Saving Money at the Supermarket
Instant Gratification. We don't want to work for it. We want someone to do the work for us. We want to save money on groceries, but we don't want to spend any of our time to do it. We're too busy to spend time trying to save a few bucks - we have more important things to do. So and so's budget is only $75 per week - there's no way I can do that.
Stinkin' Thinkin' - as Flylady would say. By the way, I've said all of those things at one time or another!
You can see what is important to you
by how you spend your time.
It takes TIME to figure out how to save money at the store. If you aren't willing to invest the time, then no, you will not be able to save money at the store. I spend a significant amount of time figuring out the best way to feed my family.
People often ask me what I do all day long when I don't have kids at home with me. I spend a lot of time on food. I might be planning meals, shopping for food, ordering food, preparing food, etc. It's important to me - saving money and serving healthy food, therefore I spend a lot of time on it.
I can't save you money at the store. I can give you the tools you need, the information you need, but YOU HAVE TO take responsibility and DO IT!!!
Okay, rant over - now for the helpful part:
- Find the time.
- Write out your goals.
- Break down your receipts to determine how much you are spending on wants vs needs.
Grocery Shopping
After I broke down the grocery budget, I realized that I wouldn't need to spend much every week at the grocery store. I take $20 cash to the store - it's true that $20 doesn't go very far at the store, but it works well for me since our "pantry" is full and I like the challenge!
We have oats, carrots and apples from my Azure Standard order and our freezer is full of fruits, veggies and meat so I don't have to worry about that. Basically I have about $13 for loss leaders/stuff that's on sale/items that we need.
This week bananas were $.39 per pound for "old" bananas. We'll eat a lot of them and then freeze the rest - they are great for smoothies.
- Bananas $4.00
- Oranges $.80
- Asparagus $2.11 (Yikes!!! Pretty sure this is a luxury item...I can definitely get those nutrients elsewhere.)
- Half and Half for yogurt $1.35
- Buttermilk $1.29 trying a new recipe for the family called Oatmeal Muffins
- Whole milk $2.99 for yogurt and recipes
- 1 quart 1% milk for cereal/drinking $1.39 (I just realized that I used to buy 3 gallons a week - what a change!)
- Total with tax: $16
When I don't have very much money to spend, I naturally seem to get better about my spending. I don't want to buy "cheap" things, I want to get the most for my money by buying the best nutrients for my family.
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looks good! And I'm a sucker for asparagus-I could eat it every day if it wasn't so darn expensive!
ReplyDeleteIf you're so worried about your $20, then why bother buying buttermilk?? 1 cup milk + 1 Tbsp vinegar + 5 minutes = buttermilk. I've only been reading your blog for a few days, and I really liked it - but today you sure seem pissed off.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sara! As I ate them for breakfast today, I decided that I could eat asparagus all day long instead of any other food. YUMMY!!!
ReplyDeleteLOL Anon! I re-read my post earlier today and thought wow I must have been crabby when I wrote that post. I was going to change it and I thought, nope - keeping it real. Some times I get crabby!!!
Here's a post about homemade buttermilk I wrote a while back:
http://www.hummingbirdhomemaking.com/2009/11/homemade-pancakeshomemade-buttermilk.html
Now I know why our grocery budget can never be as low as this. Your prices are cheap! A gallon of milk is around $7 here (on sale!), buttermilk is around $3 for a liter and half and half, twice that price. The asparagus, man, that is cheap, cheap, cheap!! If I were lucky, I could get 4 oranges for $2. We paid $1 for three bananas today. So don't bemoan how much you pay because there are people who would LOVE to pay that little. And our tax is 15% here. Feel any better ;). I hope you do because now I'm depressed, lol!! No wonder we're going broke on food. I'll even leave my real name but I am not the anon. person from earlier.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I forgot to answer back about the oats. It was my first time soaking them and they are still in the fridge, lol! I suck at finishing things but I was quite sick all week so that's my excuse ;). So I don't know if they are sour but I should probably cook them soon or they will not be good at all.
Carla - one of my very good friends in Cananda always told me how expensive everything is there.
ReplyDeleteNow with the money conversion, aren't the prices you pay even higher if you look at the exchange rate of the dollar? Or is it the other way around...can't remember what she said!
You hit the nail on the head - most people cannot compare their grocery budgets. They can compare their shopping strategies and see how they can save money. For example, the asparagus. Broccoli is only $1.00/lb vs. $2.00/lb for the asparagus. I believe I compared the nutrients of the two veggies before and found them comparable (haven't done that for a year so I can't remember for sure). I can choose the broccoli or choose the asparagus. After eating the asparagus I think I'll still choose it - YUMMY!!!
I really don't think our prices are high here. But I can still make choices to save us money. Sometimes I choose not to...as long as I realize that I had a choice. Hope that makes sense!
You'll have to let me know about the oats!
The dollars are pretty close but usually ours is worth less meaning we pay more. The worst part of this is groceries are going up an average of 7% more according to the online newspaper today. Can you say hello farmers, lol! Glad I locked in our CSA. We'll probably have to stop drinking milk again and sacrifice other things but like you said, it's all about choices.
ReplyDelete