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?
We’re deep into the hot summer months. Air conditioners across the country are doing overtime keeping our homes and businesses cool and comfortable and keeping the heat outside. Unfortunately, it won’t be that much longer before we’re turning on the heat and repelling the cold of winter. All of that comfortable air, hot or cold, comes with a cost. Sometimes you’ve got to do what you can to find whatever energy savings you can.
Here in the northlands of North Dakota, we’ve got plenty of options for powering our air conditioners and furnaces. Predominately, we use natural gas for heat and electricity for the air conditioning, but also have options for dual gas/electricity appliances. Our house uses electricity for AC and gas for the furnace.
If you’re looking for energy savings, comparing services is a great place to start, but there are some other ways that you can help cut the cost of your energy and make it’s impact on your wallet a little lighter.
Adjust the temperature
Adjusting the temperature on the thermostat a few degrees can reduce the amount of time that the air conditioner runs in the summer or the furnace runs in the winter. Turn the thermostat up a few degrees in the summer and use some small fans to help move the air around to adjust the comfort level. Do the opposite in the winter. Turn the thermostat down a few degrees and use blankets and heavier clothing to help adjust your comfort level.
Invest in thermal shades
Even if you have a really efficient home, you’ll still lose thermal mass. And the biggest culprit for that is your windows. Investing in thermal shades and blinds can help keep the heat out in the summer and the cold out in the winter. They’re more expensive, but unless you’re redecorating your house every year, they’ll last years and make up for the added cost in energy savings.
Program your energy savings
Does it matter to you if your house stays nice and cool during the summer while your at work? Or nice and warm in the winter? If we’re honest, we really only want our house warm or cold when we’re there. If the house is empty for 8 hours or more a day, there’s really no reason to waste all that energy while we’re gone. Buying and installing a programmable thermostat is the best way to be able to adjust the temperature while your away and still assure that your house is comfortable when you return for the day. Set a schedule to adjust the temperature up or down by 5-10 degrees while your out of the house (or sleeping) and to return to your “comfortable” temperature just before you return home.
Spread the cost out
Once you’ve maximized the full energy savings potential, you still won’t be left without any energy costs. There’s still going to be a bill showing up each month that will need paying. If you’ve got one energy supply feeding your air conditioner in the summer and another feeding your furnace in the winter, like I do, chances are your bills will spike during the hottest and coldest months of the year. Most utilities will have some sort of payment system that will allow for you to pay an even amount each month. We’ve got both our electricity and gas accounts on such a program. We pay a relatively flat rate each month to each utility, and avoid paying large bills during the extremes of the seasons.
What other ways do you employ to create energy savings for your household or business?
A few months ago, I went grocery shopping in the morning on the first of the month, and I couldn’t believe how crowded it was. After all, it wasn’t a Saturday morning when the usual grocery shopping rush occurs, but a Wednesday morning.
I waited in line to pay for over 20 minutes. When I asked the cashier what was going on, she said that it was the first of the month, so many people’s SNAP benefits had just replenished. These people were stocking up after possibly having had very little to eat at the end of the month when they were out of funds.
This phenomenon is not unusual. Many people who are living on a tight budget (with or without receiving SNAP), after scrimping and doing without for the last 10 to 14 days of the month, are happy to go shopping and stock up. The problem is that this stock up can consume most of their food budget, and the cycle starts all over again.
I mentioned in my last post that my family is experiencing a period of low income and a tight budget. Luckily, I don’t foresee this situation remaining stagnant for years. Within another year or two, my husband will be eligible to apply for a much better job, and as my kids grow up and become more self-sufficient, I should have more time to grow my freelance business.
However, for now, we sometimes run into this feast or famine pattern. In our high cost of living area, we budget $700 a month for groceries for our family of 5. (We have food intolerances including beans, gluten, dairy, and eggs, so we have to eat a special diet.) The last week of the month, we’re eating an odd mix of foods, and we don’t have as many fruits and vegetables as we’d like.
Spend the Same Amount Every Day to Avoid Feast and Famine
I’ve been researching different strategies to help with our grocery budget. One that I found is rather basic–determine how much you can spend per day on groceries. For instance, in February, we can spend $25 a day on groceries ($700 divided by 28 days), while in May, we can only spend $22.58 per day.
If I’ve not been to the grocery store for 6 days, I’ll theoretically have $135.48 to spend on that trip, based on a 31 day month.
Using this pattern, I can avoid the feast or famine food cycle by making sure I have enough grocery money, even at the end of the month.
Drawbacks to Spending the Same Amount Every Day
The biggest drawback I see to spending the same amount every day is that there is not much flexibility to take advantage of sales. For instance, if I normally buy ground turkey for $2.95 a pound, but it’s on sale for $2.45 a pound, I should stock up. Maybe I’d buy 25 pounds at this discounted rate. That right there would cost me $61.25, or almost half of my weekly budget.
However, it would save me $12.50 on ground turkey, and the stock would last us a few months.
While spending the same amount every day helps even out the feast or famine cycle, it may not be the best way to stretch your grocery dollars. Instead, I prefer to buy on sale in bulk so I pay less and get more food, even if it means at the end of the month, each meal with meat has ground turkey in it.
How do you handle your grocery budget? Do you set a fixed amount to spend each week, or do you set a fixed amount for the month so you can take advantage of sales?
