8 Steps to Slash Your Grocery Budget
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As I posted the other day, I made a New Year’s resolution to cut my grocery budget in half. Without compromising on nutrition, taste, and variety.
How do you go about slashing your food budget? I’ll be honest, I’m new to this budgeting thing. But I’ve got some good ideas that I am going to implement — and see if I can actually pull this off! Even if I only reduce it by 30%, that will still be a big improvement.
I’ll be learning as I go — and blogging along the way. Stay with me and we will learn together!
Here are eight steps you can take to help you slash your food budget:
Step One: Establish Your Monthly Average Food Budget
In order to accurately track what you spend per month, you need to enter everything in Quicken (or Excel, if you don’t have Quicken) for several months and then look at the monthly average for groceries (divide the monthly total by the number of months).
It’s hard to see what you’re really spending per month since a lot of the food we buy isn’t just for this month. You might buy a jar of honey that lasts you three months, or a giant bag of rice that lasts for six months. This is why you have to take an average over several months.
I did this for last year, which is how I know what we currently spend on groceries.
Step Two: Set a Goal for Cutting Your Food Budget
It’s important to set a goal — an actual fixed number — for a monthly budget. If you don’t have a number in mind, you won’t stick to it. If you’re currently spending $1000/month on food (average), and you want to cut that in half, set your goal for $500/month. If you think that’s crazy and impossible, set your goal for 25% — $750/month.
Step Three: Analyze Your Food Costs
Next, you need to analyze your expenditures. Only then can you see where you can cut costs.
This month, I’ll be posting all my food receipts. I’m also calculating the cost of food per ounce.
This is very important because you can really tell which foods cost the most and which cost the least. Especially when you compare the foods nutritionally. I’d much rather spend money on real raw grass-fed cheese instead of say, processed cereal or potato chips.
You might also find that you’re spending a lot of money on things you can do without — like disposable diapers or paper towels. Perhaps you can switch to cloth diapers and you’ll have an extra $50/month for raw grass-fed butter.
Step Four: Write a Weekly Menu Plan
Writing a weekly menu plan is not hard to do and it really helps you get organized. (If you’re a blogger, you can join the Organizing Junkie blog’s Menu Plan Monday carnival.)
And I believe menu planning is absolutely essential in economizing. First of all, you are much less prone to impulse buys and buying stuff you do not need. Also, you can balance the week’s costs — a few nights cheaper meals like beans and rice, or soups or stews — and then do something more expensive, like a roast chicken or duck and maybe some seafood on the other nights.
Step Five: Calculate Your Cost Per Meal
Now we get to the fun part. Get out your menu plan and the corresponding recipes, and figure out the cost per meal.
If your recipe calls for 4 ounces of butter and butter costs $2.50/lb ($2.50 divided by 16 ounces = .16 per ounce), that’s 64 cents. Add up all your other ingredients and you will know the cost per meal.
Don’t be too anal. Round up to the nearest penny or nickel or whatever works for you. Don’t obsess about a pinch of sea salt.
Step Six: Modify Your Meal Plan to Fit Your Budget
Tally up the costs for all your meals for the week. Multiply by 4 or 5 (depending on the number of weeks in the month) and see if you are within your monthly budget.
If not, see if you can plan some cheaper meals. Try to do more soups or stews. Make your own mayonnaise and chicken stock. Use potatoes instead of pasta. Use dried beans instead of canned. Bake your own bread… you get the idea!
Step Seven: Write Out a Shopping List
Never go to the grocery store or farmer’s market without a shopping list. This way you only buy what you need each week. You can still buy in bulk, but since you know your costs per meal and costs per week, you know you will be staying within your monthly budget.
Step Eight: Find More Ways to Cut Costs
If you want to find ways to cut your costs even more, try shopping around for cheaper sources of food. That said, I never compromise on certain foods. I refuse to buy pasteurized milk, for example. I only buy real, raw milk from farmers I trust. But I have no problem buying cheap paper towels or toilet paper.
You can also find ways to buy in bulk — either at stores like Costco (where I get my paper towels) or starting or joining a buying club for organic food. You can also join a CSA with a local farm — or buy 1/4 or 1/2 of a cow.
I also find that avoiding processed foods saves a lot of money. I’d much rather spend my hard-earned cash on healthy nutritious food like grass-fed beef and wild salmon, then waste it on nutritionally-empty foods like Doritos and Cheerios.
I’ll have more information and ideas for saving money on groceries in the upcoming weeks and months. Stay tuned!
Photo Credit: Daily Mail
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06/01/2009 at 6:09 pm Permalink
I get the Costco paper towels, too. I am always mindful of my mother’s stinginess of paper towels (“those cost money, use a cloth towel!”) so I only use paper towels when disposability is more of a priority to me than consuming issues. But my husband, who also had a mother who was stingy with paper towels (no joke, she rinsed them, dried them, and reused them!) but his reaction is to squander them, because now he can. No accounting for memories and psychology, huh?
And I really like the Costco paper towels. Not too expensive, not too thick or too thin, absorbent, etc. And I love buying these in the big pack and forgetting about buying paper towels for a while. But I wish the towels were perforated at a half-towel size. They are much too large for most uses and that wastes them, especially with the paper towel-aholics in my household.
Maybe we can lobby Costco to perforate a half towel size!
06/01/2009 at 9:10 pm Permalink
I remember when I was younger, how I hated the idea of saving paper towels and tin foil.
Your mother-in-law takes the cake! if I had a mother who rinsed paper towels, I think I would squander them, too!
PS: I do not like the half-paper towels. They annoy me. I need more of a paper towel than just a half.
10/01/2009 at 10:38 pm Permalink
This is my favorite topic. I am convinced that the more whole and homemade you eat the easier it is on your budget. You spend more time, but it is fun and interesting work you can do with your family. I also think that many of the nutrient and enzyme maximizing techniques like those from Nourishing Traditions/Weston A Price make your dollar go further nutrition wise. You can spend money on raw almonds and get some protein but if you take the time to soak and dry you get WAY more nutrients for your money. Cutting out pre-made processed food is absolutely the first step to cutting your budget and the most important this is to never compromise health. If you can’t get the food budget low enough without buying bad food, cut somewhere else in life like cable, new clothes, beauty products etc…
Good luck and check out this post I did specifically on my budget a while back…
11/01/2009 at 2:53 am Permalink
Great post, Sage!
I would love it if you would add this link to our Real Food Wednesdays Blog Carnival next Wednesday. Our theme this week is Real Food on a Budget.
All you have to do is come back next Wed and add the link to Mr. Linky.
Read more about it here: http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/01/08/blog-carnival-real-food-wednesdays/
That way more people will see your post and benefit from it! And of course there will be lots of other folks adding their links with recipe ideas and money-saving ideas.
Ann Marie
19/07/2010 at 9:25 am Permalink
Hi, I just had a comment about paper towels. We have cloth-diapered our kids and enjoyed the benefits, especially the decreased waste. But we were still buying paper towels and sometimes even paper napkins for convenience. Well one day I got fed up with the huge waste and cost. Trees and energy for manufacture are consumed, they are bleached… Yes, they are convenient. Did we really need them? No. I cut up an old pretty bed sheet into paper towel sheet sizes, hemmed the edges, folded them in a nice tall stack on my kitchen counter, and never bought paper towels or napkins again! After use I just throw them in with the rest of the laundry and voila! – back to the stack. After my husband got used to it, he even appreciated the less cost and waste, and softer surface rubbed on his and the kids faces. One of my favorite parts is that my 2 and 5 year olds can help fold laundry more now since they are so little and easy
. Try it!
-Katie
19/07/2010 at 10:19 am Permalink
Katie – I wish I could get my husband to go for that. He is really addicted to paper towels.
19/07/2010 at 1:20 pm Permalink
I hear ya. My husband was not happy at all at first. Serious paper-towel addiction!!! But I do most the shopping
. Once in a great while he still buys the big roll o’ paper towels to my dismay. We have an agreement that they will only be for pet accidents though 
. So far my mom and sister have since replaced their paper with cloth in their kitchens too, and are happy they did. Thus continues my quest towards waste-free living…one tiny step at a time!
Katie