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.
There are plenty of ways to save on a daily basis–clipping coupons, resisting the urge to buy something, packing your lunch instead of eating out, etc. There are many ways to live a more frugal life, and chances are, you incorporate the ways that are easy. You know, the ones that don’t cause you to change your lifestyle much. Things like giving up cable and getting streaming through your Xbox instead. That’s fairly easy and doesn’t change your lifestyle.
Another easy way to save that doesn’t change your lifestyle is to ask for discounts. Have you tried it?
Asking is surprisingly easy, and even more surprising is how often you actually get the discount. You just have to get up the nerve to ask the first time; once someone says yes, you’ll gain confidence, and it’ll be easier to ask next time.
Want proof that asking is as easy as I say?
Credit Card Fees
A few years ago, I made an online payment to my credit card on the day it was due, which was a Saturday. The web stated that any payment made on the weekend wouldn’t post until the next business day. Yep, my on time payment was counted late, and I was charged a $25 late fee.
I called the company and asked them to remove the late charge. They did immediately. Why? Two reasons. First, I asked. Second, I never make late payments, so they rewarded my good payment history by removing the late payment. I’ve had this happen to me 3 times in about 10 years of credit card usage. Each time I called and they removed the charge.
Credit Card Interest
We’re paying down debt, and one thing that slowed our progress was our credit card APR of 13.99%. I called to ask to have the rate reduced. I had to talk to a supervisor, but she lowered our rate to 9.99%, and she gave me enough reward points to cover the cost of our annual fee. I saved a few hundred dollars right there in about 10 minutes, just by asking. (But when I got an offer to move my balance to a 0% APR card a few months later, you better believe I did it.)
Grocery Store Purchases
Asking for discounts isn’t limited to credit cards. If I see something at the grocery store that is at the sell by date, I’ll ask someone in that department to discount it. I’m only successful here about 50% of the time, but still, that’s half the time that I save more than I would if I hadn’t asked!
Garage Sales & Craigslist
I love shopping garage sales in the summertime. If things are already priced dirt cheap, I don’t haggle, but if the price is too expensive, I have no problem asking for a lower price. Most of the time people will say yes because they just want to get rid of their stuff.
Likewise, people on Craigslist expect you to ask for a lower price than they have listed. Just don’t get ridiculous with the amount you ask. That can be insulting for the seller and usually won’t lead to a deal.
These are just a few examples of how I’ve saved by asking for a discount. However, any time I think asking might lead to a discount, I ask.
What was your most successful discount you got just by asking?
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.
With the recent changes in my employment, it’s become pretty darn important for us to not only keep to our budget, but to reduce our budget as much as we can in order to keep from sending our finances into the whirlpool of red ink that is broke.
One of the ways that we’ve got to cut back, because of the time of year, is in our Christmas present shopping. We’ve already come to the agreement with our extended family that we wouldn’t be exchanging presents with them. However, with the wonderful consumerism myth that is Santa Claus, it’s a bit more difficult to completely cut off the kids from any presents whatsoever. With that in mind, we decided that we’d still be getting the kids a few things, but would have to take advantage of as many great deals and coupons as we possibly could. And, you all know what that means.
As a general rule, I avoid the masses of people that throng to the Black Friday specials. I don’t have the patience for all those people rushing around the aisles, searching for that one last electronic door buster special, or digging through the mountain of cheap DVDs in the middle of the aisle. But, when you’ve got to save some money, sometimes you’ve gotta take a few risks. 😉 Late Thursday night, after all the turkey had been eaten, we went through the flyers for the stores and decided on a few things that we should pick up to give to the kids.
Luckily, for us, our kids are still young enough that they are satisfied more by quantity, than by amount, so it’s easy for us to buy a few bundled items and pack them individually and still come away with as much present opening satisfaction as we would have otherwise.
We took the tips that I wrote a week or so ago, and put them to good use. We went into the day with a detailed idea of what it was we were looking for, and where we were looking for it. We had a list of what we wanted to get, and a budget to spend on that list. If the stores were out of something, we didn’t substitute with the similar, more expensive, item that was conveniently set up next to the empty shelves.
And, we conquered Black Friday. We stuck to our list, only buying one extra item. We not only kept to our budget, but we beat it! When we were done with our busy morning of shopping, we had everything on our list, and we’d spent less than $150! Christmas will be a little lighter under the tree than it has been in previous years, but I’m pretty sure the kids will be happy with it, and we’ll all have a great time, like usual.
Now, we just have to avoid the impulse purchases that will come today in all the Cyber Monday emails and ads, and we’ll be all set. 😉 But, we conquered Black Friday, and that’s something!
How did you all do this Black Friday? Did you go out and shop with the masses? Did you stay home and polish off the turkey leftovers?
I started this blog to share what I know and what I was learning about personal finance. Along the way I’ve met and found many blogging friends. Please feel free to connect with me on the Beating Broke accounts: Twitter and Facebook.
