For your 50c you’re getting a bunch of salt, fat and additives as well as a piece of plastic to add to landfill. For your $1 you’re getting fibre, water, a wide variety of vitamins and minerals and an apple core that will biodegrade reasonably quickly (unless your kids eat the core as well! Lol which does happen!). You’re easily getting twice your money’s worth and then some!

For this reason, I prefer to look at a nutritional return on my $$ spent rather than a “fill up tummies” return. I’m not saying we don’t buy ever buy junk food. But I wouldn’t look at the difference between the cost of an apple and a packet of chips and decide that they chips are better value for money. I doubt you would either! But I wanted to point that out because some people are very quick to dismiss those who have lower grocery budgets by saying that they must just feed their family junk.

In our family the opposite has been true. As we’ve worked to improve our health and increase the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed, our budget has actually dropped overall.

Health is one of the reasons I keep my fruit and vegetable spending separate from my general grocery spending. I want to make sure I’m NOT saving money by spending less in this area. Or if I am spending less, I want to KNOW about it so I can look at the “why”.

While I have broken down my grocery budget into a number of categories, you still need to take into account the overall effect across all categories. From a health point of view, reducing meat, adding beans and lentils and switching to wholegrains will all help to reduce your overall grocery spend. It is even possible that your fruit and vegetable section of the budget will go UP rather than down. As long as your overall spending is still coming down, this isn’t something you need to get worried about.

Having said all of that, there are many things that can be done to help reduce the cost of fruit and vegetables:

BUY IN SEASON

While this will seem rather obvious to some people, it surprises me how many people still *insist* on eating the same fruits and vegetables all year round. In doing so they can end up paying premium price for a product that is possibly inferior in both quality and taste.

FRESH ISN’T ALWAYS BEST

Research has shown that frozen vegetables can be as good and sometimes healthier for you than some fresh vegetables. Make sure you know your prices as it can sometimes happen that frozen works out cheaper than fresh.

One of the advantages of buying frozen or canned goods is that you can have a big buy up when you see a good special. I did this just this week with canned two fruits. Our children are big fans of these. I find that some weeks there are virtually NO specials on fruit and veg and everything seems expensive. In those weeks I will buy less fresh fruit and veg and resort to using what I have already on hand (you can be sure that those weeks the frozen and canned products will be full price as well so take advantage of sales when you see them).

GROW SOMETHING

It’s really not as hard as it sounds. Take it from me – the resident brown thumb. Gardening is about having a go and seeing what you can produce.

Renting? No excuse!!!! Just start small. Plant something in a pot. A couple of years ago I was given a pot with annual flowers in it. It sat empty (other than our kittens curling up in there) for some time. Now I have parsley growing in it. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t plant it back when the pot was first empty. I paid $1.10 for a packet of seeds from a Cheap as Chips store and they’re growing great. I’ve even “trained” my kids to empty their water bottles into the pot at the end of the day so I don’t even have to water it! Just go and pick as needed. You could do the same with something like chives and use them instead of onion in recipes.

Personally I love plants where you take a bit and the plant then grows more. Parsley and chives or shallots are like this. I have also had good success with mignonette lettuces (again, $1.10 packet of seeds) and silverbeet.

If you’d like some fruit in a pot, try some strawberries. I think you can even buy strawberries in a bag now.

It is amazing what can be done with just a few pots and a small investment! Don’t get put off by thinking you could never grow enough to feed your family! It doesn’t matter. ANYTHING that you can grow will help the budget a little. And little bits add up when it comes to grocery budgets.

BUY IN BULK

Being a part of a co-op or sharing bulk buys with a friend are great ways to reduce the costs of fruit and vegetables and take advantage of larger buying power. If you can access something like this, grab it! If you can’t, you can still take advantage of bulk buying on some items.

Get to know what fruits and vegetables keep well or freeze well. I’ll mention a few that I will tend to buy up on:

• Apples. I know that my local supermarket doesn’t get fresh apples in every week. So if there is a good special on, I will buy up quite a few. They may as well be sitting in my fridge and saving me a few dollars as sitting in their coolroom waiting for me to pay more for them the following week. I also tend to buy my apples in those prepacked 2kg bags (watch out – I noticed that Coles are often only 1.5kg bags). My main reason for this is that my children are young and they’re often a more suitable size for them. I get more apples per kg AND pay a lower price per kg. You sometimes get not so nice apples in these bags but on the whole I have found them to be pretty good.

• Oranges. These are definitely the nicest when bought in season and can work out quite cheaply on a per piece costing. I find they keep easily for a month or more in the fridge without showing any signs of aging. The hardest thing I do find with buying up on oranges when on special is taking the risk as to whether they’ll be nice or not. This can vary quite a lot.

• Potatoes will last 2-4 weeks if you keep them properly. Newspaper is a great way to keep them fresh as it insulates from the warmth as well as keeping light out. You can apparently freeze mashed potato and reuse but I’ve never succeeded in doing this to my satisfaction. If I wanted to freeze potato I would cut into chunks, cook a little and then freeze and use in soups or other cooking.

• Carrots. As I’ve mentioned before, I often buy juicing carrots in a 5kg bag (last time it was a 20kg bag!) You get a few odd shaped carrots and often many broken ones but they taste great (just avoid them if they look a little on the pale side). With the 20kg I bought, I grated quite a few of them and froze to use in cooking.

• Onions are a great one to stock up on when they’re at a good price and then freeze. You can dice them before freezing although most of the time I simply cut them in half (skins still on) and throw them in a bag in the freezer. You just need to cut them up before they’ve fully defrosted when you go to use them. The good thing about this is that frozen onions don’t make you cry (you do need to let them defrost a little before cutting as they’re rather hard fully frozen).

• I do the same thing with capsicums. I’ll buy a bag of mixed colour capsicums for around $2.00 and chop them up and freeze ready to use. They won’t be so great for using in salads but for adding to pizzas or spaghetti Bolognese sauce etc it works really well.

How you store your fruit and vegetables can make quite a difference to how long they last. I LOVE my Tupperware containers for keeping things fresher longer. Wrapping in newspaper is also a good way for many items. There are many great tips all over the internet for storing fruit and vegetables to get maximum life from them.

GET AS CLOSE TO THE SOURCE AS POSSIBLE

Sometimes this is easier said than done, I know.

Markets are a great source of cheap and fresh fruit and vegetables. If you can get to one, it’s worthwhile. If you don’t live near a market, keep your eyes open when you’re in other areas as you may pass one occasionally. We live 500km from our nearest capital city and go there 2-3 times a year and I always take the opportunity to stop at either a market or a road-side type stall and stock up. I may not be able to get cheap fruit and veg all of the time but I’m sure going to get it when I can. Not to mention how much fresher it is!

Is there someone nearby that is an avid gardener? Perhaps they would be willing to trade excess produce or sell it to you for a bargain basement price!!! Who do you know with fruit trees in their backyard? Perhaps they’d be willing to pass on some fruit in return for a jar of jam made from some of it? How do you find these people or bring up such an arrangement? Start by giving and you’ll be amazed at what can happen. Maybe you don’t have fresh produce to offer someone but what do you have? Kids clothing? Some babysitting time? A freshly made cake?

THINK OUTSIDE THE SQUARE

The most effective way to save money in any area is to think creatively. Some people think that they’re not creative but I think in part it comes with practice. When you’re in the habit of thinking “outside the square” it seems to become easier to do so.

When banana prices shot through the roof in Australia, some people decided that they were going to buy bananas regardless because they are so good for you. Fair enough. What I did was research the health benefits of bananas and then look for other foods that would replace the nutrition that bananas were providing. We didn’t “go without” bananas altogether though. I bought a few every now and then. Smaller bananas mean you get more per kg. Or you can buy larger bananas and cut them in half.

Another thing I do to allow us the occasional treat without overspending the budget, is to buy some items of fruit through our “treats” budget. For instance, when bananas were REALLY expensive, I’d sometimes buy a couple and take it out of the treats budget. At the time they really were treats and just as exciting as buying a block of chocolate or similar. I’ve done the same at times with punnets of strawberries. We enjoy them as much as other sweet treats, so why not purchase them from the treats budget?

Are there fruits and vegetables that you haven’t tried yet? Perhaps there is something out there just waiting to be discovered? What about changing the way you cook things? I’ve finally started cooking my pumpkin with the skin on. Not only does it make less work for me but we waste less of the pumpkin flesh this way. Feel like salad at a time when salad vegies are expensive? What vegies are in season that might taste good raw? What about a tin of chickpeas or butter beans added to your salad? Cheap, filling and nutritious. The possibilities are endless. What it takes is stepping back and looking at things with a fresh view.

YOU’VE PAID FOR IT – USE IT!

I find the highest amount of food wastage in our household is fresh fruit and vegetables. I guess this is made more complicated for me due to my proximity to shops. The good thing about not being close to shops is that if all the bananas get eaten in the first two days, it’s too bad. Instead of running out and buying more bananas, we all have to be content to eat apples or oranges. The hardest part about it is that I can’t always predict how much of an item we’ll need and will at times overbuy and things get wasted.

Menu planning is one way to help reduce wastage. By planning based on what you have, there are less likely to be as many foods go bad before they’re used. It also forces you to think about (and look at) what you already have. I know I always think I’m going to remember what is in the fridge – but gosh it’s amazing what can be hiding at the back of the shelf! LOL.

What about parts of the fruits and vegetables that get thrown away? Are there parts that could be used for another purpose? I keep a container in the freezer and chop up things like broccoli and cauliflower stems and pop them in there to be added to soup or Bolognese sauce etc. My family aren’t big fans of the stems so this is a way I use them up.

At the moment I’ve been saving and freezing pumpkin seeds. I’ve been buying these from the shops so I’m hoping to be able to cook and shell them. It’s an experiment in progress at the moment so I can’t comment on how it’ll turn out yet.

Freeze leftover vegetables and use in soups etc rather than simply throwing them out. Chop up bits of fruit that have spots on them and add to muffins or cakes. I’m sure there are 1000s of other little suggestions out there for how to make use of food to save it from the rubbish bin. So, take a fresh look at what you have and how you’re using it and consider if there are changes that could be made.

What about peelings and other scraps? You could keep chooks or begin a compost heap and turn those scraps into something useful. That’s something I really LOVE about fruit and veg – every part of most fruits and vegetables can be used somehow in some way.

Before I wrap this up (it’s rather long isn’t it?) I want to say this. You’re not wonderwoman (or superman). Sometimes things will happen and stuff will get chucked out. Do NOT waste your time and energy beating yourself up about it. Just keep working on those small changes, one step at a time. What you don’t want to do is turn this whole thing into such a drag that you never want to think about cutting costs with groceries ever again.

Goodness this has been a long post!!!! Nearly 3000 words!!! Is it any wonder I managed to churn out 50000 in a month when I can spit out 3000 in a sitting! If you’re still reading, THANK YOU! I did consider splitting this into 2 posts but it was difficult to figure out which to put in each part.

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Image via WikipediaMy DH is a man who likes his meat. I’m sure that’s a scenario many of you are familiar with. If truth be told, I quite like my meat too. Although, as a teenager I *hated* meat. If my parents had let me eat vegetarian, I would have. The problem was (and still is) that I NEED to eat a reasonably high protein and high iron diet. For a long time, these were the excuses I used to not even contemplate changing the amount I was spending on meat.If you’re faced with family members who are not 100% behind your efforts to reduce the grocery budget, please move SLOWLY with this. I know I’ve said it before but it’s really important to have a long term view when it comes to reducing your grocery spending. Those tiny baby steps, if you keep at it, will start to yield results.

Now the first thing I did when I wanted to reduce our meat consumption was to very gradually increase the number of vegetables we were consuming with our evening meal. Again, I had to do this carefully and slowly to avoid being faced with a revolt (led my DH of course lol) at the dinner table.

I’ve always been someone who enjoys eating vegetables but when I met my DH his repertoire of vegetables he would eat willingly included potato, carrot, peas and corn. Full stop! He is a LOT better now and I think it helps that I don’t boil the bejeebiz out of anything I cook.

I’m telling you all of this simply to say that I know change isn’t easy to achieve - which is why it’s important to make any changes you want to make very slowly. Over time I gradually increased the portions of vegetables on the plate and reduced the portion of meat. This was as much to benefit our health as our bank balance but it was nice that the two things went hand in hand.

One thing DH and I noticed over time was that as we ate less meat (and consequently ate more vegetables) we weren’t looking to eat as much meat. It was like the more we ate, the more we wanted but as our bodies adjusted to a slightly healthier diet, it no longer was looking for the larger portions of meat.

I now work on 2 green and 2 orange/yellow vegetables per meal and we’re slowly getting around to adding a purple/red variety (which will usually replace one of the other coloured vegetables). Including potato, the “norm” in our house is a variety of 5 different vegetables per meal.

Another thing I did during this stage of attempting to reduce our grocery budget was to set myself a “limit” for our meat. I started with $5 per meal. This was supposed to be an average figure and therefore allowed me to spend around $35 per week or around $150 per month on meat. The good thing about having a figure like this is that it gives you a guage. So for instance, if you buy a roast that costs you $10 then you *know* you need to get 2 meals out of that roast in order to make it fit within your budget.

Initially, as I said, I was working on an “average” figure of $5 so spending slightly more than $5 on a meal of meat sometimes wasn’t really a problem. I did however, challenge myself to spend under that $5 limit as often as possible. Once I began to do that, any meals which cost me under the $5 started to actually save us money.

Once I had a handle on that (remember, still taking one small step at a time here), the challenge became to see if I could get us the occasional “free” meal. For instance, could I make $10 worth of chicken breasts do us 3 meals instead of 2? Every time I managed to get us 3 meals for $10, we were essentially eating “free” for 1 meal. I found these kinds of challenges quite fun. If you can tackle the grocery budget from a “fun” angle, you’re much more likely to be successful over the long term.

I think it comes back a bit to the “game” mentality. Setting small challenges and seeing what you’re actually capable of. You might start off by only knocking $1 per week off your meat spending but if you play that game 10 times, you’ve suddenly knocked $10 per week off your budget/spending.

Another thing I did was start to buy 2.5 times the amount of meat I would usually use for a meal and make that stretch for 3 meals. This is one of the ways where buying meat in bulk amounts can really help. Say chicken breasts are on special, you buy up a number of packs and then sort them all at once. By shaving just a small amount from what you’d usually use per meal, you can end up with a couple of free meals without hardly noticing it. You’ve taken advantage of a good price but you’ve also taken advantage of being able to take lots of small “bits” and turn them into enough for an extra meal. When you buy only one meals worth at a time, it’s harder to do this (doable but harder).

MENU PLANNING

When I first began menu planning I found it hard to get my head around WHY it seemed to reduce my grocery spending. I couldn’t deny the fact that it did but I didn’t understand HOW it did. Spending on meat is one category that can really benefit from menu planning. You do need to be a little bit deliberate about what you’re doing when you menu plan though.

If your family has a favourite meal that is rather expensive, you don’t have to strike it from the menu. But what about spreading out how often you have it. If you tend to have 1 expensive meat meal per week, can you stretch it so that you’re only having 1 a fortnight. OR, if you really want to have that more expensive meal once a week, what can you do on another night to compensate for the extra cost? By having a plan you can really see what you’re doing and look to change the patterns a little.

I’ll give you an example here. We decided that for the sake of our health we really needed to make eating more fish a higher priority. This is a real challenge for the budget conscious as fish is one of the most expensive meats to buy. How I compensate for this is to alternate our fresh fish with canned tuna and also generic brand “cardboard” frozen fish. I get 3 meals of fish for under $3 and I know then I’m able to spend the extra few $$ on a meal of fresh fish once every 4 weeks. By looking at the overall picture, you can balance the scales a little.

Another thing I do with our menu plan is to plan at LEAST 1 frugal meal per week. We actually tend to have 2 frugal meals per week because Sunday nights is a fairly easy meal and tends to naturally fall under the “frugal” category (toasted sandwhiches, pancakes etc). Thursdays I try to plan a “low meat” meal. To begin with, I was trying several vegetarian recipes in an effort to reduce our meat consumption. One of the things I tried was vegetable lentil loaf . In the end DH decided that it would be much better if it had meat in it. LOL.

So I don’t even attempt to make vegetarian meals anymore. I perservered for quite some time with various recipes but it just wasn’t working out well for us. I decided that it was more important that we enjoy eating than achieve “vegetarian meal” status. Instead, I worked on having more “low meat” meals. If we eat 2 “low meat” meals instead of 1 regular meat serve and 1 “no meat” serve, the overall effect is the same really.

BACON is one of my best friends. I can add $1 or less of bacon pieces to a meal and that qualifies it as “having meat”. LOL. Approximately every 6-8 weeks I purchase 1kg of bacon pieces and that will usually do us 6 or more meals. It’s really a great stretcher in that you can get quite a reasonable amount of flavour from a very small amount. Sure, it’s not the healthiest of meats, but I think I balance that out okay by not using very much.

WHAT ABOUT HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS?

This is a tricky one. Healthier cuts of meat do tend to cost more. Eating less meat per meal is definitely a healthy alternative so that’s one solution.

Healthier mince (I think that’s ground beef in the US?) is one product that many people will insist on paying more for. I hate buying mince because it is so hard to really tell what you’re paying for. How do you really know that they “heart smart” mince is really any better than the “budget” mince? I prefer to make my own. If you have a food processor, it really is quite easy. I purchase budget roast beef when it’s on sale for $5.99 per kg then dice it up and throw it into the food processor. That way I know exactly what is in what we’re eating and it’s reasonably low fat (I trim the small amount of fat from the outside of the roast first). Even with having to trim off a bit of fat, it’s still costing me quite a lot LESS than the $12+ per kg charged for the “leaner” types of meat.

I also prefer to add my own additives to meat rather than buying things where they’ve been already added. Make up your own chicken or beef patties. It does take a little bit of trial and error to work out how your family like them but it’s so worth it. Unfortunately I’m a “fly by the seat of my pants” type cook so it’s hard for me to share with you what I do. One thing I do know is that over time I’ve been adding more and more vegetables to my meat patties and I think we like them more that way than when they were mostly meat.

Get aquainted (if you’re not already) with beans and lentils. It’s amazing what these can be added to. They’re a fantastic source of protein and soooo cheap. I have sourced a place where they are almost half the price of what supermarkets charge so keep your eyes open (or do a search) for wholesalers, health food shops etc that might sell these types of things in larger quantities for a similar price to what supermarkets charge for a small bag. Dried is HEAPS cheaper than the tinned varieties. I simply soak a whole lot at once and then freeze them. All I need to do then is throw them in the slow cooker when I’m ready to use (don’t forget though that kidney beans MUST be boiled to destroy something in them that our bodies react to). I do, however, keep some tins on hand as I figure it’s still cheaper to use the tinned variety when necessary than to not use them at all.

I use beans and lentils in soups, casseroles, pie fillings, spaghetti bolognese, meat loaf/lentil loaf, patties, salads, on pizza…..they’re pretty versatile really and it’s just a matter of experimenting with the many ways they can be used. You’re only limited by your own imagination! Just try not to get too carried away and add HEAPS the first time. I’ve found it’s better to go slowly, slowly, adding more each time so the family gets used to the texture and their presence.

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

I hope you’ve gotten the message by now that I think the best way to tackle any aspect of your grocery budget is to make the changes very gradual. If not, I’ll repeat myself. Take it very slowly. What’s the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day?” LOL.

I’m going to use my spaghetti bolognese “recipe” (sorry, don’t get excited cos there is no recipe) to show you what I mean here.

How did I used to make spaghetti bolognese? 500g of mince (let’s use an average figure of $4) and a bottle of pasta sauce ($3). Total cost per meal for the sauce part of $7 per meal.

Let’s assume I buy the mince on sale ($3) and the pasta sauce either generic brand or on sale ($2). My sauce has now cost me $5 and I have an extra $2 in my pocket.

Now I learnt from my friend that spaghetti bolognese tastes nicer with a “fresher” taste of tomato so instead of using the sauce I now use a large tin of tomatoes (85c) plus add a grated carrot and a few onion flakes (15c). Sauce has now cost me $4 and I have $3 in my pocket.

Playing around and experimenting, I figure out that if I add a few red lentils (20c), plus a few extra vegetables (50c) I can actually stretch my 500g of mince over 2 meals. So I spend $4 (from last figures) and add 70c to that so $4.70 for 2 meals or $2.35 per meal. I now have $4.65 per meal in my pocket.

Gradually going through the process of adding bits and pieces like lentils, beans, more vegies and so on and I eventually stretched that 500g of mince to 3 meals. Because of the beans and lentils, the protein value is still there, the fat level is lower, the nutritional level is higher and the cost is lower. It’s a win-win situation all round.

Last night I made up a batch of bolognese sauce in the slow cooker. I’m guestimating that I ended up with at least 4 litres by the time I had finished. That will do us 4-5 meals. I use it for spaghetti bolognese, lasagne and tacos mainly.

500g premium homemade mince ($3)
soaked beans from freezer (30c)
red lentils (20c)
800g generic tomatoes (85c)
bottle passatta (90c)
few blobs tomato paste (20c)
couple handfuls oats to thicken (10c)
minced garlic (10c)
chopped shallots (garden - negligable cost)
parsley (garden - negligable cost)
bag frozen spinach (garden - negligable cost)
bag grated carrot (would have gone to waste if I hadn’t grated and frozen from a bulk lot so really negligable cost but let’s say 10c)
bag grated zucchini (given to me during summer - free)
diced frozen capsicum (10c)

I think I’ve remembered everything. Total cost $5.85 divided over 5 meals $1.17 per meal. I now have in my pocket $5.83 per meal for the sauce portion. Even if I only manage to get 4 meals from it, the cost per meal works out to $1.46 - a great improvement on $7.00!

Had I gone directly from the meat plus bottled sauce version - I don’t think anybody would have liked it and I suspect the dog would have had a feast. By making the changes slowly, we’ve had much more success. Admittedly my DS made a comment last night about how ours is different from everyone else’s because we don’t have big lumps of meat. I was able to point out to him several pieces of meat at least. LOL. It didn’t stop him eating it. In fact, there wasn’t a scrap wasted and the kids ate in record time. DH commented how that it was the best I’d made so far.

BULK BUYING

I could list off a heap of tips here about bulk buying, buying marked down meat etc but it’s hard because everyone’s situation is different and the resources you have around you will be different. I very rarely get to purchase marked down meat because we don’t live near large supermarkets and our local supermarket doesn’t do a lot of mark downs. Also, I’d need to do an extra trip into town on a Saturday to have any chance of finding any so the petrol costs would outweigh the benefits. Some of you may be able to take advantage of that as a way of saving costs.

Bulk buying can be a good way to purchase meat cheaper but it is important that you’re clear on what you’re getting for your money. For instance, when I purchase a 1/2 cow direct from the butcher, his quoted price per kilo is for before the beast is cut up. So I pay for around 90kg at that rate but only end up with 60kg. My $4.50 per kg is really the equivalent of $6.75 from the supermarket shelf. So it’s important to be clear on what the quoted price is for.

I have purchased a 1/2 cow a couple of times and split it with a friend so we take 1/4 each. Just be aware that even 1/4 of a cow is a LOT of meat. One of the temptations when you have a large amount of meat like that on hand is to eat MORE meat and discount any savings. I guess it’s a matter of coming up with a method that’s going to work for you.

If you use a butcher, it might be worth asking what they can do for you. They might do up bulk packs with a variety of items in them as a deal for you. It certainly doesn’t cost anything to ask. It is important though to know your figures as a lot of those packs use a combination of cheaper items like sausages and rissoles with fillers in them to make the pack look more attractive.

APPEARANCES ARE EVERYTHING

One of the great ways to reduce the actual serving size of meat is to consider how it appears on the plate. Fill the plate with a variety of different coloured vegetables and smaller meat portions don’t look quite so obvious.

You might have guessed that we tend to be a “meat and veg” type family. We do eat a few “all in together” type meals but they are a smaller proportion of what we have. Those of you who do a lot of stir frys and casseroles or curries and that type of thing will possibly already consume much smaller amounts of meat. They are a great way to stretch the meat portion of a meal without it looking too obvious.

The hardest thing I think I find about all the tips and ideas out there is wading through to find the ones that will work for my family.

But regardless of what you eat, considering how a plate or bowl looks can go a long way toward how satisfied everyone will feel with what you’re serving.

There are many other ways that make meat look like more than it is. My favourite is to add sauces. This is particularly good for leftover roasts and corned beef. My kids love to have leftovers cut up and served in a sauce or gravy and I find we need less meat for a meal of this style. Sauces can make a small amout of meat look like quite a generous serving.

Sometimes meat on the bone can work out cheaper than meat without bones if you’re looking at a “per meal” basis. From what I can work out, the value for money in terms of actual meat you get may not actually be there. But by serving the meat still on the bone, it takes up more room on the plate and therefore can give the “appearance” of more meat.

Like I said before, the list of ideas can be endless and it really does depend greatly on your own personal situation as to what will and won’t work well for you. I hope this has given you at least a bit of a glimpse into what I’ve done. I know these few ideas have made quite a substantial difference to our grocery bill over time.

What sort of things do you do to reduce the amount you spend on meat? Perhaps you’d like to share them with everyone in the comments section.

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I actually feel like a bit of a fraud posting on reducing the grocery budget at this time of year. I tend to find myself a little tempted and waylaid by all the fancy goodies the stores have out. LOL. I get a bit *too* festive and out the window go all my good intentions.

Anyway, I will plow on with what we did in order to reduce our grocery budget and more than likely it’ll be a good reminder to myself of what needs to happen.

If you haven’t yet read the first 3 posts in this series or would like to refresh your memory, you can find them here:

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Two
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Three

Now last week I think I promised to start giving you some actual suggestions on ways to reduce the grocery budget. What I want to write about today may not seem like a proper tip but in a way it’s a really BIG tip that covers many categories. I want to talk about needs vs wants and my experience has been that acknowledging the difference between the 2 can make quite a big difference to the bottom line at the checkout.

This can actually be quite a confronting topic. Partly because the definition of a “need” vs a “want” can be quite a subjective and controversial subject. But mostly because I believe in western societies we have lost touch with reality when it comes to what we really NEED. (My apologies to anyone reading that isn’t residing in a western society - I can’t comment on your situation so you’ll need to make up your own minds here).

Now don’t panic on me here. I am not suggesting here that you *SHOULD* reduce your grocery spending to bare bones physical needs. What I am suggesting though is that we all need to take a good hard look at WHAT we buy and WHY and begin to recognise more just how blessed we are.

As human beings, we really hate to think of ourselves as being deprived. If we’re feeling deprived, the temptation is to go out and spend more money in an effort to prove to ourselves that we’re not “deprived”. Then of course, we no longer have that money, something has to give somewhere else and in the end we become more “deprived” than when we first started. It’s one of those vicious cycles that we really want to avoid if at all possible.

So I found that I needed to reduce our grocery spending without us feeling deprived (to avoid an unecessary spending circle). And let’s face it, how many of us have really EVER been truly deprived? The great thing about understanding how blessed we truly are is that it can help with reducing spending across all of the budget categories (not simply food).

Understanding the difference between needs and wants was one major way that we accomplished reducing our grocery spending without feeling deprived. My current spending of $100 a week is not even close to being a “bare bones, only what we need” budget. I purchase PLENTY of wants as well. Like I said, I’m not necessarily asking you to not purchase ANY wants. Just identify them and be realistic about what you’re choosing to do. Be real about calling a want, a want.

Another way in which our family worked on this was to put up pictures of our sponsored children and some other projects we have supported on our family room wall. Every time we come in our back door, we have a visual reminder to us of how much we really do have. It has been a very effective strategy for us in increasing our thankfulness and awareness of how many things in our life are wants rather than needs. And how many people in our world struggle on a daily basis just to meet their basic needs.

Please don’t think this is about guilt. I don’t believe in giving out of guilt. To me that is the same as obligation (see my post yesterday for my feelings on giving out of obligation ). It’s about awareness. And it’s a great way to encourage contentment. Contentment is a hard emotion to grab hold of, but when you’re there - it truly is one of the most worthwhile feelings you could ever experience. I’m sure if you could bottle it, you’d make a small fortune. LOL.

So that’s my suggestion for the next stage in reducing your grocery budget. Go through your shopping trolley (or supermarket docket) and identify how much of what you are spending is on needs and how much is on wants. Start to identify how blessed you really are and see if it makes a difference in how you view your shopping trolley and what kinds of things you put in it.

Now on occasion I have mentioned in my posts a website called Simple Savings. You can join their free newsletter at their website. They also offer a paid section to their website. I mostly tend to avoid websites where you need to pay in order to get information. It seems almost counter productive to frugality to me. And there are plenty of websites that will offer great ideas for free. For some reason I decided to pay the membership fees for this particular one. I think because they have a money back guarantee with their membership. I’m actually really glad I did. It gives you access to a vault but the most valuable part of it I have discovered in recent years is the forum where members get to discuss ideas on how to save money and support one another in all kinds of ways. Membership fees are $47 for the first year and then $17 to renew each year after that. The reason I am mentioning them now is that they have a sale on until 11pm Sunday 18th (Australian time - I’m assuming EDST but not sure) for $35. So if you’ve been contemplating taking out a membership, now is a great time to do so. My apologies to those non-Australian readers. This is an Australian website and may not be of as much interest to you (I’m sure you’d be welcome to join though if you wanted to).

If you don’t wish to purchase a membership, I’d still recommend you sign yourself up for their free newsletters with great tips. After all, you can’t go wrong with free. Here is a link to the website:

(Disclaimer: This is an affiliate link. There is an explanation of how affiliate links work in my sidebar. My comments however, have no bearing on the fact that it is an affiliate link. If you are concerned about this, go directly to their website http://www.simplesavings.com.au/ rather than via the link above.)

Over the coming weeks I want to work my way through the categories I listed in my original post on this topic. Non Food, Fruit & Veg, Meat, General Groceries and Treats (have I covered them all?) Does anyone have a preference for which category you’d like me to start with?

A list of other Frugal Friday participants can be found at
Biblical Womanhood.

This is the third post I have written in a series about how we reduced our grocery spending. If you haven’t already had a chance to read the first two, or would like to review them, you can find them here:

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One

So, we’re up to part 3 and we’ve yet to really touch on the big “B” word – the budget. How do you decide what a realistic budget is for your own unique situation?

Well you START with what you’re currently spending. That’s one of the reasons WHY it is so important that you KNOW what you’re currently spending. Because that is your starting point for your new grocery budget. THEN you start to play the grocery budget limbo. Now, I’m pretty sure I read about this idea at http://www.cindysporch.net/. Unfortunately I cannot find a place on her website that refers to this exactly. Nonetheless it’s a website that is well worth having a read when you get the time. She has lots of great ideas that I have found helpful in my quest for frugality and home organization (yes, it definitely is an ONGOING learning process lol).

The grocery budget limbo is quite an easy game to play. Now I’m assuming you all know how to play limbo? You know that game where you have a broom handle or similar held up nice and high and you all take turns going under it without touching either the handle or the floor (and without bending forwards). If you break any of those conditions, you’re out and the game continues with each round the broom handle being lowered slightly.

So the grocery budget limbo works much the same way. The goal is to lower your spending a little bit each week/fortnight/month. How much you’d like to lower it by each time is completely up to you. You can choose a percentage or a dollar amount. And yes, it can be $1 a week if that’s what you’d like. If there are just 1 or 2 of you and you already have a reasonably tight budget, $1 might well be the most appropriate starting place.

If you have a family or feel that you spend plenty on your groceries, I would suggest starting with a nice round figure like $5 or $10. You can get more adventurous than that if you’d like but my experience has been that if I take smaller baby-steps, I’m more likely to make changes that will LAST. Biting off too much at once can lead to getting overwhelmed, frustrated and ultimately giving up and resorting to “whatever I spend I spend”.

To give you an idea using my own figures. It has taken me 3 years to move from spending $140 per week to spending $100. Under ordinary circumstances (ie. if I wasn’t trying to reduce our grocery budget) we increase our grocery budget each year by 5%. This has been to allow for both increasing food prices and our growing family (growing in both number, from 2 people to 5 people and also in appetite as our 3 “little people” grow into “bigger people”). So in essence, our spending has decreased over that 3 year period from what *would* be $160 per week down to $100 per week.

I guess I’m sharing these figures to encourage you that it can take a while to really see changes in your grocery spending. I haven’t spent the past 3 years completely focused on reducing our grocery spending either. I prefer to challenge myself for a short time and then have a break from focusing too much on the figures. I still prefer to record all my spending all of the time - I like the security of *knowing* where our money has gone. However, if I were always focusing on getting our grocery bill lower, I think I would find that too boring. It works for me to focus on it for a time and then give myself a bit of a break. The breaks also help me to see if the changes I’ve made have become “habits” (and therefore stick even when I’m not specifically trying) or whether things blow out as soon as I’m not watching carefully.

I have found that tracking our spending has been the most significant change we’ve made to managing our finances since we chose to take the path of more frugality and a simpler lifestyle. There is more information about how I do this in my Tracking Spending post that I wrote a little while ago. Basically I do it by starting with my “budgetted” amount and subtracting anything I spend from this so that I always know how much I have left in a given category at any time. You can achieve a similar thing with using cash and some kind of bag or envelope system as well (as long as someone doesn’t move cash from one spot to another…..).

So, back to the “how low can you go” game/concept. How do you know when it’s time to stop trying to lower the bar? Best not to keep going until you fall flat on your back. I think it’s helpful at this point if you can understand a little of your own personality here. With my budget amounts, I prefer to allow a little bit MORE than what we *really* need. I personally find that if I have overspent on our budget, I’m more likely to throw the towel in and spend more. All the time that I’m comfortably under budget, I seem to find it easier to spend less.

Some people have a tendency to spend every last cent so if they allowed a “buffer” amount in their budget, they would always spend that. If you’re that kind of person, adding a buffer amount into your budget is only going to encourage you to spend more.

Don’t be afraid to have a bit of a play around to find what works for YOU. There is no perfect system out there that suits every single person. There is no “magic” figure out there for the “perfect” grocery budget. Take some time to just observe what is happening with your spending and how that makes you feel, react and so on. The same applies to whether you use cash, credit card (that is paid in full - I’m not advocating credit for groceries if you can help it), debit card and so on. We could debate for hours on whether or not you’ll spend more using one method or another. The only way you can really find out what works for YOU is to try a few different ways and see what happens.

One thing about budgeting in general that I have found really hard to get my head around is allowing some flexibility. When I decide what our budget will be for various categories, I usually do so for a 12 month period and during that time things can change. I’m not so good at dealing with change. I much prefer things to stay the same. One way I do get around this is by allowing some “buffer” in my grocery budget. Like I said before, that will work for some and might not work so well for others. Just be aware that you need *some* flexibility when it comes to budgets (without giving yourself permission to just spend whatever you feel like! LOL).

What you really want to avoid as much as possible is frustrating yourself. If you feel like you’re somehow “failing” in your attempts, it’s more likely that you’ll give up. That’s what we want to avoid. If you expect to be able to decide on a budget without allowing any flexibility along the way, there is a real danger of that happening.

This is part 2 in a series I’m writing on how I reduced our grocery budget. If you haven’t already seen it, you might like to begin with part one.

Reducing the Grocery Budget-Part One

How did we go with keeping track of what we spent this week? Any major surprises, pleasant or otherwise?

I want to give you a couple of warnings this week (okay, well 3 actually which I guess is 1 more than a “couple” but you get the idea right?).

1. Be careful that you’re NOT reducing your grocery spending by simply eating out of your cupboard and pantry without replacing it. You might keep your spending low for a few weeks but you won’t have made any long term changes. I know when it’s all new and exciting you want to see results STRAIGHT AWAY. Just be aware that reducing the grocery spending is a LONG term project. It has taken me 3 years to get to the point I’m at now. On the other hand, don’t be too discouraged for now if your spending doesn’t go down straight away. The most important thing right now is that you KNOW what you’re spending on groceries so that we have something to work from.

Now, using on your reserves/stocks/whatever you want to call it is NOT a bad thing in itself. If you’re a chronic hoarder like me, it could actually be a GOOD thing. It’s just important to realise that you may not have actually reduced your spending all that much - instead you’re making use of money spent in the past. Of course, if you’re a chronic hoarder like me then you may also find that what you spend on groceries is actually *too much* which gives you room to move down a little without too much hardship.

I found when I first started out doing this that my grocery spending went down for a short time (because I was using up on stores), then it went back up again and I wondered what I was doing wrong. Then for a while it stayed the same - and that can be very frustrating. Rising food prices and growing children can really put a dent in our efforts to reduce the grocery spending. Understand that keeping your spending the same IS actually reducing your grocery budget. I found for a while that all my efforts were doing was keeping up with inflation. In other words, as I learnt new ways to trim the grocery budget, those savings were eaten up by price increases.

As I continued to learn new ways to cut my spending and developed new habits, eventually my efforts started to show. My savings started to outweigh those price increases and the spending gradually started to come down.

2. Beware the news articles blaring “food prices to increase”. I *hate* these kinds of reports. What do they really do to help the consumer? In my opinion, nothing. It gives supermarkets some leeway to increase prices without consumer backlash AND it causes people to spend unnecessarily. If you *expect* your grocery spending to go up - believe me, it will!!! To me spending is like an untrained puppy. Let it off it’s leash and who knows where it might end up.

Yes, price increases are a fact of life. Yes, the drought *has* to have *some* effect on our prices. BUT, I think if we were to look back through history at the changing grocery store trolley. I think we would see a lot MORE than simply “a loaf of bread has gone from 10c to $10″ type scenario. PART of the increase in grocery spending has to do with WHAT is in the trolley - not simply inflation, effects of drought and so on.

So, allow *some* leeway in your budget and expectations of what it is going to cost to feed your family. But be aware that “food prices are on the rise” isn’t an excuse to simply cut loose and spend more money.

3. There is a HUGE temptation when you’re trying to cut your grocery spending, to want to compare what you’re spending with what everyone else is spending. I know because I’ve been there done that many times. It’s not that is doesn’t have *some* merit in giving you an idea on what is *possible*. It’s just that it is very hard to compare apples with apples. Everyone’s situation is different. Things like amounts of food consumed, whether or not they have a separate take away budget, do they eat at grandparents house once a week, do they have an Aldi, do they live on a farm and get very cheap lamb….. The variations as so endless that it really is hard to make an accurate comparison.

If you feel the need to *compete* (as many of us seem to lol), then compete with yourself. And compete AGAINST the grocery stores. I once read a great article about grocery shopping being a game. Unfortunately I can’t remember where I read it or who wrote it so I can’t give them appropriate credit. Instead, I’ll just steal their idea, paraphrase it and write it here so you can all think I’m an absolute genius. LOL. No-one gets a choice as to whether or not they’d like to play the game. If you EVER buy anything, then you’re already a player whether you like it or not. It’s quite a simple game really. You keep money in your pocket and you WIN. You spend all you’ve got and then some and the grocery store WINS. So next time you’re doing the grocery shopping, make use of all that competitive energy and KEEP some of your money.

Having said all that, I am now going to give you my grocery spending figures for the month of October. LOL.

My total spend for October ended up being $472.73. With 5 Wednesdays (my usual shopping day) in October, I needed to keep it under $500 in order to maintain my $100 a week average spend. So on the surface it looks like I’ve done well this month. But I’ve chosen this month to make a few faux-par’s, just for educational purposes of course. ROFLOL. Not really, it was fluke but it sounds good, right?

Bear in mind that I have been tracking and analysing my grocery spending for 3 years now (does that make me sound like an analy-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, has no life looney-toon?????) so before I even looked at my figures I could tell you a few things about our current position:

* I’ve overspent on treats (made evident by the fact that my jeans are too tight at the moment)
* I bought very little meat and what I did buy was “chuck in the oven cos you can’t be bothered cooking” crap (for a very good reason of course - DH is busy with harvest or he would be if the weather were right).
* Fruit and veg spending will be up a little because I’ve bought fresh pineapple (twice), strawberries and grapes (both not really “in season” quite yet), more than normal amount of frozen veg (see comment about “can’t be bothered cooking” above) and my fridge is currently still full of fruit and veg.
* I can’t have done *too* badly because well, there IS food in the cupboard, fridge and freezer.

So, let’s look at the nitty gritty’s of my spending for October:

Fruit & Veg - $118.08 That’s good. Up on what I’ve spent some months but still well below budget and I *know* we’ve been eating a fair bit of fruit and veg. Gotta love those cheaper fruit and veg stalls (when you can get to them). We have started to eat more out of the vegie garden so maybe that’s starting to show a little in the spending. Now I just need to make some choices about whether I *want* those savings to be eaten up by buying a few of the more expensive items (a very valid choice as long as it is a CHOICE and not just something happening that I’m not paying attention to) or do I want those savings in my pocket.

General - $297.31 As I said in my last post, I no longer track meat separately but I did have a quick look through my receipts and I *think* I spent just over $40 on meat. Which means this figure is a little higher than I would like it to be for the month. We’ve been using on our stockpile of meats and there isn’t really anything left in this category to cover that.

Treats - $38.33 Well up on what I usually spend and definitely overbudget.

Non-Food $15.73 Most of that was toilet paper. LOL. No, we don’t spend $15 a month on toilet paper but I do stock up when it’s on special and it just so happens there were a couple of specials this month.

Now for any of you “maths scholars” out there (do any maths “people” actually *read* blogs? wave if you do)…. my figures don’t add up. There is a $3.28 *gap* cos I spent $3.28 from my hospitality category. I wasn’t going to admit that as I thought it made me look really “inhospitable” to spend such a measly amount. LOL. But then the perfectionist in me couldn’t let it go in case *someone* happened to notice.

So, have you had a look at your spending figures? Do they reflect where you want your money to go or is there some tweaking that could be done? This week, keep writing down what you’re spending on groceries (yeah, I know last week I said you only had to do it for 1 tiny little week….I lied, okay? You still only have to do it for 1 week…..just 1 week at a time. ).

What are you thinking right now? Will, she hurry up and get on with revealling the *secret formula*? Or at least start making suggestions on how I can buy $500 worth of food with just $50. LOL. (no, that aint gonna happen).

Okay - here’s the “secret formula” (or at least *part* of it). When you build a house you start by preparing a good foundation. If you don’t take the time to build a good foundation, at the first sign of stormy weather, you might find yourself in a little bit of trouble. Building a “you beaut” house without first preparing a firm and solid foundation is really not a wise idea.

Dealing with something like the grocery budget is the same. I could give you a whiz bang list of ideas on how to get more for your money. But if we don’t start by taking the time to build a good, solid foundation, at the first sign of stormy weather, your grocery budget may well fall in a sodden heap.

Next Friday I want to talk about how to figure out the “right” budget for your groceries. Until then, happy shopping (and eating) everyone. LOL. Don’t forget to keep recording what you’re spending…..I promise you it’ll all be worth it in the end. At least I hope it will………..

Image via WikipediaThroughout my grocery challenge, many of you have made comments such as “I don’t know how you do it”. So, I thought I’d do a series of posts outlining the “hows” of how I got to where I am with our grocery spending.

So, where do we start? I think the very first step is to believe that you CAN do this. One thing I really struggle with is people saying they desperately *need* to reduce their grocery spending but they’ve done ALL they can to do so. It’s as low as it will go. I am yet to meet someone who actually *has* gone as low as they *could* go. I’m not talking here about people who are content with their level of grocery spending. That’s fine. I *could* make ours lower. I’m well aware of that. Right now I am happy with our level of spending. For $100 a week we eat well with a wide variety of healthy foods as well as a few treats.

I have learnt a LOT in the past 3 years. Sure, finding new ways to reduce our grocery spending has slowed down a lot in recent times in comparison to when I first started. But, I am still learning new things. I don’t actively seek new ideas quite the same anymore. But, I am open to the fact that there are ideas out there that I don’t know about yet. There is *always* more to learn. If you have it in your mind that you’ve “arrived” as far as grocery budgets go - you’re less likely to find those new ideas and miss opportunities to make the $$ stretch further.

So, your mind is now open to new ideas. Good. You believe you CAN do this. Excellent. LOL. What’s the next step? Do you know how much you currently spend on groceries? I’m not talking “oh yeah, we budget around $200 a week” type knowledge here. I’m talking, last week I spent $123.62 at Woolworths, $25.00 at the Fruit and Veg shop, $6.35 at the corner store and $2.50 at the Petrol station. That kind of knowledge. (Those figures are completely made up by the way.)

Some people think that they are better off not knowing. Well, knowledge is a VERY powerful thing. When I first started on this “frugality” journey, we budgetted $140 a week for groceries. That was a GREAT budget. In fact, that was already lower than what most of our friends budgetted (those that budgetted). But I have NO IDEA what we were actually spending. The budget was completely useless. It didn’t *tell* me anything. It wasn’t really great at all.

According to the above figures, “I” have spent $157.47 for the week on groceries. Some people would get to the end of the week and say “I spent about $120 on groceries this week”. Going only on the approximate figure they spent at Woolworths. Already they’ve *lost* $37.47 of their money. That alone is $1948.44 a year!!!! Can you see what I’m getting at here?

If you have the time, I’d encourage you to take this one step further. Sit down with all your receipts for the week and break things down into categories.

Here are the categories that I started with:

* Treats - very important. You need to know how much of your money is going on “non nutritious” food. I think it’s *very* important (unless you do want to get down to a bare bones level of spending) to allocate at least a small portion of money to treats. It helps with the whole deprivation/poverty mentality issue that often makes you spend more money rather than less. What do you include as treat items? Well, that’s up to you. I tend to include cordial, ice cream, chips, lollies/chocolate, desserts (that are non fruit) and sweet biscuits in mine.

* Fruit and Veg - When you start trying to cut your grocery budget, it can be tempting to skimp on fresh fruit and veg. I find it helpful to keep a separate category so that I can keep an eye on this. I’ve also heard it said a LOT of times that it’s more expensive to eat healthily. I guess that all depends on what you were buying before but so far I haven’t found this to be the case myself. Having it there in front of you what you actually *do* spend on fruit and veg is a good way to see what is happening. I also include frozen vegetables and tinned fruit and veg in this category (so things like tinned peaches, beetroot and so on).

* Meat - I no longer keep my meat spending separate from my general grocery spending. But when I was first starting out I did. Mainly because meat is one area where most people *can* cut back on their grocery spending. I know we were consuming way too much meat for what is considered a “healthy portion”. Because I was working hard in this area, it was good to be able to see the results of my efforts in dollars and cents.

* General Grocery - In this category I include all food items that aren’t covered by the above 3 categories.

* Non Food - These are all the bits and pieces like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, cleaning products, cleaning cloths etc. It’s up to you what you do and don’t include here. Things that I DON’T include are make up, larger household items like mops, toilet brushes, batteries, socks, toys, stationery etc that can be bought at the supermarket. Those things have their own separate categories.

One of the benefits of breaking down your grocery receipts is that if you have bigger items like those above, it can really upset the balance of your grocery budget. I subtract them from my total and enter them elsewhere in my budget book. If you don’t have a “budget book” (see Tracking Spending for more info on this), that’s fine. Just subtract these items from your total spend (unless you *want* to cover these within your grocery budget).

What categories you use is completely up to you. I also have a category for “hospitality” where I allow extra money to accumulate and be spent when we have friends coming over.

What about TAKE AWAY? Do you include that in your grocery budget? Some people don’t have a separate category for their take away spending. They work on the principal of “if there’s anything left in the grocery cash at the end of the week, we’ll use it for take away”. Like I said, we’re all different and you have to do what works best for you.

Here’s why I DON’T do that. I find that the best way to get the *most* out of my grocery $$ is by NOT spending the same amount each week. Some weeks I’ll spend $25 and other weeks I might spend $200. Part of that is because of my location and the way I shop. BUT, I do tend to find that some weeks a LOT of what we eat is on special when other weeks very little is on special. Particularly when it comes to meat. If on the weeks I only spent $25 on groceries, we then spent the remainder of our budget on take away, that extra money wouldn’t be there to stock up in the weeks when LOTS of stuff is on special. Does that make sense?

We nearly always eat out of the cupboard and freezer and my shopping then replaces those items. It would be really easy to *blow* money on take away that we really *couldn’t* afford and then I’d be left with an empty pantry and be *forced* to pay a higher price for things. That can be a very nasty spiral. You get less for your money. Then you get frustrated and depressed and buy take away as a bit of an “escape”….. and so the spiral continues.

I am NOT advocating buying no take away. I just personally prefer to have a separate budget for our take away and to keep this cash separate. No cash=no take away.

Well, if you’ve made it this far you can probably see why I’ve decided to do this series in parts. Here’s a bit of a summary:

BE OPEN - to new ideas and the fact that you CAN reduce your grocery budget if you want to.

BE HONEST - you don’t have to show anyone else your spending figures. But be prepared to face up to them yourself.

BE REAL - if you only spend $25 this week on groceries, you *know* that it hasn’t *really* cost you that little. You’re eating off reserves you’ve paid for in the past. Great idea, just make allowances for the need to replace that food at some point in the future.

BE DISCIPLINED - yeah, I know it’s *almost* a swear word. LOL. We’re not born with discipline (just ask my high school maths teachers lol). It comes with practise. Believe me, a few minutes here and there of keeping track of what you spend could add up to hours of work you don’t have to do in order to earn the money being wasted (or could add up to that holiday you’ve always wanted to take….or new shoes…..or *add your passion here*……..)

STAY TUNED - I’ll post my next instalment on reducing the grocery budget next Friday.

In the meantime, keep a record of what you spend on groceries over the next week and break it down into categories. Just try it for 1 week…. For me? LOL. (I need a little puppy dog face emoticon to go here lol).

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I was trying to work out how many days this month had this morning over breakfast and couldn’t remember if we were coming to the end of August or September. LOL. Maybe this year is passing a little too quickly for me.

I know I’m no longer focusing on my grocery challenge but I wanted to blog about my grocery spending this month anyway. It has turned out to be quite an interesting month.

I was a little alarmed when I got about half way through the month and discovered that I had already spent nearly $300. I figured finishing my challenge was going to result in a reasonable blow-out in our grocery spending.

Well, I have just added up my total grocery spending for the month and it comes to $364.90!!!!! I think that might actually be my lowest total so far this year. So, go figure??????

What happened was that I did a bit of a stock up early in the month when I had an opportunity to (including $50 of fruit and veg). For the last 2 weeks I have only needed to do much smaller shops.

That total also includes $10 that I spent on Tim Tams for the teachers at my kids school (a little thank you for their efforts putting together the school festival recently).

So there you go! An unexpected yet welcome outcome. Perhaps I have made new habits when it comes to what we buy at the grocery store. I will continue to track my grocery spending (as I do all my spending) and see what happens in the upcoming months. It will be interesting to see.

Well it’s getting to that time of the month again and I’ve been a bit slack with keeping my records up to date. So today is the day to get everything entered into my spending book and work out where I’m up to.

August has been a bit of a “spend up” month for me in the area of groceries. I’m not hugely worried about it and some of it was expected due to my low spending in July. One thing I’ve noticed though, is the number of packets of biscuits that I’ve bought. At a rough count up, I’ve bought 23 packets of biscuits this month. LOL. That’s a lot for me as I usually bake my own. Some of those have been due to very good prices, especially on those flavoured savoury biscuits (which I don’t make myself). At the moment the cupboard is well stocked with biscuits. And some of those are *hiding* in a box on the top shelf so they’ll last a little while.

I also bought 4 tubs of ice cream this month as they were a good price. That didn’t end up being the best of ideas though as DH saw all this ice cream and all of a sudden we were going through it a rapid pace. I’ll have to hide some if I want to stock up another time. LOL.

Here’s where the tally stands at the moment:

August so far: $496.08
July was $302.29 then I did a bulk buy at the butchers early in August (not included in the August tally as it was supposed to be in July) of $65.12

In order to stay under my $100 a week average spend I need to keep my combined spending for July and August to under $900. So far the total stands at $863.49 leaving me $36.51 for this week.

So providing I spend under $36.51 this week, I’ve achieved my goal. If I can do that even with my biscuit and ice cream blow out, I’ll be very happy. Given the fridge, freezer and cupboard are all full, there’s no reason why I won’t be able to keep the grocery spend to under that amount this week (just 1 shopping day left for the month).

It’s been a funny month for discussions on groceries. I keep a bit of an eye on how DH is feeling about what foods I’m buying etc as this challenge is really a *choice* challenge rather than a * necessity* challenge and I don’t want to continue it if DH is feeling at all “deprived” or frustrated with what foods I’m buying. Usually he’s pretty easy to keep happy.

A couple of weeks ago, DH was teasing me about the fact that I NEVER wanted to fill up our pantry cupboard. When we moved into this house, I had 4 boxes of pantry staples to move (despite my efforts to use them up before we moved lol) and when I unpacked them into the pantry cupboard the cupboard still looked empty. I knew that if I were to ever fill the cupboard, that would be a LOT of food. And yes… most of the time that cupboard is full! LOL. So every now and then DH likes to have a dig at me about the amount of food I keep on hand.

The thing is, he turned around a week or so later and told me that we were out of EVERYTHING. Of course, I just laughed at him for contradicting himself. Obviously I’m not the only one in this family with a tendency to exaggerate slightly. We were out of promite, peanut butter, spaghetti and baked beans and almost out of honey, vegemite and tomato sauce. I guess for a bloke that’s used to never running out of anything, it may have felt like we were starting to run out of *everything*. I suspect if we actually DID run out of tomato sauce, I would have had a mutiny on my hands. It’s a major food group in this household. LOL. I wonder if that’s a reflection on my cooking skills? LOL.

I did have everything under control though, knowing I was going to do a “pantry stock” shop over the weekend. Everything is now right with the world. :-)We have a BIG bottle of tomato sauce, promite, vegemite, 3 tubs of peanut butter as well as a number of cans of spaghetti and baked beans.

I have however decided it’s time for a new challenge. My *real* grocery budget is actually $129.23 a week. LOL. I kid you not. I budget monthly so it’s actually $560 a month and it doesn’t quite divide up evenly when you calculate it out to a weekly amount. I’m quite happy with what I’ve achieved. 8 months of averaging $100 or less. I intend to continue to track my grocery spending and will still keep it as low as possible. It just won’t be my “frugal focus”.

I’ve found through my journey into frugality, that I’m most successful with challenging myself if I limit it to one area of our spending at a time. I work on getting spending down in one area and making those changes into a habit. Then I move on to something different. Our spending will tend to go up slightly in an area once it is no longer my focus, but only by a small amount and usually not up to as high as it was before. It works for me and stops me getting overwhelmed. It also makes it into more of a game and therefore I have fun with it rather than seeing it as a *chore* or *deprivation*.

So what will my next challenge be? Well Rhonda over at Down To Earth is currently running an electricity challenge. So I thought I would join in with that for a few months and see how that goes. I’ll post more about my electricity challenge in the next couple of days.

As for the food budget surplus. I intend to skim that off to use for something else. I’ll also blog more about that over the next day or so.