My husband and I recently bought a house, and we’d like to plump up our emergency fund just in case we have a large house expense. (Because, of course, when you have little savings, expensive things start to break. It’s the law of nature, right?)
To inspire myself, I reread America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money by Steve and Annette Economides. One strategy of theirs that I latched onto is once a month shopping. The Economides shop once a month for their family of seven and right after shopping day, they make 15 to 17 freezer meals to help them on nights when they’re too busy to cook.
Alright, I already regularly cook freezer meals, so how hard could it be to shop once a month for my family of five?
As it turns out, very tough, at least the first month.
Breaking Bad Habits
I have a bad habit of making a big shopping trip on the weekend and then running to the store for this or that several times a week.
Do you do this, too? From all of the harried shoppers I see at the store at 5 p.m., I’m guessing I’m not alone.
The problem is that each time I run to the store, I buy more items than I initially went to the store to buy. The Economides recommend once a month shopping to avoid this kind of impulse buying that blows up the grocery budget.
Making the Big Shopping Trip
This month, eager to change my bad shopping habit, I scouted the deals and made my big, once a month shopping trip. I spent two days afterward cooking up meals to put in the freezer. I was set, or so I thought.
Turns out, limiting the impulse to stop by the store is more difficult than I thought.
There are a number of reasons why we’re struggling:
My husband likes fresh fruit and veggies. Our family wiped these out after a week, so back I went to the store to pick up some more.
I’m an impulse eater. If something sounds good to me, I want to make the recipe and have it for dinner. I don’t want to wait until my next monthly shopping trip to get the ingredients to make it. (The whim would have passed by then, which is the point, I guess.)
Eating up odds and ends at the end of the month is not fun. Sure, trying to make meals out of what food is left is fun, but the last few days, most of it doesn’t taste good.
Taking Baby Steps Moving Forward
While it would be easy to give up on the idea of once a month shopping, I haven’t yet because I know it can be a big money saver. Instead, I’m going to back up and move to twice a month shopping. This will allow me time to plan out our meals for two weeks, making sure we have all the ingredients we need. Many fruits and veggies stay good for nearly two weeks, so my husband will have the fresh fruits and veggies that he wants.
I don’t know if I’ll ever fully implement once a month shopping, but if I am successful with twice a month shopping, I will still significantly reduce my impulse shopping trips and improve my grocery budget.
How often do you grocery shop? Are you a multiple trip, impulse buyer like I am (was?), or are you a grocery store ninja?
Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her homeschooling her kids, reading a good book, or cooking. She resides in New York, where she loves the natural beauty of the area.
Comments
Wendy Tomlinsonsays
Hi Melissa, I’m with your husband I love fresh fruit and veg. I tried monthly shopping and ended up always running back and forth to the supermarket for top ups. I know have a weekly on-line shop plus I do a monthly meat shop from my local butcher. This way I only buy what I need each week. Waste has been significantly reduced as well as the monthly spend.
Jason Cabler (@DrCabler)says
I’ve been shopping once a month for years and I love doing it that way. I get paid once a month and decided this would be the most efficient way to spend the money and the time. I’m very busy and don’t want to have to go to the store 3-4 times a month when I can just make one big list and knock it out in 2 hours or so. I do occasionally make a quick trip mid month for milk and fresh fruit, but that only takes about 10 minutes or so.
Lancesays
We do one major shopping trip and then my wife’s budget she set is $20 a week for fruits, veggies and milk. Total per month for our family of three is about $200 sometimes $250. Lots of price matching saves a lot of money.
Gingersays
My husband and I read the same book! We moved to shopping every other week, with runs for deals or fresh fruit in the between weeks and it saved time but not money. But then we tried to stretch it to three weeks and that has saved us some serious cash. I hope it works for you.
Amossays
I usually like having a list of items to buy at the grocery. Its very tempting to keep buying items that are outside your budget.
Maysays
I hate grocery shopping so I could do once a month – but you are right about the fresh produce. Ours barely makes it through the week. I might try it when the kids are older. I think the longest I have made it is two weeks.
Tanyasays
I try to do the once a month trip but we always run out of fresh produce 🙁 We are getting better every month though. Ive been shopping like this for almost 6 months now and every time I feel like I plan it out better each time and save more each month. Going to the store less really does save money.
shanendoahsays
Luckily, we have never been the people that run to the grocery store for just one more item every night. We’ve always been pretty good at getting what we need during our once a week shopping trip, and living without something we forget. (Like this week, C forgot to get me more dried fruit.) But we are impulse buyers while at the grocery store. C will see an ingredient in the fresh fruit/veggies section and decide he wants to make a meal around it, and poof, that’s suddenly a number of items we hadn’t planned on buying. I don’t really mind though. I like trying new foods, and I love having home cooked meals, so letting my husband experiment in the kitchen is a win for me. When we really needed to cut grocery costs, the thing that worked best for us was to stop buying pre-packaged meals (frozen lunches for me, frozen lasagna- because we’re too lazy to make lasagna, etc) for convenience purposes. Instead, we cook large batches when we do cook and have quick and easy convenient leftovers on the nights when we don’t have the time (or energy).
Naomi @ Rising Net Worthsays
In my house shopping once a month would be a definite stretch mainly because of reason #1 like your husband. I will probably shrivel up an die if I didn’t have fresh veggies and fruits in my diet every week. I’m a huge salad eater and currently I have to visit the grocery at least 1 a week to keep everything stocked. It would be nice though to have fresh groceries from the 1st through the 31st on one shopping trip!
Hi Melissa, I’m with your husband I love fresh fruit and veg. I tried monthly shopping and ended up always running back and forth to the supermarket for top ups. I know have a weekly on-line shop plus I do a monthly meat shop from my local butcher. This way I only buy what I need each week. Waste has been significantly reduced as well as the monthly spend.
I’ve been shopping once a month for years and I love doing it that way. I get paid once a month and decided this would be the most efficient way to spend the money and the time. I’m very busy and don’t want to have to go to the store 3-4 times a month when I can just make one big list and knock it out in 2 hours or so. I do occasionally make a quick trip mid month for milk and fresh fruit, but that only takes about 10 minutes or so.
We do one major shopping trip and then my wife’s budget she set is $20 a week for fruits, veggies and milk. Total per month for our family of three is about $200 sometimes $250. Lots of price matching saves a lot of money.
My husband and I read the same book! We moved to shopping every other week, with runs for deals or fresh fruit in the between weeks and it saved time but not money. But then we tried to stretch it to three weeks and that has saved us some serious cash. I hope it works for you.
I usually like having a list of items to buy at the grocery. Its very tempting to keep buying items that are outside your budget.
I hate grocery shopping so I could do once a month – but you are right about the fresh produce. Ours barely makes it through the week. I might try it when the kids are older. I think the longest I have made it is two weeks.
I try to do the once a month trip but we always run out of fresh produce 🙁 We are getting better every month though. Ive been shopping like this for almost 6 months now and every time I feel like I plan it out better each time and save more each month. Going to the store less really does save money.
Luckily, we have never been the people that run to the grocery store for just one more item every night. We’ve always been pretty good at getting what we need during our once a week shopping trip, and living without something we forget. (Like this week, C forgot to get me more dried fruit.)
But we are impulse buyers while at the grocery store. C will see an ingredient in the fresh fruit/veggies section and decide he wants to make a meal around it, and poof, that’s suddenly a number of items we hadn’t planned on buying.
I don’t really mind though. I like trying new foods, and I love having home cooked meals, so letting my husband experiment in the kitchen is a win for me.
When we really needed to cut grocery costs, the thing that worked best for us was to stop buying pre-packaged meals (frozen lunches for me, frozen lasagna- because we’re too lazy to make lasagna, etc) for convenience purposes.
Instead, we cook large batches when we do cook and have quick and easy convenient leftovers on the nights when we don’t have the time (or energy).
In my house shopping once a month would be a definite stretch mainly because of reason #1 like your husband. I will probably shrivel up an die if I didn’t have fresh veggies and fruits in my diet every week. I’m a huge salad eater and currently I have to visit the grocery at least 1 a week to keep everything stocked. It would be nice though to have fresh groceries from the 1st through the 31st on one shopping trip!