(Jeana, your post inspired me but I didn't want to hijack your comments)
Occasionally I do other stuff besides post lovey things about my family. Like eat.
I like to eat.
Eating involves grocery shopping and cooking.
I'm not so much on the grocery shopping, but I'd also rather live in my nice apartment and cook at home than live in a cardboard box and eat out every day. Indoor plumbing has its virtues.
Food is expensive! Shortly after I got my energy back from being pregnant, I decided to really crack down on our grocery expenses. While I was pregnant, my temper and my back didn't allow me to be in a grocery store for longer than about 20 minutes. Seriously, I don't think I posted about how I really hated going to WalMart because of all the people and all the standing up. But it was awful.
Okay, back to the food. Basically, we have determined what can be bought way off brand (Save A Lot) and still taste good, what can be bought off brand (WalMart), and what absolutely has to be name brand. I also like shopping at Save A Lot because it's just plain grocery store. Not a lot of extra frills, not more than 30 people in there at one time, and I can get it done quickly. It also helps that they don't have a shoe section of the store.
By doing this, even without coupons, I figure I've saved about $40-50 a week on our groceries. I don't use coupons because I'm lazy. I might have to shop at 2-3 stores if I decide to honor the Wonder Bread store with my presence, but it is worth it. It's practically worth me not having a part-time job to save as much money as possible by being wise with my groceries, cloth diapering, and breastfeeding. Along with the not driving all over town just to be out of the house.
What do you do to help your family save money? If you already posted about this, please leave me a link in the comments.
11 comments:
We did Financial Peace University!! Love me some Dave Ramsey! Seriously, the budgeting part alone makes it worth it's weight in gold. I've tried to save money millions of times and haven't been successful. With FPU you plan out every single dollar ahead of time (yes you have a misc category for when unseen things come up), use cash and organize a lot of things into envelopes. Totally old school money management but it works. We've saved sooooo much just knowing that we have X amount of dollars for food, etc and that's IT. I've always been a spender so a program that works for yours truly is a miracle hence my compulsive need to shout it from the rooftops. lol! It's had the "tithing effect" for our family. We're more diligent and better stewards and somehow end up with more money even though we now budget categories we didn't before like for clothing, Christmas, etc.
So anyway, my short answer is organization. That's how we save money. ;)
I second Financial Peace! My husband and I did that right after we got married and it has been a huge blessing when we stick to it. There are some things that we do use our credit card for that we know we will pay off at the end of the month (bills we budget in, gas, etc.) to earn some points, but other than that we try to stick to the envelope system.
My other tricks are to find wholesale/closeout stores in your area. I've found half price diapers (for when we're not using cloth), good toilet paper for at least half price, and other items. The key here is to have a plan and not look at the other cheap stuff.
This week I'm going to start some container gardening to save some $$. Check out my blog to see how it goes.
Well, we recently put ourselves on a budget and it has helped tremendously. But here are some things I have done to help us save money: switched to cloth diapers for when we are at home (and sometimes when we are out, but that for another time), started using Baking Soda in our laundry to cut the amount of detergent we use and for stain removal instead of buying stain remover, we also use baking soda on the carpet and other cleaning purposes, peroxide for cleaning hard surfaces and I do use coupons (all though it's a love/hate relationship). When we stick to our budget we save money, but sometimes we go outside the boundaries, so I think we are switching to the envelope system, it's been in conversation for a couple of weeks.
Another way I save money is I don't go to the mall unless dragged there (or we have money), I only go to Babies R Us when it's necessary and I don't go down the Target clearance aisles unless I am looking for something particular. It's easier to save money when I just stay at home. :) Hopefully I won't lose my mind!! :)
We do something pretty similar to the Dave Ramsey thing. Actually... we do the Dave Ramsey thing minus the envelopes. We have a budget that we stick to. We don't charge anything unless we can pay it within 20 days. (This is the 1st month in a long time that we did this and now my husband is picking up some extra money on a side job because of it!) You know me, I'm in school with no hope of finishing with a paying job for a while so we HAVE to stick to this. At the end of the week I look at what we spent and subtract it from our budget. It helps. We just don't like doing the envelope thing because I like having a computer generated report of where every penny goes! And when we use our debit cards it automatically gets catagorized! I think when we know where and who is getting our hard earned money it helps us be more careful.
To save money:
We walk. Gas is expensive.
We starve. Food is a luxury.
We go naked. Who needs clothes?!
Okay, so we don't really live like this. But some days I think we should! :)
Actually, lately I've been trying to think of ways to stretch our income and I think A LOT of it is running errands here, buying foo foo coffee, running into the store "just for milk" and coming out with 25 bucks worth of junk.
As a SAHM sometimes running errands is the only social interaction I have with real people (the ones in the computer don't count) and the foo foo coffee makes it possible for me to get through my day without falling asleep.
So, yeah, I need to start doing better.
Sarah - NO KIDDING. I stay home as often as possible to avoid spending money/using gas, but then when I get around my friends at church I gab their ears off ... because I haven't seen real people that I'm not related to all week long! lol
FPU people - you rock. I've read Dave Ramsey, and I know in theory that it works, but something about it just doesn't click with me. yet. But I can put into practice what I can do from his preachings, and see how that makes my husband's paycheck go further.
I'm not sure who Dave Ramsey is. To help save money I quit my job and and now a stay-at-home mom. (Cuts WAY down on the childcare costs!) We scrimp on groceries (most times), although, like every other good shopper, when we go into Wal*Mart, we tend to come out with more than what was on our list!
Love the Sarah post. Too true!
~Debi
To save money, I only buy what I have written on my grocery list and while I'm shopping, the "non-essential" items go in the childseat area and when I get to the register, I remove one of those items. I also use fresh veggies from my m-i-l's garden (which I'm entitled to for working in) and freeze what I can't use immediately. We also hunt/fish the majority of our meat and then I only buy meat on Wednesdays (@ Kroger) and Sunday afternoons (@ Walmart) which is right before they get their new shipments of meat in our town and thusly have lots of good meat on good clearance!!
OH... sica.. thanks for the meat hints.. that is a new saving technique I didn't know about.. thanks,
Jodi
Great tip about the meat! We love to buy the same deals. One thing I've realized is that shopping at the grocery store saves us money vs. Walmart because there isn't the other stuff tempting me. Also buying what we really will eat instead of getting something that we might because it's on sale. Buying meat in bulk and using the new handi-vac storage bags are good too...just more of my 2 cents worth
I can't say that we save more than the average person on groceries, but the main thing we do save by is buying bulk at Costco. At this "buy in large quantities store" I pay half of what I would at Safeway.
Our garden is growing right now, and I'm super anxious to be eating from it. In the winter I take advatage of farmers market fruit and veggies.
When it comes to the "clothing the kids" aspect. I consign and buy on consignment. Removing stains is well worth it when I know I can sell the stain free item later.
Right now my husband is riding his bicycle to and from work. What a trooper =O) He informed me this AM that he only had to put one tank of gas in his truck this month. It is about a 40 min. ride each way. So sometimes it can be a little much for him. So we've purchased a motorcycle for the rainy and too tired to bicycle days.
Even with all these efforts to save we're still able to spend a lot more than we'd prefer. Just the way it goes. =O)
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