Reducing the Grocery Budget - Meat

This post is part of a series I'm writing on how we reduced our grocery budget by approximately $3000 a year. If you haven't already read them, you might like to review the earlier posts:

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Two
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Three
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Four


My DH is a man who likes his meat. I'm sure that's a scenario many of you are familiar with. If truth be told, I quite like my meat too. Although, as a teenager I *hated* meat. If my parents had let me eat vegetarian, I would have. The problem was (and still is) that I NEED to eat a reasonably high protein and high iron diet. For a long time, these were the excuses I used to not even contemplate changing the amount I was spending on meat.

If you're faced with family members who are not 100% behind your efforts to reduce the grocery budget, please move SLOWLY with this. I know I've said it before but it's really important to have a long term view when it comes to reducing your grocery spending. Those tiny baby steps, if you keep at it, will start to yield results.

Now the first thing I did when I wanted to reduce our meat consumption was to very gradually increase the number of vegetables we were consuming with our evening meal. Again, I had to do this carefully and slowly to avoid being faced with a revolt (led my DH of course lol) at the dinner table.

I've always been someone who enjoys eating vegetables but when I met my DH his repertoire of vegetables he would eat willingly included potato, carrot, peas and corn. Full stop! He is a LOT better now and I think it helps that I don't boil the bejeebiz out of anything I cook. :-)

I'm telling you all of this simply to say that I know change isn't easy to achieve - which is why it's important to make any changes you want to make very slowly. Over time I gradually increased the portions of vegetables on the plate and reduced the portion of meat. This was as much to benefit our health as our bank balance but it was nice that the two things went hand in hand.

One thing DH and I noticed over time was that as we ate less meat (and consequently ate more vegetables) we weren't looking to eat as much meat. It was like the more we ate, the more we wanted but as our bodies adjusted to a slightly healthier diet, it no longer was looking for the larger portions of meat.

I now work on 2 green and 2 orange/yellow vegetables per meal and we're slowly getting around to adding a purple/red variety (which will usually replace one of the other coloured vegetables). Including potato, the "norm" in our house is a variety of 5 different vegetables per meal.

Another thing I did during this stage of attempting to reduce our grocery budget was to set myself a "limit" for our meat. I started with $5 per meal. This was supposed to be an average figure and therefore allowed me to spend around $35 per week or around $150 per month on meat. The good thing about having a figure like this is that it gives you a guage. So for instance, if you buy a roast that costs you $10 then you *know* you need to get 2 meals out of that roast in order to make it fit within your budget.

Initially, as I said, I was working on an "average" figure of $5 so spending slightly more than $5 on a meal of meat sometimes wasn't really a problem. I did however, challenge myself to spend under that $5 limit as often as possible. Once I began to do that, any meals which cost me under the $5 started to actually save us money.

Once I had a handle on that (remember, still taking one small step at a time here), the challenge became to see if I could get us the occasional "free" meal. For instance, could I make $10 worth of chicken breasts do us 3 meals instead of 2? Every time I managed to get us 3 meals for $10, we were essentially eating "free" for 1 meal. I found these kinds of challenges quite fun. If you can tackle the grocery budget from a "fun" angle, you're much more likely to be successful over the long term.

I think it comes back a bit to the "game" mentality. Setting small challenges and seeing what you're actually capable of. You might start off by only knocking $1 per week off your meat spending but if you play that game 10 times, you've suddenly knocked $10 per week off your budget/spending.

Another thing I did was start to buy 2.5 times the amount of meat I would usually use for a meal and make that stretch for 3 meals. This is one of the ways where buying meat in bulk amounts can really help. Say chicken breasts are on special, you buy up a number of packs and then sort them all at once. By shaving just a small amount from what you'd usually use per meal, you can end up with a couple of free meals without hardly noticing it. You've taken advantage of a good price but you've also taken advantage of being able to take lots of small "bits" and turn them into enough for an extra meal. When you buy only one meals worth at a time, it's harder to do this (doable but harder).

MENU PLANNING

When I first began menu planning I found it hard to get my head around WHY it seemed to reduce my grocery spending. I couldn't deny the fact that it did but I didn't understand HOW it did. Spending on meat is one category that can really benefit from menu planning. You do need to be a little bit deliberate about what you're doing when you menu plan though.

If your family has a favourite meal that is rather expensive, you don't have to strike it from the menu. But what about spreading out how often you have it. If you tend to have 1 expensive meat meal per week, can you stretch it so that you're only having 1 a fortnight. OR, if you really want to have that more expensive meal once a week, what can you do on another night to compensate for the extra cost? By having a plan you can really see what you're doing and look to change the patterns a little.

I'll give you an example here. We decided that for the sake of our health we really needed to make eating more fish a higher priority. This is a real challenge for the budget conscious as fish is one of the most expensive meats to buy. How I compensate for this is to alternate our fresh fish with canned tuna and also generic brand "cardboard" frozen fish. I get 3 meals of fish for under $3 and I know then I'm able to spend the extra few $$ on a meal of fresh fish once every 4 weeks. By looking at the overall picture, you can balance the scales a little.

Another thing I do with our menu plan is to plan at LEAST 1 frugal meal per week. We actually tend to have 2 frugal meals per week because Sunday nights is a fairly easy meal and tends to naturally fall under the "frugal" category (toasted sandwhiches, pancakes etc). Thursdays I try to plan a "low meat" meal. To begin with, I was trying several vegetarian recipes in an effort to reduce our meat consumption. One of the things I tried was vegetable lentil loaf . In the end DH decided that it would be much better if it had meat in it. LOL.

So I don't even attempt to make vegetarian meals anymore. I perservered for quite some time with various recipes but it just wasn't working out well for us. I decided that it was more important that we enjoy eating than achieve "vegetarian meal" status. Instead, I worked on having more "low meat" meals. If we eat 2 "low meat" meals instead of 1 regular meat serve and 1 "no meat" serve, the overall effect is the same really.

BACON is one of my best friends. I can add $1 or less of bacon pieces to a meal and that qualifies it as "having meat". LOL. Approximately every 6-8 weeks I purchase 1kg of bacon pieces and that will usually do us 6 or more meals. It's really a great stretcher in that you can get quite a reasonable amount of flavour from a very small amount. Sure, it's not the healthiest of meats, but I think I balance that out okay by not using very much.

WHAT ABOUT HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS?

This is a tricky one. Healthier cuts of meat do tend to cost more. Eating less meat per meal is definitely a healthy alternative so that's one solution.

Healthier mince (I think that's ground beef in the US?) is one product that many people will insist on paying more for. I hate buying mince because it is so hard to really tell what you're paying for. How do you really know that they "heart smart" mince is really any better than the "budget" mince? I prefer to make my own. If you have a food processor, it really is quite easy. I purchase budget roast beef when it's on sale for $5.99 per kg then dice it up and throw it into the food processor. That way I know exactly what is in what we're eating and it's reasonably low fat (I trim the small amount of fat from the outside of the roast first). Even with having to trim off a bit of fat, it's still costing me quite a lot LESS than the $12+ per kg charged for the "leaner" types of meat.

I also prefer to add my own additives to meat rather than buying things where they've been already added. Make up your own chicken or beef patties. It does take a little bit of trial and error to work out how your family like them but it's so worth it. Unfortunately I'm a "fly by the seat of my pants" type cook so it's hard for me to share with you what I do. One thing I do know is that over time I've been adding more and more vegetables to my meat patties and I think we like them more that way than when they were mostly meat.

Get aquainted (if you're not already) with beans and lentils. It's amazing what these can be added to. They're a fantastic source of protein and soooo cheap. I have sourced a place where they are almost half the price of what supermarkets charge so keep your eyes open (or do a search) for wholesalers, health food shops etc that might sell these types of things in larger quantities for a similar price to what supermarkets charge for a small bag. Dried is HEAPS cheaper than the tinned varieties. I simply soak a whole lot at once and then freeze them. All I need to do then is throw them in the slow cooker when I'm ready to use (don't forget though that kidney beans MUST be boiled to destroy something in them that our bodies react to). I do, however, keep some tins on hand as I figure it's still cheaper to use the tinned variety when necessary than to not use them at all.

I use beans and lentils in soups, casseroles, pie fillings, spaghetti bolognese, meat loaf/lentil loaf, patties, salads, on pizza.....they're pretty versatile really and it's just a matter of experimenting with the many ways they can be used. You're only limited by your own imagination! Just try not to get too carried away and add HEAPS the first time. I've found it's better to go slowly, slowly, adding more each time so the family gets used to the texture and their presence.

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

I hope you've gotten the message by now that I think the best way to tackle any aspect of your grocery budget is to make the changes very gradual. :-) If not, I'll repeat myself. Take it very slowly. What's the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day?" LOL.

I'm going to use my spaghetti bolognese "recipe" (sorry, don't get excited cos there is no recipe) to show you what I mean here.

How did I used to make spaghetti bolognese? 500g of mince (let's use an average figure of $4) and a bottle of pasta sauce ($3). Total cost per meal for the sauce part of $7 per meal.

Let's assume I buy the mince on sale ($3) and the pasta sauce either generic brand or on sale ($2). My sauce has now cost me $5 and I have an extra $2 in my pocket.

Now I learnt from my friend that spaghetti bolognese tastes nicer with a "fresher" taste of tomato so instead of using the sauce I now use a large tin of tomatoes (85c) plus add a grated carrot and a few onion flakes (15c). Sauce has now cost me $4 and I have $3 in my pocket.

Playing around and experimenting, I figure out that if I add a few red lentils (20c), plus a few extra vegetables (50c) I can actually stretch my 500g of mince over 2 meals. So I spend $4 (from last figures) and add 70c to that so $4.70 for 2 meals or $2.35 per meal. I now have $4.65 per meal in my pocket.

Gradually going through the process of adding bits and pieces like lentils, beans, more vegies and so on and I eventually stretched that 500g of mince to 3 meals. Because of the beans and lentils, the protein value is still there, the fat level is lower, the nutritional level is higher and the cost is lower. It's a win-win situation all round.

Last night I made up a batch of bolognese sauce in the slow cooker. I'm guestimating that I ended up with at least 4 litres by the time I had finished. That will do us 4-5 meals. I use it for spaghetti bolognese, lasagne and tacos mainly.

500g premium homemade mince ($3)
soaked beans from freezer (30c)
red lentils (20c)
800g generic tomatoes (85c)
bottle passatta (90c)
few blobs tomato paste (20c)
couple handfuls oats to thicken (10c)
minced garlic (10c)
chopped shallots (garden - negligable cost)
parsley (garden - negligable cost)
bag frozen spinach (garden - negligable cost)
bag grated carrot (would have gone to waste if I hadn't grated and frozen from a bulk lot so really negligable cost but let's say 10c)
bag grated zucchini (given to me during summer - free)
diced frozen capsicum (10c)

I think I've remembered everything. Total cost $5.85 divided over 5 meals $1.17 per meal. I now have in my pocket $5.83 per meal for the sauce portion. Even if I only manage to get 4 meals from it, the cost per meal works out to $1.46 - a great improvement on $7.00!

Had I gone directly from the meat plus bottled sauce version - I don't think anybody would have liked it and I suspect the dog would have had a feast. By making the changes slowly, we've had much more success. Admittedly my DS made a comment last night about how ours is different from everyone else's because we don't have big lumps of meat. I was able to point out to him several pieces of meat at least. LOL. It didn't stop him eating it. In fact, there wasn't a scrap wasted and the kids ate in record time. DH commented how that it was the best I'd made so far. :-)

BULK BUYING

I could list off a heap of tips here about bulk buying, buying marked down meat etc but it's hard because everyone's situation is different and the resources you have around you will be different. I very rarely get to purchase marked down meat because we don't live near large supermarkets and our local supermarket doesn't do a lot of mark downs. Also, I'd need to do an extra trip into town on a Saturday to have any chance of finding any so the petrol costs would outweigh the benefits. Some of you may be able to take advantage of that as a way of saving costs.

Bulk buying can be a good way to purchase meat cheaper but it is important that you're clear on what you're getting for your money. For instance, when I purchase a 1/2 cow direct from the butcher, his quoted price per kilo is for before the beast is cut up. So I pay for around 90kg at that rate but only end up with 60kg. My $4.50 per kg is really the equivalent of $6.75 from the supermarket shelf. So it's important to be clear on what the quoted price is for.

I have purchased a 1/2 cow a couple of times and split it with a friend so we take 1/4 each. Just be aware that even 1/4 of a cow is a LOT of meat. One of the temptations when you have a large amount of meat like that on hand is to eat MORE meat and discount any savings. I guess it's a matter of coming up with a method that's going to work for you.

If you use a butcher, it might be worth asking what they can do for you. They might do up bulk packs with a variety of items in them as a deal for you. It certainly doesn't cost anything to ask. It is important though to know your figures as a lot of those packs use a combination of cheaper items like sausages and rissoles with fillers in them to make the pack look more attractive.

APPEARANCES ARE EVERYTHING

One of the great ways to reduce the actual serving size of meat is to consider how it appears on the plate. Fill the plate with a variety of different coloured vegetables and smaller meat portions don't look quite so obvious.

You might have guessed that we tend to be a "meat and veg" type family. We do eat a few "all in together" type meals but they are a smaller proportion of what we have. Those of you who do a lot of stir frys and casseroles or curries and that type of thing will possibly already consume much smaller amounts of meat. They are a great way to stretch the meat portion of a meal without it looking too obvious.

The hardest thing I think I find about all the tips and ideas out there is wading through to find the ones that will work for my family.

But regardless of what you eat, considering how a plate or bowl looks can go a long way toward how satisfied everyone will feel with what you're serving.

There are many other ways that make meat look like more than it is. My favourite is to add sauces. This is particularly good for leftover roasts and corned beef. My kids love to have leftovers cut up and served in a sauce or gravy and I find we need less meat for a meal of this style. Sauces can make a small amout of meat look like quite a generous serving.

Sometimes meat on the bone can work out cheaper than meat without bones if you're looking at a "per meal" basis. From what I can work out, the value for money in terms of actual meat you get may not actually be there. But by serving the meat still on the bone, it takes up more room on the plate and therefore can give the "appearance" of more meat.

Like I said before, the list of ideas can be endless and it really does depend greatly on your own personal situation as to what will and won't work well for you. I hope this has given you at least a bit of a glimpse into what I've done. I know these few ideas have made quite a substantial difference to our grocery bill over time.

What sort of things do you do to reduce the amount you spend on meat? Perhaps you'd like to share them with everyone in the comments section.

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Four

I actually feel like a bit of a fraud posting on reducing the grocery budget at this time of year. I tend to find myself a little tempted and waylaid by all the fancy goodies the stores have out. LOL. I get a bit *too* festive and out the window go all my good intentions. :-)

Anyway, I will plow on with what we did in order to reduce our grocery budget and more than likely it'll be a good reminder to myself of what needs to happen. :-)

If you haven't yet read the first 3 posts in this series or would like to refresh your memory, you can find them here:

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Two
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Three

Now last week I think I promised to start giving you some actual suggestions on ways to reduce the grocery budget. What I want to write about today may not seem like a proper tip but in a way it's a really BIG tip that covers many categories. I want to talk about needs vs wants and my experience has been that acknowledging the difference between the 2 can make quite a big difference to the bottom line at the checkout.

This can actually be quite a confronting topic. Partly because the definition of a "need" vs a "want" can be quite a subjective and controversial subject. But mostly because I believe in western societies we have lost touch with reality when it comes to what we really NEED. (My apologies to anyone reading that isn't residing in a western society - I can't comment on your situation so you'll need to make up your own minds here).

Now don't panic on me here. I am not suggesting here that you *SHOULD* reduce your grocery spending to bare bones physical needs. What I am suggesting though is that we all need to take a good hard look at WHAT we buy and WHY and begin to recognise more just how blessed we are.

As human beings, we really hate to think of ourselves as being deprived. If we're feeling deprived, the temptation is to go out and spend more money in an effort to prove to ourselves that we're not "deprived". Then of course, we no longer have that money, something has to give somewhere else and in the end we become more "deprived" than when we first started. It's one of those vicious cycles that we really want to avoid if at all possible.

So I found that I needed to reduce our grocery spending without us feeling deprived (to avoid an unecessary spending circle). And let's face it, how many of us have really EVER been truly deprived? The great thing about understanding how blessed we truly are is that it can help with reducing spending across all of the budget categories (not simply food).

Understanding the difference between needs and wants was one major way that we accomplished reducing our grocery spending without feeling deprived. My current spending of $100 a week is not even close to being a "bare bones, only what we need" budget. I purchase PLENTY of wants as well. Like I said, I'm not necessarily asking you to not purchase ANY wants. Just identify them and be realistic about what you're choosing to do. Be real about calling a want, a want.

Another way in which our family worked on this was to put up pictures of our sponsored children and some other projects we have supported on our family room wall. Every time we come in our back door, we have a visual reminder to us of how much we really do have. It has been a very effective strategy for us in increasing our thankfulness and awareness of how many things in our life are wants rather than needs. And how many people in our world struggle on a daily basis just to meet their basic needs.

Please don't think this is about guilt. I don't believe in giving out of guilt. To me that is the same as obligation (see my post yesterday for my feelings on giving out of obligation ;-) ). It's about awareness. And it's a great way to encourage contentment. Contentment is a hard emotion to grab hold of, but when you're there - it truly is one of the most worthwhile feelings you could ever experience. I'm sure if you could bottle it, you'd make a small fortune. LOL.

So that's my suggestion for the next stage in reducing your grocery budget. Go through your shopping trolley (or supermarket docket) and identify how much of what you are spending is on needs and how much is on wants. Start to identify how blessed you really are and see if it makes a difference in how you view your shopping trolley and what kinds of things you put in it.

Now on occasion I have mentioned in my posts a website called Simple Savings. You can join their free newsletter at their website. They also offer a paid section to their website. I mostly tend to avoid websites where you need to pay in order to get information. It seems almost counter productive to frugality to me. And there are plenty of websites that will offer great ideas for free. For some reason I decided to pay the membership fees for this particular one. I think because they have a money back guarantee with their membership. I'm actually really glad I did. It gives you access to a vault but the most valuable part of it I have discovered in recent years is the forum where members get to discuss ideas on how to save money and support one another in all kinds of ways. Membership fees are $47 for the first year and then $17 to renew each year after that. The reason I am mentioning them now is that they have a sale on until 11pm Sunday 18th (Australian time - I'm assuming EDST but not sure) for $35. So if you've been contemplating taking out a membership, now is a great time to do so. My apologies to those non-Australian readers. This is an Australian website and may not be of as much interest to you (I'm sure you'd be welcome to join though if you wanted to).

If you don't wish to purchase a membership, I'd still recommend you sign yourself up for their free newsletters with great tips. After all, you can't go wrong with free. :-) Here is a link to the website:



(Disclaimer: This is an affiliate link. There is an explanation of how affiliate links work in my sidebar. My comments however, have no bearing on the fact that it is an affiliate link. If you are concerned about this, go directly to their website http://www.simplesavings.com.au/ rather than via the link above.)

Over the coming weeks I want to work my way through the categories I listed in my original post on this topic. Non Food, Fruit & Veg, Meat, General Groceries and Treats (have I covered them all?) Does anyone have a preference for which category you'd like me to start with?

A list of other Frugal Friday participants can be found at
Biblical Womanhood.

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Three

This is the third post I have written in a series about how we reduced our grocery spending. If you haven’t already had a chance to read the first two, or would like to review them, you can find them here:

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Two

So, we’re up to part 3 and we’ve yet to really touch on the big “B” word – the budget. How do you decide what a realistic budget is for your own unique situation?

Well you START with what you’re currently spending. That’s one of the reasons WHY it is so important that you KNOW what you’re currently spending. Because that is your starting point for your new grocery budget.

THEN you start to play the grocery budget limbo. Now, I’m pretty sure I read about this idea at http://www.cindysporch.net/. Unfortunately I cannot find a place on her website that refers to this exactly. Nonetheless it’s a website that is well worth having a read when you get the time. She has lots of great ideas that I have found helpful in my quest for frugality and home organization (yes, it definitely is an ONGOING learning process lol).

The grocery budget limbo is quite an easy game to play. Now I’m assuming you all know how to play limbo? You know that game where you have a broom handle or similar held up nice and high and you all take turns going under it without touching either the handle or the floor (and without bending forwards). If you break any of those conditions, you’re out and the game continues with each round the broom handle being lowered slightly.

So the grocery budget limbo works much the same way. The goal is to lower your spending a little bit each week/fortnight/month. How much you’d like to lower it by each time is completely up to you. You can choose a percentage or a dollar amount. And yes, it can be $1 a week if that’s what you’d like. :-) If there are just 1 or 2 of you and you already have a reasonably tight budget, $1 might well be the most appropriate starting place.

If you have a family or feel that you spend plenty on your groceries, I would suggest starting with a nice round figure like $5 or $10. You can get more adventurous than that if you'd like but my experience has been that if I take smaller baby-steps, I'm more likely to make changes that will LAST. Biting off too much at once can lead to getting overwhelmed, frustrated and ultimately giving up and resorting to "whatever I spend I spend".

To give you an idea using my own figures. It has taken me 3 years to move from spending $140 per week to spending $100. Under ordinary circumstances (ie. if I wasn't trying to reduce our grocery budget) we increase our grocery budget each year by 5%. This has been to allow for both increasing food prices and our growing family (growing in both number, from 2 people to 5 people and also in appetite as our 3 "little people" grow into "bigger people"). So in essence, our spending has decreased over that 3 year period from what *would* be $160 per week down to $100 per week.

I guess I'm sharing these figures to encourage you that it can take a while to really see changes in your grocery spending. I haven't spent the past 3 years completely focused on reducing our grocery spending either. I prefer to challenge myself for a short time and then have a break from focusing too much on the figures. I still prefer to record all my spending all of the time - I like the security of *knowing* where our money has gone. However, if I were always focusing on getting our grocery bill lower, I think I would find that too boring. It works for me to focus on it for a time and then give myself a bit of a break. The breaks also help me to see if the changes I've made have become "habits" (and therefore stick even when I'm not specifically trying) or whether things blow out as soon as I'm not watching carefully.

I have found that tracking our spending has been the most significant change we've made to managing our finances since we chose to take the path of more frugality and a simpler lifestyle. There is more information about how I do this in my Tracking Spending post that I wrote a little while ago. Basically I do it by starting with my "budgetted" amount and subtracting anything I spend from this so that I always know how much I have left in a given category at any time. You can achieve a similar thing with using cash and some kind of bag or envelope system as well (as long as someone doesn't move cash from one spot to another.....).

So, back to the "how low can you go" game/concept. How do you know when it's time to stop trying to lower the bar? Best not to keep going until you fall flat on your back. ;-) I think it's helpful at this point if you can understand a little of your own personality here. With my budget amounts, I prefer to allow a little bit MORE than what we *really* need. I personally find that if I have overspent on our budget, I'm more likely to throw the towel in and spend more. All the time that I'm comfortably under budget, I seem to find it easier to spend less. Some people have a tendency to spend every last cent so if they allowed a "buffer" amount in their budget, they would always spend that. If you're that kind of person, adding a buffer amount into your budget is only going to encourage you to spend more.

Don't be afraid to have a bit of a play around to find what works for YOU. There is no perfect system out there that suits every single person. There is no "magic" figure out there for the "perfect" grocery budget. Take some time to just observe what is happening with your spending and how that makes you feel, react and so on. The same applies to whether you use cash, credit card (that is paid in full - I'm not advocating credit for groceries if you can help it), debit card and so on. We could debate for hours on whether or not you'll spend more using one method or another. The only way you can really find out what works for YOU is to try a few different ways and see what happens.

One thing about budgetting in general that I have found really hard to get my head around is allowing some flexibility. When I decide what our budget will be for various categories, I usually do so for a 12 month period and during that time things can change. I'm not so good at dealing with change. I much prefer things to stay the same. :-) One way I do get around this is by allowing some "buffer" in my grocery budget. Like I said before, that will work for some and might not work so well for others. Just be aware that you need *some* flexibility when it comes to budgets (without giving yourself permission to just spend whatever you feel like! LOL).

What you really want to avoid as much as possible is frustrating yourself. If you feel like you're somehow "failing" in your attempts, it's more likely that you'll give up. That's what we want to avoid. :-) If you expect to be able to decide on a budget without allowing any flexibility along the way, there is a real danger of that happening.

I hope I'm explaining myself clearly enough here. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask by using either the comments section or the "email me" section of my profile. :-)

Next Week : I'm planning to begin writing some suggestions for ways to cut those grocery budgets. :-) If you haven't yet started tracking what you're spending on the groceries - now's the time to get started so that you have some way of knowing whether or not you're actually succeeding.

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Two

This is part 2 in a series I'm writing on how I reduced our grocery budget. If you haven't already seen it, you might like to begin with part one.

Reducing the Grocery Budget-Part One

How did we go with keeping track of what we spent this week? Any major surprises, pleasant or otherwise?

I want to give you a couple of warnings this week (okay, well 3 actually which I guess is 1 more than a "couple" but you get the idea right?).

1. Be careful that you're NOT reducing your grocery spending by simply eating out of your cupboard and pantry without replacing it. You might keep your spending low for a few weeks but you won't have made any long term changes. I know when it's all new and exciting you want to see results STRAIGHT AWAY. Just be aware that reducing the grocery spending is a LONG term project. It has taken me 3 years to get to the point I'm at now. On the other hand, don't be too discouraged for now if your spending doesn't go down straight away. The most important thing right now is that you KNOW what you're spending on groceries so that we have something to work from.

Now, using on your reserves/stocks/whatever you want to call it is NOT a bad thing in itself. If you're a chronic hoarder like me, it could actually be a GOOD thing. It's just important to realise that you may not have actually reduced your spending all that much - instead you're making use of money spent in the past. Of course, if you're a chronic hoarder like me then you may also find that what you spend on groceries is actually *too much* which gives you room to move down a little without too much hardship. :-)

I found when I first started out doing this that my grocery spending went down for a short time (because I was using up on stores), then it went back up again and I wondered what I was doing wrong. Then for a while it stayed the same - and that can be very frustrating. Rising food prices and growing children can really put a dent in our efforts to reduce the grocery spending. Understand that keeping your spending the same IS actually reducing your grocery budget. I found for a while that all my efforts were doing was keeping up with inflation. In other words, as I learnt new ways to trim the grocery budget, those savings were eaten up by price increases.

As I continued to learn new ways to cut my spending and developed new habits, eventually my efforts started to show. My savings started to outweigh those price increases and the spending gradually started to come down.

2. Beware the news articles blaring "food prices to increase". I *hate* these kinds of reports. What do they really do to help the consumer? In my opinion, nothing. It gives supermarkets some leeway to increase prices without consumer backlash AND it causes people to spend unnecessarily. If you *expect* your grocery spending to go up - believe me, it will!!! To me spending is like an untrained puppy. Let it off it's leash and who knows where it might end up.

Yes, price increases are a fact of life. Yes, the drought *has* to have *some* effect on our prices. BUT, I think if we were to look back through history at the changing grocery store trolley. I think we would see a lot MORE than simply "a loaf of bread has gone from 10c to $10" type scenario. PART of the increase in grocery spending has to do with WHAT is in the trolley - not simply inflation, effects of drought and so on.

So, allow *some* leeway in your budget and expectations of what it is going to cost to feed your family. But be aware that "food prices are on the rise" isn't an excuse to simply cut loose and spend more money.

3. There is a HUGE temptation when you're trying to cut your grocery spending, to want to compare what you're spending with what everyone else is spending. I know because I've been there done that many times. :-) It's not that is doesn't have *some* merit in giving you an idea on what is *possible*. It's just that it is very hard to compare apples with apples. Everyone's situation is different. Things like amounts of food consumed, whether or not they have a separate take away budget, do they eat at grandparents house once a week, do they have an Aldi, do they live on a farm and get very cheap lamb..... The variations as so endless that it really is hard to make an accurate comparison.

If you feel the need to *compete* (as many of us seem to lol), then compete with yourself. And compete AGAINST the grocery stores. I once read a great article about grocery shopping being a game. Unfortunately I can't remember where I read it or who wrote it so I can't give them appropriate credit. Instead, I'll just steal their idea, paraphrase it and write it here so you can all think I'm an absolute genius. LOL. No-one gets a choice as to whether or not they'd like to play the game. If you EVER buy anything, then you're already a player whether you like it or not. It's quite a simple game really. You keep money in your pocket and you WIN. You spend all you've got and then some and the grocery store WINS. So next time you're doing the grocery shopping, make use of all that competitive energy and KEEP some of your money. :-)

Having said all that, I am now going to give you my grocery spending figures for the month of October. LOL.

My total spend for October ended up being $472.73. With 5 Wednesdays (my usual shopping day) in October, I needed to keep it under $500 in order to maintain my $100 a week average spend. So on the surface it looks like I've done well this month. But I've chosen this month to make a few faux-par's, just for educational purposes of course. ROFLOL. Not really, it was fluke but it sounds good, right?

Bear in mind that I have been tracking and analysing my grocery spending for 3 years now (does that make me sound like an analy-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, has no life looney-toon?????) so before I even looked at my figures I could tell you a few things about our current position:

* I've overspent on treats (made evident by the fact that my jeans are too tight at the moment)
* I bought very little meat and what I did buy was "chuck in the oven cos you can't be bothered cooking" crap (for a very good reason of course - DH is busy with harvest or he would be if the weather were right).
* Fruit and veg spending will be up a little because I've bought fresh pineapple (twice), strawberries and grapes (both not really "in season" quite yet), more than normal amount of frozen veg (see comment about "can't be bothered cooking" above) and my fridge is currently still full of fruit and veg.
* I can't have done *too* badly because well, there IS food in the cupboard, fridge and freezer.

So, let's look at the nitty gritty's of my spending for October:

Fruit & Veg - $118.08 That's good. Up on what I've spent some months but still well below budget and I *know* we've been eating a fair bit of fruit and veg. Gotta love those cheaper fruit and veg stalls (when you can get to them). We have started to eat more out of the vegie garden so maybe that's starting to show a little in the spending. Now I just need to make some choices about whether I *want* those savings to be eaten up by buying a few of the more expensive items (a very valid choice as long as it is a CHOICE and not just something happening that I'm not paying attention to) or do I want those savings in my pocket.

General - $297.31 As I said in my last post, I no longer track meat separately but I did have a quick look through my receipts and I *think* I spent just over $40 on meat. Which means this figure is a little higher than I would like it to be for the month. We've been using on our stockpile of meats and there isn't really anything left in this category to cover that.

Treats - $38.33 Well up on what I usually spend and definitely overbudget.

Non-Food $15.73 Most of that was toilet paper. LOL. No, we don't spend $15 a month on toilet paper but I do stock up when it's on special and it just so happens there were a couple of specials this month.

Now for any of you "maths scholars" out there (do any maths "people" actually *read* blogs? wave if you do).... my figures don't add up. There is a $3.28 *gap* cos I spent $3.28 from my hospitality category. I wasn't going to admit that as I thought it made me look really "inhospitable" to spend such a measly amount. LOL. But then the perfectionist in me couldn't let it go in case *someone* happened to notice.


So, have you had a look at your spending figures? Do they reflect where you want your money to go or is there some tweaking that could be done? This week, keep writing down what you're spending on groceries (yeah, I know last week I said you only had to do it for 1 tiny little week....I lied, okay? You still only have to do it for 1 week.....just 1 week at a time. :-) ).

What are you thinking right now? Will, she hurry up and get on with revealling the *secret formula*? Or at least start making suggestions on how I can buy $500 worth of food with just $50. LOL. (no, that aint gonna happen).

Okay - here's the "secret formula" (or at least *part* of it). When you build a house you start by preparing a good foundation. If you don't take the time to build a good foundation, at the first sign of stormy weather, you might find yourself in a little bit of trouble. Building a "you beaut" house without first preparing a firm and solid foundation is really not a wise idea.

Dealing with something like the grocery budget is the same. I could give you a whiz bang list of ideas on how to get more for your money. But if we don't start by taking the time to build a good, solid foundation, at the first sign of stormy weather, your grocery budget may well fall in a sodden heap. :-)

Next Friday I want to talk about how to figure out the "right" budget for your groceries. Until then, happy shopping (and eating) everyone. LOL. Don't forget to keep recording what you're spending.....I promise you it'll all be worth it in the end. At least I hope it will...........

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post in the comments section. Or you can contact me via email if you prefer some privacy/anonymity - just click on "view my complete profile" about half way down the left hand sidebar (currently under the little green "technorati" button) then click on "email" near the top of my profile on the left hand side.

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One

Throughout my grocery challenge, many of you have made comments such as "I don't know how you do it". So, I thought I'd do a series of posts outlining the "hows" of how I got to where I am with our grocery spending.

So, where do we start? I think the very first step is to believe that you CAN do this. One thing I really struggle with is people saying they desperately *need* to reduce their grocery spending but they've done ALL they can to do so. It's as low as it will go. I am yet to meet someone who actually *has* gone as low as they *could* go. I'm not talking here about people who are content with their level of grocery spending. That's fine. I *could* make ours lower. I'm well aware of that. Right now I am happy with our level of spending. For $100 a week we eat well with a wide variety of healthy foods as well as a few treats.

I have learnt a LOT in the past 3 years. Sure, finding new ways to reduce our grocery spending has slowed down a lot in recent times in comparison to when I first started. But, I am still learning new things. I don't actively seek new ideas quite the same anymore. But, I am open to the fact that there are ideas out there that I don't know about yet. There is *always* more to learn. If you have it in your mind that you've "arrived" as far as grocery budgets go - you're less likely to find those new ideas and miss opportunities to make the $$ stretch further.

So, your mind is now open to new ideas. Good. You believe you CAN do this. Excellent. LOL. What's the next step? Do you know how much you currently spend on groceries? I'm not talking "oh yeah, we budget around $200 a week" type knowledge here. I'm talking, last week I spent $123.62 at Woolworths, $25.00 at the Fruit and Veg shop, $6.35 at the corner store and $2.50 at the Petrol station. That kind of knowledge. (Those figures are completely made up by the way.)

Some people think that they are better off not knowing. Well, knowledge is a VERY powerful thing. When I first started on this "frugality" journey, we budgetted $140 a week for groceries. That was a GREAT budget. In fact, that was already lower than what most of our friends budgetted (those that budgetted). But I have NO IDEA what we were actually spending. The budget was completely useless. It didn't *tell* me anything. It wasn't really great at all. :-)

According to the above figures, "I" have spent $157.47 for the week on groceries. Some people would get to the end of the week and say "I spent about $120 on groceries this week". Going only on the approximate figure they spent at Woolworths. Already they've *lost* $37.47 of their money. That alone is $1948.44 a year!!!! Can you see what I'm getting at here?

If you have the time, I'd encourage you to take this one step further. Sit down with all your receipts for the week and break things down into categories.

Here are the categories that I started with:

* Treats - very important. You need to know how much of your money is going on "non nutritious" food. I think it's *very* important (unless you do want to get down to a bare bones level of spending) to allocate at least a small portion of money to treats. It helps with the whole deprivation/poverty mentality issue that often makes you spend more money rather than less. What do you include as treat items? Well, that's up to you. I tend to include cordial, ice cream, chips, lollies/chocolate, desserts (that are non fruit) and sweet biscuits in mine.

* Fruit and Veg - When you start trying to cut your grocery budget, it can be tempting to skimp on fresh fruit and veg. I find it helpful to keep a separate category so that I can keep an eye on this. I've also heard it said a LOT of times that it's more expensive to eat healthily. I guess that all depends on what you were buying before but so far I haven't found this to be the case myself. Having it there in front of you what you actually *do* spend on fruit and veg is a good way to see what is happening. I also include frozen vegetables and tinned fruit and veg in this category (so things like tinned peaches, beetroot and so on).

* Meat - I no longer keep my meat spending separate from my general grocery spending. But when I was first starting out I did. Mainly because meat is one area where most people *can* cut back on their grocery spending. I know we were consuming way too much meat for what is considered a "healthy portion". Because I was working hard in this area, it was good to be able to see the results of my efforts in dollars and cents.

* General Grocery - In this category I include all food items that aren't covered by the above 3 categories.

* Non Food - These are all the bits and pieces like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, cleaning products, cleaning cloths etc. It's up to you what you do and don't include here. Things that I DON'T include are make up, larger household items like mops, toilet brushes, batteries, socks, toys, stationery etc that can be bought at the supermarket. Those things have their own separate categories.

One of the benefits of breaking down your grocery receipts is that if you have bigger items like those above, it can really upset the balance of your grocery budget. I subtract them from my total and enter them elsewhere in my budget book. If you don't have a "budget book" (see Tracking Spending for more info on this), that's fine. Just subtract these items from your total spend (unless you *want* to cover these within your grocery budget).

What categories you use is completely up to you. I also have a category for "hospitality" where I allow extra money to accumulate and be spent when we have friends coming over.

What about TAKE AWAY? Do you include that in your grocery budget? Some people don't have a separate category for their take away spending. They work on the principal of "if there's anything left in the grocery cash at the end of the week, we'll use it for take away". Like I said, we're all different and you have to do what works best for you.

Here's why I DON'T do that. I find that the best way to get the *most* out of my grocery $$ is by NOT spending the same amount each week. Some weeks I'll spend $25 and other weeks I might spend $200. Part of that is because of my location and the way I shop. BUT, I do tend to find that some weeks a LOT of what we eat is on special when other weeks very little is on special. Particularly when it comes to meat. If on the weeks I only spent $25 on groceries, we then spent the remainder of our budget on take away, that extra money wouldn't be there to stock up in the weeks when LOTS of stuff is on special. Does that make sense?

We nearly always eat out of the cupboard and freezer and my shopping then replaces those items. It would be really easy to *blow* money on take away that we really *couldn't* afford and then I'd be left with an empty pantry and be *forced* to pay a higher price for things. That can be a very nasty spiral. You get less for your money. Then you get frustrated and depressed and buy take away as a bit of an "escape"..... and so the spiral continues.

I am NOT advocating buying no take away. I just personally prefer to have a separate budget for our take away and to keep this cash separate. No cash=no take away.

Well, if you've made it this far you can probably see why I've decided to do this series in parts. Here's a bit of a summary:

BE OPEN - to new ideas and the fact that you CAN reduce your grocery budget if you want to.

BE HONEST - you don't have to show anyone else your spending figures. But be prepared to face up to them yourself.

BE REAL - if you only spend $25 this week on groceries, you *know* that it hasn't *really* cost you that little. You're eating off reserves you've paid for in the past. Great idea, just make allowances for the need to replace that food at some point in the future.

BE DISCIPLINED - yeah, I know it's *almost* a swear word. LOL. We're not born with discipline (just ask my high school maths teachers lol). It comes with practise. Believe me, a few minutes here and there of keeping track of what you spend could add up to hours of work you don't have to do in order to earn the money being wasted (or could add up to that holiday you've always wanted to take....or new shoes.....or *add your passion here*........)

STAY TUNED - I'll post my next instalment on reducing the grocery budget next Friday.

In the meantime, keep a record of what you spend on groceries over the next week and break it down into categories. Just try it for 1 week.... For me? LOL. (I need a little puppy dog face emoticon to go here lol). :-)


Note from Lightening: Since writing this post, I have continued with this series. You can find more posts from this series at the following links.

Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Two
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Three
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part Four
Reducing the Grocery Budget - Meat

September Groceries

I was trying to work out how many days this month had this morning over breakfast and couldn't remember if we were coming to the end of August or September. LOL. Maybe this year is passing a little too quickly for me. :-)

I know I'm no longer focusing on my grocery challenge but I wanted to blog about my grocery spending this month anyway. It has turned out to be quite an interesting month.

I was a little alarmed when I got about half way through the month and discovered that I had already spent nearly $300. I figured finishing my challenge was going to result in a reasonable blow-out in our grocery spending.

Well, I have just added up my total grocery spending for the month and it comes to $364.90!!!!! I think that might actually be my lowest total so far this year. So, go figure??????

What happened was that I did a bit of a stock up early in the month when I had an opportunity to (including $50 of fruit and veg). For the last 2 weeks I have only needed to do much smaller shops.

That total also includes $10 that I spent on Tim Tams for the teachers at my kids school (a little thank you for their efforts putting together the school festival recently).

So there you go! An unexpected yet welcome outcome. Perhaps I have made new habits when it comes to what we buy at the grocery store. I will continue to track my grocery spending (as I do all my spending) and see what happens in the upcoming months. It will be interesting to see.

August Grocery Shopping

Well it's getting to that time of the month again and I've been a bit slack with keeping my records up to date. So today is the day to get everything entered into my spending book and work out where I'm up to.

August has been a bit of a "spend up" month for me in the area of groceries. I'm not hugely worried about it and some of it was expected due to my low spending in July. One thing I've noticed though, is the number of packets of biscuits that I've bought. At a rough count up, I've bought 23 packets of biscuits this month. LOL. That's a lot for me as I usually bake my own. Some of those have been due to very good prices, especially on those flavoured savoury biscuits (which I don't make myself). At the moment the cupboard is well stocked with biscuits. :-) And some of those are *hiding* in a box on the top shelf so they'll last a little while.

I also bought 4 tubs of ice cream this month as they were a good price. That didn't end up being the best of ideas though as DH saw all this ice cream and all of a sudden we were going through it a rapid pace. :-) I'll have to hide some if I want to stock up another time. LOL.

Here's where the tally stands at the moment:

August so far: $496.08
July was $302.29 then I did a bulk buy at the butchers early in August (not included in the August tally as it was supposed to be in July) of $65.12

In order to stay under my $100 a week average spend I need to keep my combined spending for July and August to under $900. So far the total stands at $863.49 leaving me $36.51 for this week.

So providing I spend under $36.51 this week, I've achieved my goal. If I can do that even with my biscuit and ice cream blow out, I'll be very happy. Given the fridge, freezer and cupboard are all full, there's no reason why I won't be able to keep the grocery spend to under that amount this week (just 1 shopping day left for the month).

It's been a funny month for discussions on groceries. I keep a bit of an eye on how DH is feeling about what foods I'm buying etc as this challenge is really a *choice* challenge rather than a * necessity* challenge and I don't want to continue it if DH is feeling at all "deprived" or frustrated with what foods I'm buying. Usually he's pretty easy to keep happy.

A couple of weeks ago, DH was teasing me about the fact that I NEVER wanted to fill up our pantry cupboard. When we moved into this house, I had 4 boxes of pantry staples to move (despite my efforts to use them up before we moved lol) and when I unpacked them into the pantry cupboard the cupboard still looked empty. I knew that if I were to ever fill the cupboard, that would be a LOT of food. And yes... most of the time that cupboard is full! LOL. So every now and then DH likes to have a dig at me about the amount of food I keep on hand. :-)

The thing is, he turned around a week or so later and told me that we were out of EVERYTHING. Of course, I just laughed at him for contradicting himself. Obviously I'm not the only one in this family with a tendency to exaggerate slightly. :-) We were out of promite, peanut butter, spaghetti and baked beans and almost out of honey, vegemite and tomato sauce. I guess for a bloke that's used to never running out of anything, it may have felt like we were starting to run out of *everything*. I suspect if we actually DID run out of tomato sauce, I would have had a mutiny on my hands. :-) It's a major food group in this household. LOL. I wonder if that's a reflection on my cooking skills? LOL.

I did have everything under control though, knowing I was going to do a "pantry stock" shop over the weekend. Everything is now right with the world. :-)We have a BIG bottle of tomato sauce, promite, vegemite, 3 tubs of peanut butter as well as a number of cans of spaghetti and baked beans.

I have however decided it's time for a new challenge. My *real* grocery budget is actually $129.23 a week. LOL. I kid you not. I budget monthly so it's actually $560 a month and it doesn't quite divide up evenly when you calculate it out to a weekly amount. :-) I'm quite happy with what I've achieved. 8 months of averaging $100 or less. I intend to continue to track my grocery spending and will still keep it as low as possible. It just won't be my "frugal focus".

I've found through my journey into frugality, that I'm most successful with challenging myself if I limit it to one area of our spending at a time. I work on getting spending down in one area and making those changes into a habit. Then I move on to something different. Our spending will tend to go up slightly in an area once it is no longer my focus, but only by a small amount and usually not up to as high as it was before. It works for me and stops me getting overwhelmed. It also makes it into more of a game and therefore I have fun with it rather than seeing it as a *chore* or *deprivation*.

So what will my next challenge be? Well Rhonda over at Down To Earth is currently running an electricity challenge. So I thought I would join in with that for a few months and see how that goes. I'll post more about my electricity challenge in the next couple of days.

As for the food budget surplus. I intend to skim that off to use for something else. I'll also blog more about that over the next day or so. :-)

July Grocery Shopping

July has been a kind of strange month for grocery shopping. Between my challenge not to shop in the first week, being away for 5 days (so didn't do a regular shop that week either) and then sending DH to do a small shop for me last week, I only did 1 "normal" grocery shop.

The upside to not shopping has been we only spent $302.29 for the month of July. That was including the stock up shop I did at Gaganis Bros while we were away. Had I not done the Gaganis Bros shop, the total spend would have only been $219.19 for the month. I'm kind of surprised with this and yet also really happy. One of the things I didn't want to do when I started my $100 a week average spend challenge was to simply cut costs by using up what I had on hand. I wanted to be truly cutting our spending. I guess to get to the end of the 6 months and be able to cope through a month that way was proof to me that I was still keeping plenty of food on hand.

The downside to not shopping many times would have to be a gradually depleting stock of food. Not so much in the pantry but definitely noticable in the freezer. In fact, for the first time in my memory, we ran out of frozen peas! I usually keep several packets of frozen peas on hand so this is quite an unusual occurence. Of course, if DH had remembered to buy some last week when I asked him to, we wouldn't have run out. LOL. But that's okay. I do plan to use the $97.71 surplus from this months goal of $400 to restock the freezer as opportunities arise. So in reality my spending will still end up being around the $400 mark for the month.

When I was thinking about making this my topic for today, I wasn't due to shop until tomorrow. As things turned out I ended up shopping today (DH needed to go into town anyway) but given July is all but finished and the shop was really due tomorrow, I'm thinking I'll still count todays shop as an August shop.

It was an interesting experience doing the grocery shop today. I wanted to make sure I did a fairly decent shop rather than just a small, fill-in shop given the lack of shopping that had happened in recent weeks. I guess having not done much shopping during July, the difference in prices were particularly noticable to me. I actually felt ill as I went around the supermarket. Everything seems to have gone up in price!!! And even though it's only Tuesday, many of the specials I was hoping to get weren't available. :-(

I know they were predicting fruit and vegetable prices to increase but to actually see it was an interesting experience (to be honest I was really hoping they'd turn out to be wrong). $5.50 for a lettuce! $5.50 for a cauliflower. $9.99 kg for broccoli. $4.59 kg for mandarines. $7.99 kg for bananas Aaaaarhhhhh!!! Other than the bananas, we're talking IN SEASON fruit and veg here. Boy do I wish my vegetable garden was producing a little better. At least with the price of lettuces at the moment, I know I'm getting good savings from the lettuces I'm growing (although they are almost at the end of their life now).

I guess if this keeps up, the $75 we spent on a trailer load of compost today will be money well invested. One thing is for sure, my $100 challenge just got more challenging!!!

Price Books

Up until about 3 years ago when I started on my journey toward a more frugal life, I had never heard of the concept of a price book. I thought I was doing a reasonable job of our grocery spending by shopping the specials, buying some items in generic brands and being careful not to buy the more expensive cuts of meat (at least some of the time). If you've been reading my blog for a while you may well remember my shock when I discovered that I'm saving around $3000 a year by changing a few of my habits since that time. While I wasn't spending an outrageous amount on groceries even then, what I have learnt since is that in most areas there is always ways to improve and things that can be learnt when it comes to frugality.

Using a price book was one of the significant changes I made. A price book can take any form you like really. What it basically is, is a tool to help you determine how good a special price may be. That way you can decide if you want to do a big stock up or not. I was quite surprised at how much difference there can be between a regular special and a good special. I find I do remember some general pricings on some items, but to remember on everything I buy is almost impossible. I've also found writing things down has helped me remember. I think because I shop in a number of different supermarkets depending on where I am at the time - the price book concept is particularly useful for me.

I use a small spiral bound notebook for my price book. I just divided it up into sections such as pantry, freezer, fruit & veg, meat, non food. Then some pages I devote solely to a single item and others I might group things together (for instance I have a page titled "spreads" for items like Vegemite, Peanut Butter etc). I include the date, name of the shop, item, size and price. For some things (like Milo where there are several sizes) I'll work out a unit price (such as how much per kg).

Some people go as far as to work out how often things come on special so they know how many of a particular item to buy to get them through to next time the special comes around. I haven't bothered with this as there are a lot of specials that I can't take advantage of due to my location. As with everything I think you have to use ideas in a way that works for you and weigh up the whole time vs savings vs hassle factor etc etc in what you choose to do.

If I can make one suggestion though - keep it simple. I have seen people spend hours on something like this and never really getting around to putting it to good use. A few notes scribbled on a piece of scrap paper that you actually make use of is going to be a much better investment than having the fanciest price book that never gets used. Keep it small too so that it's always in your handbag - I would never remember to take mine with me to the shops each time.

I have to admit that my original price book is now old, tattered and many of the prices are out of date. A few months ago I decided to begin a new one but it does take a while to get the entries built up.

Recently I decided to check out Gaganis Bros in Adelaide as I'd heard they were a good source of cheaper grocery items - particularly things like dried beans and lentils (which I have been struggling to find at times in supermarkets). I had some prices with me and those showed that indeed the prices were lower than my regular supermarket prices. I then made the assumption that all their prices would be lower than supermarket prices. As I have since discovered, that isn't quite so. For instance, I picked up some tomato puree for 90c a bottle. I *knew* that I usually paid over $1 so was confident it was a good price. Turned out to be an excellent price as I paid $10.80 for 12 bottles whereas my cheapest price elsewhere would have been $19.08. Almost half price. Given the tomato puree seemed a great price, I assumed perhaps tomato paste was. I didn't have the price with me that I usually pay for tomato paste so grabbed one large tin. That cost me $2.25 and when I went back through past receipts - I usually pay $2.06 for the equivalent amount from Coles. Not a huge difference but enough to highlight to me the fact that *knowing* your prices can lead to additional savings. And that you can't just assume that 1 place is going to be cheaper across the board.

Mother Hubbards Cupboard Has Now Been Restocked

Not that you could really say that my cupboard (or fridge or freezer) were bare, despite going almost 2 weeks without shopping. In fact, I was quite surprised at how easy the challenge ended up being. I obviously have a tendency to keep plenty of food on hand without even realising it.

In the end the only one who really noticed my lack of shopping was my 3 year old when the apples ran out. He quite happily eats oranges but he LOVES his apples and usually eats a couple a day. He ate the last apple on Sunday morning so Monday ended up being the only day he had to go without an apple. Despite being allowed to take pocket money and buy lollies at the supermarket yesterday, I think mum buying apples was the highlight of his day. :-)

I was expecting to spend around $100 to stock up again yesterday so was quite pleased when the total came to just under $80. DH made a comment on how much food I came home with. I even bought a 900g tin of milo and a packet of Nutra Grain (school holiday treat) within that total. Plus a few meals of meat. It did help that both potatoes and oranges were on special this week. Nearly half of what I spent was on fruit and veg though. I do look forward to the day when we can produce at least some of these from our own yard. It's a pity I've had such a struggle with growing broccoli (although fingers crossed I'm finally winning the war against the bugs) as it was $9.99 kg at the supermarket. I bought one floret and that cost me $3.05. I probably should have looked at the frozen broccoli but we much prefer it fresh.

To be quite honest I'm actually scratching my head a little as to why my grocery bill seems to be staying low so easily at the moment. I keep kind of waiting for the axe to fall where I suddenly have no choice but to spend more money in order to "catch up". I don't really know... we still seem to have a lot of food on hand. We do need cereal and some meat and will soon need to buy up on some spreads like Vegemite and Promite.

Oh well, it doesn't actually matter. It's a good problem to have I guess. I just don't like the unexpected. So I don't want to be thinking everything is travelling along fine, only to discover I've been kidding myself. LOL.

We do have a separate take away budget which does help with the grocery budget. At the moment we allow $100 a month which usually buys us 3-4 meals depending on how we use it. And we all get pocket money (DH and I included) so I don't have quite the same *need* to buy treats with the groceries (although I still do from time to time).

This month will actually be easier too as we'll be away for a few days and that is going to come out of a different budget. I find it more relaxing if I don't have to think too much about budgets when we go away. So at the end of each year, a certain percentage of any money in the budget that hasn't been spent gets set aside as "blow money" for the following year - we'll use some of that for our few days away.

So, 2 shopping weeks to go this month and about $300 left in the kitty if I'm to keep below $400 for the month. I'm feeling pretty confident about making it. Can't wait until August though - that should be a fun month as there are 5 shopping weeks (since my regular shopping day is Wednesday, I count the number of shopping weeks by how many Wednesdays in the month) even though the number of days in August is the same as the number of days in July.

The "I didn't grocery shop this week" Challenge

Various circumstances have altered my week so that I haven't yet done a grocery shop. I don't have any other *need* to go into town other than to buy food so I've given myself the challenge to see if I can make it until next Tuesday without needing any groceries. Since I shopped Wednesday last week, that will be just under the fortnight between grocery shops.

Today is the kids last day of school for the term which gives me a little bit of breathing space in terms of finding suitable things for their lunchboxes. It does provide a little bit of an added challenge though in the sense that they tend to eat more during the holidays - particularly in between meals.

Here's a bit of a run-down on potential problem areas:

FRUIT - Obviously this is something I would usually buy fresh each week. We have run out of bananas but do have 3 apples, 1 pear and about 2kg oranges in the fridge. Also some frozen stewed pear, a tin of pears and a tin of apples. So we *should* be able to manage on what we have left for the next 4 days. One thing I don't want to do during this challenge is make compromises to our health.

VEGETABLES - I have almost enough potatoes for 3 main meals so should be able to stretch to that. Monday night on the menu is tuna patties and I have 1 meal left of Deb potato which I usually use for tuna patties (that way I don't have to make the mashed potato in advanced). I have enough yellow veg with several kg's of carrots, a whole butternut pumpkin and 1 sweet potato. Also have 1/2 red cabbage and about 3kg of frozen peas. So that should get us through until Tuesday. Of course, my next challenge will be that next week I'll have to stock up fully rather than adding to what I have on hand - fingers crossed lots of fruit and veg is on special locally next week.

BREAKFAST - Could pose a challenge. We are nearly out of most cereals. I have just made up some more muesli so that will help for DH, DS and myself. The kids often have toast in the school holidays but there is only 3 loaves of bread left so not sure how we'll go there. Was thinking I'd make up a batch of crumpets but flour is getting low so I may have to choose between baking snacks or making crumpets. Need to investigate a little further here.

BREAD - 3 loaves of white bread left in the freezer. Do have a batch of Soy & Linseed in the breadmaker now. Hoping DH will eat that and leave the white bread for the kids. We tend to go through about 1 loaf a day so just need to make that stretch out a little. If I can come up with lunches that don't involve bread, that will help.

SNACKS - I had been planning a bit of a bake up for the school holidays as the kids are constantly looking for something to eat. Being low on flour is a bit of a challenge. Do have plenty of ingredients to make yoghurt so will need to make sure I'm on top of that given it takes about a day by the time it sets and then chills. Also have plenty of popping corn. It's really only a few days so we should be able to get by.

There is definitely no shortage of food in this house. No danger of anyone going hungry. I think the biggest challenge will be making sure everyone still eats a fairly healthy diet and being a little more creative than usual where they are a few gaps in what we're used to eating for particular meals.

Actually, I'm quite looking forward to it. Don't mind a bit of a challenge. :-) The best bit is going to be the head start we'll get on the grocery spending challenge for the month!

Final Grocery shop for June

Well I spent $18.77 on groceries today. Wasn't in need of much after a stock up last week (plus some free pumpkin we were kindly given on Sunday). That brings my total spend for the month of June to $399.46. How's that for just scraping in under $400! :-) My average spend so far this year is now $99.93 per week.

What will July bring? Dunno yet. Only 4 Wednesdays again in July so if I want to continue my challenge I need to keep spending under $400 again. School Holidays may be a challenge as the kids often eat more during the holidays than they do at school. I don't mind a challenge though so we'll see how we go.

I'm so excited....

I did it! I did it! I did it! Okay, I should probably not get *too* excited just yet as I do have 1 more shopping day left before the end of the month.

Yesterday I spent a grand total of $133.85 which leaves me $19.31 to spend next week. I should only need apples and a couple of loaves of bread so we'll see what happens. AND I bought everything on my list except for glad wrap (not sure how I missed that one but it wasn't urgent - just replacing my spare one). I also managed to get a few extras that weren't on my list.

I was really pleased with the amount of fruit and veg I was able to buy. Sometimes I do well at the fruit and veg place down there and sometimes the specials are not so good. I spent $23.75 and got 5kg carrots, 5kg potatoes, 2 kg apples, a whole butternut pumpkin, 2 sweet potatoes and just over 1kg bananas. That's pretty good going for what we usually pay.

I think I have enough powdered milk now to last me until the end of the year. I usually only use it in cooking. Last month I bought 4 packets because Coles had a Bi-Lo brand for $1 cheaper than the Coles brand and I figured they were just using up Bi-Lo stock and wouldn't always have it. This time when I went it was on a clearance sale and only $3.99 (Coles brand is $5.99) so I bought the last 4 packets on the shelf. We're going through it quicker now that I'm using it to make up Easiyo yoghurt so the savings will be very nice. I had to make some up in a jug this week as we ran out of milk the day I went to town (none left for my breakfast!). I've decided I don't really mind using it on my breakfast. I don't have a huge amount of milk anyway as I have hot water as well. Because I prefer a little lower fat milk, I made it up a little weaker than recommended so got an extra little saving there (more litres per packet). I may even continue to use powdered milk for myself. We'll see.

On the topic of milk, I noticed that Coles UHT milk has increased in price. Their fresh milk worked out cheaper per litre than the UHT milk. This is the first time I've seen this so I bought 6 Litres of fresh milk as well as a carton of UHT milk. Only thing is, I'm hoping having fresh for a week doesn't put the kids off the UHT milk. Time will tell I guess.

Within that total I was able to get 18 rolls of toilet paper. We usually use Kleenex Cottonelle (we're fussy about our toilet paper) but about 12 months ago I found an Autralian brand recycled paper that we didn't mind and was quite cheaply priced. Haven't seen it since though. I found a packet in Kmart that's not the same (but is recycled and Australian) and figured it was worth giving a go - and it was on sale for nearly half price ($4.00 for 18 rolls).

I was also pleased to be able to get a Carpet Cleaner I saw advertised on TV the other day which I wanted to try. DH said he needed some anti-dandruff shampoo this shop and I thought that might have made things a bit tight (his bottles of shampoo are usually around $8-$10). He's been using up various natural shampoos I've bought to try on my own hair but needs an anti-dandruff one every now and then. Fortunately he likes to switch around the brands he uses so this time I bought him a new brand to try (which was a little cheaper). If he doesn't like it - no problems, I'll buy the more expensive one next time. At least he's the type of person that's willing to give things a go. I also bought new toothbrushes for the kids (only needed 2 as I had 1 spare one in the cupboard) and toothpaste.

Probably the thing that *saved* my budget was a lack of meat on special. I did buy a roll of fritz but that was the only meat I bought. It wasn't urgent as I've been able to get some meat throughout this month and our local specials can often be as cheap as I can get meat elsewhere (other than chancing upon super specials).

I think DH has a sheep that he wants to get killed in the next month or so which will boost our meat supply somewhat. It's been over a year since I've had a sheep. We don't tend to eat it all that often (think it's on June's menu once) because it does seem to have a higher fat content than other meats. It costs me less than $30 (butchering fees) to get a sheep so that does help with the budget a little. I had someone ask me recently if my $100 a week spending includes meat. Well it comes pretty close. We do get the occasional sheep for a discounted price but then some people have access to regular fruit and vegetable bargains or eat regularly at their parents place (I know my SIL and her family go to her inlaws every Sunday for instance). So I figure the bonus we get with the sheep is not really much different.

One thing I'm finding with Coles is that I need to be very alert when I'm shopping. They now have 2 ranges of generic brands and it's not consistent which of the two are going to be the cheapest. I have to keep checking and comparing prices which is annoying and draining. I have learnt though to send DH off car shopping or whatever he feels like doing. When he comes shopping with me he likes to be *helpful* and then I can't concentrate on what I'm doing. He still gets to be helpful though - by packing it all in the car!!! :-) When I've done a big shop on my own I've really noticed the difference with having to pack it all away in the car myself. Now that we don't have the dual cab ute I have to be more careful with how things are packed in the back of the car (we now have a Pajero) to get them to fit. Some of my big shops have been one of those double trolleys full as well as a single trolley overflowing. So we're talking BIG shop. The joys of living in a rural area. :-) With my regular dental treatment and having to take DS to an orthodontist, we've been finding lately that we're in a regional centre more often so I haven't had to do a *massive* shop for a while.

Anyway, all in all I'm really happy with how the grocery spending is going. This month I have bought 4 litres ice cream, 2 packets of corn chips, 4 packets of Tim Tams (um ah, no wonder I'm not losing weight at the moment) and some donuts so we're not going without our treats either. :-)

Challenge to my Grocery Challenge

The arrival of the cold weather seems to have increased all the appetites around here. So my $100 a week (on average) Grocery Challenge is coming under some strain. With only 4 Wednesdays in June, I need to keep my spending under $400 in order to maintain my spending goal.

So far this month I have spent $246.84, leaving me $153.16 until the end of the month. Ordinarily that would be plenty but tomorrow I have the opportunity to shop at Coles which is cheaper than the local supermarket. It makes sense to take advantage of the lower prices as long term this will save us money. It's still hard to compromise my current goals to do so though. :-)

I'm still reasonably well stocked from last months pantry stock up shop so it is possible with my smallish list that I *might* come under this months goal. At the very least I guess it'll give me an incentive not to give in and buy too many impulse purchases. :-)

My original goal was to maintain this level of spending until the end of June. Basically because I can easily keep our grocery spending down for a month or two due to the stockpile of food we keep on hand. But I didn't think that would give me a true picture of what we truly consumed in dollar value per week. I was figuring an average over 6 months would give me a better chance of a true spending figure.

I haven't decided yet whether to continue my challenge past the end of June. Rising dairy and fruit and vegetable prices are increasing the challenge of the challenge. Plus of course the rising appetites mentioned at the beginning of this post. That's okay though. I always said that I would only continue the challenge all the time that I found it fun. If it came to the point where it was too much of a struggle and just not fun any more, well I'd know it was time to stop. :-)

I will see how my shop goes tomorrow and how things travel in the first few weeks of July and then make a decision.

Rice Bubble Treats

I gave this recipe a try this week much to the kids excitement. It took less than 5 minutes to throw together so was very quick and easy.

Melt 3 cups marshmallows and 50g butter together. Pour over 2 cups of rice bubbles and stir together. Flatten into a small slice tray (you could use a plastic container or whatever). I then sprinkled some rainbow choc decorations I had leftover in the cupboard on top. You could also sprinkle with choc chips. Another variation is to add 100s and 1000s to the mix.

Set in fridge then cut into whatever size pieces you like. I cut mine into small bar shapes (like a slightly smaller version of an LCM bar).

The most expensive part of the recipe was the marshmallows (I used a generic brand). Next time I make it I'm going to try making my own marshmallow and see how that goes.

UPDATE ON GROCERY SPENDING

I've finished my grocery shopping for May and ended up spending a grand total of $496.06! This is my highest monthly spend so far this year but did include a 5 week month and a fairly large stock up shop so I'm still happy with that. The best bit is that the fridge and cupboard are both looking healthily stocked. I've just calculated that my total grocery spend so far for this year is $2198.95 which when averaged over the 22 weeks comes out at $99.95 a week. That is a result I am absolutely STOKED with. It was a bit of a fun challenge to try and get my average spend to under the $100 a week average. All the time I'm enjoying the challenge, I intend to keep going with it. At the point it becomes "no longer fun", I'll know it's time to move on to something different. In my opinion frugality should be more about creativity than deprivation.

Pottering in the Kitchen

I've done quite a bit of pottering in the kitchen this week. Trying out a few new recipes and generally having fun. :-)

I made custard from scratch for the first time and that was a great hit with the family. I'm gradually trying to decrease the number of colours and additives in our diet so this is one more step along the road. For anyone wanting a recipe, here it is:

CUSTARD

heat 300ml milk (around 2 min on high in the microwave)

combine:
1 beaten egg
1 Tbsp cornflour
2 Tbsp sugar
few drops vanilla

Use a small amount of milk to mix it together.

Pour hot milk into this mixture and stir well.

Heat on high for 2-4 minutes, stirring every minute.

Next time I need to remember to double the recipe as this wasn't quite enough for our family of 5.

I also made a chocolate custard recipe this week. We found it a little bit strong and a little bit firm in comparison to the yogo's that the whole family loves. So I'm going to play around with the recips a bit more and I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

YOGHURT

I love finding new ways to create the same things for less money. Of course, that has to be balanced up against time and hassle factor as well so I've never been real keen to make my own yoghurt from scratch (even though it is definitely the cheapest way to make yoghurt).

A few years ago I bought myself an Easiyo yoghurt making kit. It's almost foolproof as you just add water to the Easiyo sachet, shake and then pop the whole thing into the provided thermos with boiling water added. It works out cheaper than store bought yoghurt. I usually have to pay anywhere from $3.50-$5.50 for yoghurt here (depending on sales). With the Easiyo I can make yoghurt whenever we want it for just under $3.00 a kg.

I have tried a few suggestions for ways to make the Easiyo yoghurt a little cheaper but so far haven't had much success and had returned to making it with the full sachet and putting up with the cost.

This week I came across a new recipe for the Easiyo and decided to try again. This time it seems to have worked much better and has gone down really well with the family.

If you have an Easiyo maker here's the recipe:

1 1/3 cups powdered milk
1/3 cup sugar
tsp vanilla (make sure it's imitation with no alcohol in it as the alcohol will kill your bacteria)
2 Tbsp Easiyo sachet as a starter (shake pkt first to make sure the yoghurt culture is evenly mixed through the pack before you start or you could get it all in the one batch and none left for the next one)


BISCUITS

Made a variation on plain biscuits by adding plum jam to the mix. They certainly smelt good while they were baking! I love how versatile basic biscuits are when it comes to using up bits and pieces you have in the fridge/cupboard. It's amazing how much cheaper this basic biscuit mix is even compared to plain generic brand biscuits. Of course, it does then depend on what you add to the mix as to the final cost. I think I might use up the last of my custard powder mix in my next batch.

TURKEY DRUMSTICKS

I bought my first ever turkey drumsticks this week while they were on special. They were just under $3 each and weighed about 1kg. That's some drumstick! I'm trying to add some turkey to our diet as it's supposed to contain tryptophan. Not necessarily a real frugal meat so it's a bit of a new challenge. I cooked the 2 legs in the crockpot then chopped all the meat up fine and made up 3 meals worth of turkey patties (similar to chicken patties). We haven't eaten any yet so the proof will be in the tasting. I also made a container of stock. So that will give us 4 meals for $6. Can't complain about the frugality of that figure.

CHICKEN KEBABS

The kids really love these but at $1+ each they're a bit on the expensive side for us to have very often. This week I bought some chicken thighs on special so I've made up a meal (which is 13 kebabs for our family). Cost to me was around $5 which is quite a bit cheaper than $13+ and we're less likely to come across any horrible bits that haven't been cut out of the chicken like we do with the bought ones. I was working out an hourly savings rate for this. It took me around 15 minutes to cut up the chicken, thread it onto skewers and marinate. At a saving of $8 for the meal that's around $32 an hour post tax money. Well worth the effort for me.


UPDATE ON MY BEANS & LENTILS CHALLENGE

I tried using the leftover Cannellini Beans in my lunch time salads the other week and really liked that. I think so far the Cannellini Beans are my favourite for adding to my salad. :-)

Tonight we're having Vegetable Lentil Loaf for tea. This is my first experience with green lentils (they're cooking in the crockpot right now) so I'll let you know what we think of it. Fingers crossed it'll be a new dish we can add to our reportoire.

GROCERY SPENDING UPDATE

My final grocery spending figure for April was $419.83 so I was really happy with that. I did some calculations and so far my average for the year is $100.17 per week. This is down slightly on an earlier average calculation of $102.80. My challenge now is to see if I can bring that average weekly spend figure down to under the $100 mark.

May has 5 shopping weeks (I usually shop Wednesdays) so my goal is to see if I can spend under $450 with 5 shops. I'm not expecting that to be real easy so we'll see how we go. First shop for May I spent $57.75 - so far so good. I will have an opportunity to do a pantry stock up later in the month so there's where my biggest challenge is going to lie.

Today's Challenge - Update

I'm back and I think I did okay. Spent $49.00. Phew!!! Just snuck in under the $50 mark. I didn't need as much fruit and veg this week as we still have some stuff leftover from last week. I wasn't sure how I was going to go as DH asked me to buy fritz as I was walking out the door. Hadn't factored that in to my workings. Also grabbed a tube of toothpaste on special and a packet of lebanese bread for next time we have pizza (also on special).

That brings my total grocery spend for March to: $442.86. That's just slightly higher than January's spend of $441.27. I'm pretty happy with that.