Lately, I’ve been in an experimental mood. It’s something I get into every now and then: I push myself toward a new goal; I crunch spreadsheets of data; I find new and more creative ways to save money. I’m pretty sure it annoys my wife, but it keeps me entertained and what’s better than entertainment that tries to pay for itself?
Before we bought our new washing machine, I experimented with creating my own laundry detergent. I had wonderful ideas about writing up that experiment, but it failed spectacularly about the same time our washer kicked the bucket. I ended up with a curdled mass of slimy muck instead of a flowing, bubbly detergent. After we installed the new washer, I was unwilling to continue the experiment for fear of damaging our new expensive appliance.
After that, I experimented with saving money by riding my bike to work. Even though I haven’t had the chance to ride as much as I’d like, I believe that experiment was a success. As gas prices push higher every week, my investment will pay larger dividends with each stroke of the pedal.
I followed that with starting my own worm bin so I could throw out less waste and create good dirt for a garden or my potted plants. The worms are still busy eating away in their home and it will be quite a while before I have any results from that experiment. With all the rain filtering through their home, I’ve been able to capture a lot of “worm tea” as a fertilizer boost to my flowers.
Now, I’m interested in reducing our grocery and food budget. With my diet, eating less shouldn’t be an issue, but it’s wastefulness I want to attack most. Recently, I had to add an entire bell pepper to my worm bin because it went moldy in the refrigerator. We bought that bell pepper with grand intentions of turning it into a tasty dish, but in the end it was simply wasted money. That got me looking into our pantry and fridge trying to find ways to cut back or become more efficient.
My first step was to analyze what we’ve spent. Our food expenditures (grocery and eating out) have varied widely over the last 6 months:
- May: $171.11
- Apr: $343.89
- Mar: $518.20
- Feb: $228.11
- Jan: $370.65
- Dec: $350.57
Since we started tracking expenses, we’ve spent nearly $2000 on food - that’s almost 12% of what I brought home in that same period! Apparently we need to cut back more than I thought…
$2000 worth of food in 6 months is roughly $77/week. That’s well within (or maybe even below) the national average, but that number looks a lot worse when you consider that 39% of that expense was from eating out. That equates to a lot of money we could save by just eating out less (which we are trying to do, anyway).
So, starting next week, we’re going to start an experiment to see how low we can safely push that weekly food expense amount. My first goal is $65/week with a long-term goal of $55/week. I know that this will be difficult (considering the rising food prices and the addition of a 2nd child at the end of this year), but, honestly, achieving that first goal could be as simple as not eating out once a week.
There are many ways we could cut back and my wife has already started planning next week’s shopping. She’s pored over this week’s advertisements for all the local grocery and drug stores looking for the best deals and she’s amassed a stack of coupons higher than I’ve ever seen.
I’m really looking forward to this. Not only will we be saving money, but eating smaller meals at home will certainly be healthier and help with my diet. I can’t wait to share the progress and results with you!
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Caveman - I like your thinking! I am trying to attack our budget from every angle including our grocery expenses. Unfortunately, we don’t eat out very much (once every two weeks or so) so I can’t cut that expense anymore. In addition, my oldest son has food allergies so we tend to spend more on specialty items (i.e. soymilk) for him and my wife can’t eat soy right now so we are buying different things for her to eat. I am going to try and use more coupons as the first approach.
Good luck with your experiment!
Wow! You must share your secrets! You’re WAY below the national average already!
I attacked my grocery bill this month too….and the large eating out bill that seems to go hand in hand with it. :)
I didn’t realize we were spending so little already… You have to remember, we’re feeding two adults and one toddler right now. It’s not like we have a pair of teenage boys raiding our pantry daily.
Since my wife does the majority of the shopping as part of her stay-at-home mom work, maybe I can convince her to post about her grocery shopping secrets. One of them I already know: Stock up at Sam’s and fill in some of the gaps at Aldi.
Caveman - We buy about 60% of our grocery items at Aldi. They are right on my way home from work so I stop about twice a week to stock up on items. I find that there produce can be great or really really bad depending on the day.
My best tool is my handy-dandy price book. I learned it from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. By tracking the absolute lowest unit price you have paid for a grocery item, you can determine if a sale or coupon is actually saving you any money. For example, I rarely pay more than .10 per ounce for cold cereal and I never pay more than .15 per ounce. I’m currently in the process of converting my tattered notebook into a spreadsheet. If you don’t have The Complete Tightwad Gazette, it is my frugality bible! I look forward to hearing about your experiment!
One of my tricks to save money on food is to buy as little as possible. I went through the stock up the pantry phase for a while but found it only pushed my average bill up. This happened to co-insided with me being car less. When you have to shop by bicycle you really really think about what you need. I also plan and shop to cook one large meal per week. Usually makes 6-8 portions which can be eaten during the week.
HI! I spend about $30 a week for 1 adult and 4 kids (ages 3, 5, 5, & 10.) This is for all breakfast’s, lunches, & two snacks a day. Dinners we eat at church one night a week, and my mom’s one night a week. The rest dinners I cook at home. I do cook alot from scratch, and shop ALDI for cheap food.
My kids all do not eat too much, so dinner can be hot dogs ($1), rolls($1), and salad($3). Then we still have like 2 hot dogs and salad for someone’s lunch the next
day. I do serve milk to the kids with at least two meals a day since it is healthy. We also eat veggies & fruit daily (fresh, canned, & frozen.)
I also do angel tree, it is $30 a month for about $60-$70 worth of food. Anyone can do it, look it up online to see if a church near you is a distrubution site. They have menu online every month. It is alot of stuff that kids eat! -Becky in NJ