Blog – Page 34 – Grocery Shrink

Spending Freeze Day 15: Food Part 2

By Angela on January 16, 2015

There’s no magic wand for saving money with food. It’s like everything else that matters–it takes hard work, and a little bit of sacrifice to make it happen.

When I give tips such as shop the sales, garden, make more from scratch….The thing I hear a lot is, “I don’t have time for that.” That’s a statement I relate to and get frustrated about at the same time. I have 6 kids. They play violin and piano. They do sports and ballet class. I work 4 part time jobs and have a toddler. We volunteer at church. I understand busy.

We all have the same number of hours in the day, and we each get to choose how we spend them. When I hear “I don’t have time for that,” I understand that person to mean, “That is not important to me.”

I usually buy bread instead of make it from scratch. The savings of making over buying bread isn’t high on my priority list with everything else on my plate–even though I understand the health benefits. On the other hand, I do make my own Kombucha and Greek Yogurt. It probably doesn’t make sense to anyone else.

You don’t have to do EVERYTHING the hard way to whittle your budget down to a workable number, but you will have to choose some things. Your hard, won’t be my hard. I don’t do coupons, maybe you do.

The important thing is that you are willing to push up your sleeves and do something to change the direction of your finances. Do what YOU have to do. Your family is counting on you. And the people watching are about to be inspired.

If you had an envelope with $200 cash and knew you had to feed your family with that alone for the month, would they starve? I bet you’d figure it out. What are the first 5 things you’d buy?

(PS $200 is a ridiculously low amount–and I’m not in any way suggesting that is what your budget should be…. I think it’s interesting for arguments sake to think about what we’d do with it. When your survival depends on it, something changes in your brain. Unfathomable things become fathomable.)

My first 5 things: Salt, Dry Beans, Wheat flour, Eggs, & Yeast

My 2nd 5 things: Potatoes, carrots, onions, brown rice, Whole Chickens

Leave what you would buy in the comments :).

Spending Freeze: Day 14

By Angela on January 14, 2015

I’m guest posting over at The Modest Mom today. I first me Caroline when I was a freshman in college and she was Homeschooling with her Mom. It was one of my first introductions to homeschooling and one of the reasons I homeschooled my own children for so long. She has had a lot of positive influence in my life both as a business woman and as a mother. Come visit with me today.

vegetables

Tomorrow, I’m going to start a mini series on shrinking those grocery bills step by step. Today, it’s time to reflect over the last two weeks. Can you believe it? We’ve been in our spending freeze for two whole weeks!

I have to admit that I messed up this week. I was helping my mom shop online for some replacement filters for her vacuum. We found such a great deal that I bought a set for myself too. I totally forgot for the moment that I was in a freeze. (I will use those filters though….)

It has gotten easier for me otherwise. I’ve settled into a nice rhythm staying home and getting more done. We’ve been eating from our pantry and using the lowest cost foods we have. More on that tomorrow.

So tell me about you. Any success stories to tell? Any mess ups? Can you still remember your goal?

Spending Freeze day 15: Food, part one

By Angela on January 13, 2015

The largest adjustable budget category is food. Many families unknowingly overspend every month on food enough to buy a cruise ticket.

Here are my favorite tips to help you start shrinking your grocery bills.

1. Use cash. When the cash is gone you are done spending for the month.

2. Be familiar with using healthy low cost foods in different combinations to form your meals. This would include ingredients like carrots bananas apples oranges in season. frozen vegetables such as peas corn green beans carrot coins, broccoli. and meats like whole roasting chickens chicken breasts and canned tuna. If allowable on your diet whole-grain pasta 100% whole wheat bread brown rice and quinoa are also very affordable choices.

3. Some products are fairly easy and much less expensive to make it home. I’m thinking of products like Greek yogurt, almond milk, bread, pizza crust, pancakes cornbread mix and seasonings.

4. Have a plan for when your schedule doesn’t go like you thought it would. this will save you from having to eat at a restaurant or grabbing fast food instead you can throw together one of the simple meals you already have the ingredients on hand for.

5. Reduce your budget gradually if you can so that you don’t feel the shock of it all in One month.

6. Know what regular prices on food items are. Then you will be able to recognize a really good sale when you see it and can stock up. Only stock up on nonperishable items that you use all the time and only buy enough that you won’t me to buy the item again until it goes on sale again.

7. Be gentle with yourself if your life is fairly stressful you may need to use more of mixes inconvenience and another person and that’s okay you won’t be able to stick with the budget that makes your life miserable.

There has to be more ways to save our there. What is your tip?

Spending Freeze Day 12: Figuring Your Hourly Wage

By Angela on January 12, 2015

Hourly-Wage

When you DIY to save money, you earn an hourly wage. Sometimes that wage is amazing and proves the activity was definitely worth your time. Sometimes the wage is so low it actually cost you more to DIY than it would have to buy it done. It’s an easy formula to figure it out.

1. A = How much it would cost hire or buy it done

2. X=How much time it takes you to do it yourself

3. B=How much the supplies and tools cost you (I don’t count the tools that I already have on hand or would use again in the future.)

4. Y=How much you saved by doing it yourself. A – B = Y

5. X/ Y= your hourly wage

Reader Example:

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Rebecca’s husband’s truck needed repair. The garage estimated $1500-1800 for the job.

He spent $226 and 2 hours to do the work himself, including necessary tools.

He saved $1274-1574 by doing the repair himself.

His hourly wage was $509.60-$629.60

If his hourly wage was less than that on his regular job, it was worth it do the repair himself…In this case it definitely was.

That was a pretty extreme (but real) example.

What about little things like making homemade tortillas? You can read about that here.

Are any of you willing to share an hourly wage you earned recently by DIYing?

Spending Freeze Day 8: Getting Creative

By Angela on January 8, 2015

Having money to spend gives choices. Sometimes having too many choices can make it harder to make a decision. During our spending freeze, we have the ease of few choices :). Example to follow:

We had to take down our Christmas decorations this month. Sniff, sniff. I didn’t get some of them up until December 23rd…..we were kind of slow. So taking them down right away seemed too fast. I wasn’t emotionally ready for Christmas to be over…..

…until I was. Then I imagined red hearts everywhere and thought, “Why not take Christmas down and put some Valentine stuff up?” Never mind that Valentine’s Day is 38 days away, or that we have never decorated for Valentine’s Day before.

Add that we are in a spending freeze and don’t have any decorations from previous years….because we don’t decorate for anything but Christmas.

I smelled a challenge. Not to win a spot in Better Homes and Gardens….bwa ha ha ha….No. What you are about to see definitely doesn’t rise to that level. I just wanted to make the place feel festive for the kids.

I found a foam wreath form that used to have cotton balls hot glued to it. It looked cute on pinterest, but it looked dumb when I did it. So I pulled the cotton balls off and ended up a wreath form covered with hardened glue and fuzz. It was too expensive to throw away and too ugly to sell at a garage sale so I put it in the pile that makes my office look really trashy.

I had a spool of pearl edged burlap ribbon left over from a wedding shower and wrapped the wreath. My plan was to just wrap it up and hang it up…but I ran out of ribbon :(. My first though was to run to the store and grab another spool. At most it was going to be $2…..but spending freeze.

Not enough ribbon….so the remnants of glue and cotton balls still shows.

Aak. So I looked around my office to see if I had anything red. I found some long strips of polar fleece left over from a blanket project.

Without measuring I folded it over to be able to cut a semblance of a square

Rounded the edges

Cut a spiral

And rolled it up (starting with the outside edge) to make roses. At the end, the round part in the middle glued over the bottom to hold it all together. Then I spent about 20 minutes making a bunch of them. It went fast, because I didn’t measure anything. The un-uniformity of it all made a nice effect.

I love how it turned out!

Valentine Entry Wreath

I hung it in my entry over a piece of fake Ikea fur and a couple of candles. This pic doesn’t do it justice…

We found small bits of Valentine candy and thought to make centerpieces out of some Dollar Tree candle glasses I had on hand. But the tiny amount of candy looked stupid. And then the boys ate all the candy. So we tried something else.

Black eyed peas with a votive nestled in. A scrap of burlap ribbon and a hand stitched felt heart. It isn’t what we’ve always dreamed about as far as decorations go but it was 100% from stash and is a little bit festive.

To add to the festive, we added some of the same hearts to our Ikea plants over the stove.

These are my favorite.

If I can find some red construction paper, I’d like to make these.

Spending Freeze Day 7: Time for Reflection

By Angela on January 7, 2015

Look where you’ve been without losing sight of where you’re going.

You’ve made it a whole week in a spending freeze! It’s time to look back and check out your awesomeness.

I learned some stuff about myself in the last 7 days. I thought I was a saver, but I’m a spender. I get a rush from finding a good deal and getting pretty things. It was emotionally harder than I thought it was going to be to turn down a good buy. I had to look for other ways to feel fulfilled–and honestly, telling myself it was only for 31 days helped a lot.

The glitter of pretty things fades for me over time, so if I tell myself to wait 31 days, I probably won’t even care by then. If I still care, It’s probably something truly useful.

So far I’ve spent $4.25 for a head of lettuce, a stick of celery, and supplies for a baby gift. I saved $45 by not spending on sale items that I normally would have snagged. I took back items to a store and got $12 on a gift card–$8 was used for lunch, with $4 left over. My net loss for the month so far is $.25. I’ll need to get groceries at some point and gas. I haven’t done it yet, only because I’m slightly lazy and there are a bunch of other things I’d rather do than leave the house in these frigid temperatures.

Interesting to note: I mentioned last night that I needed to get groceries and oldest daughter said, “Are you sure? Let’s dig in the freezer and scrape the bottom of the pantry.” She’s really INTO this spending freeze and I love that! I pulled a turkey out of the freezer to thaw and roast this week. I love when we take positive steps and our kids are affected it by it.

Now I want to hear about you. Tell me positive experience from the week, what you are saving towards, or something you’ve discovered about yourself.

Autumn Reflection

And another “reflection” picture just because.

P.S. The French Pastry giveaway ends today. There’s still time to enter: French Pastry Giveaway

Divide It Wallet Giveaway

By Angela on January 6, 2015

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For carrying cash in my purse, I prefer not to use real envelopes. Messing with flaps while trying to make change for myself with a bunch of kids and long lines makes me a little crazy.

I’ve been using a coupon organizer like this one for years. I love that I can get to all my categories at once and make change for myself while standing in line. These cheap wallets don’t hold up well, though. I replace mine once a year when it starts to fall apart from lots of use. And it’s annoying when the change falling out through the small holes in the bottom. I usually spend part of my check-out time picking change up off the floor.

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So when I saw Melissa Kaiserman’s verion of the cash wallet, I instantly saw genius. The laminated fabric will hold up over time and resist stains. There are no holes for change to fall out and the sturdy dividers are easy to label for your budget categories. Plus they are adorable.

ATime4Everything Cash Wallet Divideres

I wrote to her telling her what a genius she is and begged her to do a giveaway for us. She said Yes!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

P.S. She also has awesome give, save, spend envelopes for kids:

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Spending Freeze Day 5: Do You Have Enough Categories?

By Angela on January 5, 2015

I’m 100% convinced that cash budgets are THE way to stick to a budget and ultimately save the most money. But that doesn’t mean the first time you try a cash budget, it’s going to work out perfectly.

We slip a note like this to the teller every month. It tells them how many of each type of bill we want for our envelopes. It took us several months to figure out what size bills to put in each category to make it easier at stores like Target or Wal-mart where I spend from more than one category.

One of the mistakes we made in the beginning is not having enough categories. If there’s too much stuff lumped in together there’s not going to be enough money for something. For example, if you have food lumped in with cleaning supplies, kleenex, and shampoo—towards the end of the month, you might not have enough to eat….but your hair will smell good.

Cash envelopes

Stacks of cash ready to be divided up into envelopes.

My husband and I made a video for you of how we divide up our cash envelopes. It gives details on the different categories we have in our envelopes. There are a few categories in our budget which aren’t currently funded. Items like: haircuts and beauty, furniture replacement, and date night. As our income goes up, we will fund them. We have $0 place holders in the budget so we don’t forget.

A lot of our categories aren’t funded as much as we’d like. Every time there’s a change in one bill, other categories are affected. For example, this month our gas bill went way up with the colder temperatures, so we reduced our grocery, vitamin, and clothing categories to make up for it.

Some of our budget categories go into the safe instead of my purse. This allows us to save up during the year until a big bill annual comes. This includes things like soccer fees, summer camp registration, and appliance replacement. If I had this cash in my purse, it’s likely I would spend it on a cute lamp….just keeping real.

Spending Freeze Day 3: You Must Use Cash

By Angela on January 3, 2015

Congratulations! You’ve made it to day 3! So far, I’ve saved $44 on my spending freeze, by not buying what I normally would. How much have you saved? Put your victories in the comments below.

I was tempted to spend even more than $44, but I didn’t count the stuff I probably wouldn’t have ended up buying for real. When I talked myself out of a purchase, I moved the cash from my envelope system straight to my goal envelope for this challenge. It’s like I went ahead and spent them money, but instead of getting “stuff” it’s going towards what is really important to us.

Here’s the deal, if you aren’t using cash for your basic spending, it’s nearly impossible to keep track of your budget. We’ve tried it lots of other ways. Like putting it all on credit card so we had a trail (and paying it off at the end of the month) or using debit/credit cards and keeping the receipt to input.

With cash, you instantly see how much is left in your budget. When the cash is gone you are DONE.

Other methods take time before you can see clearly how much money is left in your budget. It takes long enough that you can spend a lot more than you had planned before realizing it. Plus, it’s proven that you spend more overall when sliding plastic than using cash. It’s because you know you will have enough money to get out of the store without embarrassment, but with cash you have to think about it, keep a little running total as you go and often put things back.

I know carrying around cash can be scary at first, but it’s worth it. (Plus if you get robbed you have a better chance of surviving if you have something to give them….)

I’m going to spend the next few days going into more detail about how cash works for us. Do you already use cash? How does it work for you?

Spending Freeze Day 2: Celebrate your Victories

By Angela on January 2, 2015

So how was yesterday?! I’m hoping it was the hardest day of the challenge for me. We had our friends over to spend the night for New Years and it’s our tradition to shop on New Years Day for organizing stuff. She had returns for Target and had never been to Ikea before. Getting to take her to Ikea was like introducing two of my best friends to each other. I was sure that they were going to love each other as much as I loved them. It was perfect.

Throughout our day, I worked through a lot of temptations. I’ve been in denial about how much I love to spend money and get new things. If it’s a good deal, all the better. Saving money erases some of the guilt. Case in point: I really wanted a brass garden table. It was real metal, a cool shape and marked down to $30.

I almost bought it. I knew which envelope I could take the cash from, started to load it onto the cart, and then remembered the freeze. Instead, I took a picture. It’s a really great table…for somebody else. When I start to feel sorry for myself, I remember that I have some awesome tree stumps in my garage waiting to become really great side tables. (Update: 3 years later and I never thought about the table again!)

Throughout this Spending Freeze we are going to face a lot of temptations and you deserve credit for resisting them. Here’s what I want you to do. When you see something you are tempted to spend on, would normally spend on if you weren’t in a “freeze,” take a picture of it. Write it down on your victories page. Then move the cash from the envelope you would have spent the money from into your goal envelope. Then leave a blog or facebook comment and tell us about it. You win!

We’ll talk more about cash and envelopes tomorrow 🙂

You can download your victory pdf here: Spending Freeze Victories.

P.S. At Ikea, I returned $12 worth of stuff for store credit. After browsing awhile, we bought a meatball lunch–Heather got the kid size which was free on holiday special. The kid plate was pretty tiny so I shared my meatballs with her. The adult plate is HUGE. There were lots of things I wanted, but I decided I could wait until February. It has been my experience that if I wait awhile most times I don’t even want the item later. I left with $4 more than when we came.