Simply Junior

Your food budget is the most flexible area of your household budget. Grocery savings will free up a significant amount of money if you need to balance the budget, or fund your savings accounts.

If you haven’t figured it out already, your kitchen is a Goldmine. There are numerous ways to reduce the grocery budget and free up funds to use in other areas.

How much should you be spending on groceries?

The USDA Food Plans at the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion suggests that a family of four is currently spending about $100 to $116 per week based on the “Thrifty Plan”, depending on the age of children. Anyone trying to reduce the food budget should follow the guidelines for the “thrifty plan.”

This should give you at least some idea what the average family spends.
I recommend you shoot for something less than that figure if at all possible by implementing as many of these grocery saving tips as possible!

Eliminate eating out! Period! – O.K. if you’re family is screaming mad at you then take them out at least once a month. Make it an occasion. Most of us get caught up in fast paced living and eat out at least one or two times per week. It’s just an insane waste of money. Your family will appreciate a dinner out much more when it’s not such a regular event. Consider it “quality time out”. And, remember to look for coupons good at local restaurants for additional savings. Minimize the use of convenience foods. – You can make it yourself for a fraction of the cost, try it! Many of us are so accustomed to convenience foods that we forget we can make it ourselves. If you already love to cook from scratch then congrats! For the rest, I know this is a scary thought. It’s hard to go back into the kitchen and actually get your hands dirty. However, I must insist you try this. There’s gold in them there hands! Use ‘em. If you don’t have a lot of time, don’t worry there are literally hundreds of recipe books for the busy lifestyle. There are many that promote frugal living as well. You’ll find substitute recipes for everything from baking mixes to shake and bake and salad dressing. All it takes is a little extra time. Even if you had to pay yourself for doing the cooking you would come out ahead. Do your homework! – Know what’s on sale and plan your menu around the weekly sales flyers. Investing a little extra time in planning will help maximize grocery savings and reduce the food budget! I make it a rule to never buy meat over $2 a pound. Although I allow myself $2, I usually only spend on average 39 cents to $1.69. Occasionally, (rarely) I indulge in something special if it’s a good value. Eat meatless meals at least twice a week. – Beans and rice are a good example. Egg dishes are a nice change in routine for dinner. Try a vegetable stir fry or casserole. Don’t use packaged mixes. – Cake, breads, muffins, pastry, pizza dough, pancake, and waffles all come in a variety of pre-packaged mixes. Make your own for not much more effort and a lot less money! Know what your local stores offer. – Which ones have the lowest prices? Start carrying a little memo book to record prices of items you buy regularly. You can organize trips to save time and money when planning your grocery shopping. Who accepts coupons and do they double? Do they have a rebate program? Do they have a clearance or bargain area? Which grocery stores accept additional discount programs like ValuPage? Build your coupon file! – It seems coupons are available everywhere now. Your newspaper is a great starting point. Pay careful attention when looking through magazines. These are easy to miss. I often find coupons in home, ladies, or cooking magazines. Check out the free grocery coupons on-line. Be sure to do your research, many stores do not accept computer generated coupons due to the high incidence of fraud. Be sure not to waste your valuable time on this one if you don’t have a local store that accepts them.

Be an informed consumer. I can’t stress this enough!

Informed consumer = More grocery savings!

Once you know where to shop, use all your resources. Combine rebates, sales, and coupons whenever possible for maximum grocery savings. This takes a bit more dedication but, you can literally get paid to purchase items if you’re willing to invest the time.

Grocery savings aren’t just for the grocery store. many drugstores now have food sections where you can save on groceries.

Here’s a great tip:

Always check your cash register receipt. Many stores offer a refund of full price policy for items that do not register the correct sale price.
I have cashed in on this one many times. Remember, these price adjustments are usually entered by humans. Human error is always a possibility, so cash in on it!

Because of a simple mistake, you have increased your grocery savings!

If you….

Plan ahead – Use your sale flyers to plan weekly meals.
Use what you have on hand first – Plan meals based on foods you have in your fridge, freezer, and cabinets already
Utilize your savings tips – Get more for your money using a combination of resources listed above
Make it yourself whenever possible

….You will be able to tap into that Goldmine hiding in your very own kitchen!

Whether you are feeling the pinch or you would just like to have some money put by for a special occasion, you might find that you need to start thinking about how to save money and fast! If you are in a situation where you need to stop spending and start saving, keep some of the following hints in mind.

1. Use your own bank. If you are going out of town, make sure that you look up where your bank’s ATMs are located. So many of us are dependent on your debit cards, but we don’t realize that every time we use them we get a convenience fee slapped onto it. This adds up, so cultivating some bank loyalty can go a long way!

2. Pay for the TV that you watch. When you are looking to cut costs, take a long hard look at your cable bill. How much do you really watch everything that is included in your package? By calling your cable company and negotiating to make sure that you are only paying for what you watch, you can cut costs significantly.

3. Consolidate your bills. There are services where you can put everything from your water to your electricity to your cable and phone bills on to the same bill. When you do this, you can see a huge drop in processing fees as well as added convenience.

4. Buy in bulk but do it reasonably. When you are looking at groceries or household supplies, it might be best to buy in bulk. Remember that it is not a saving if something is going to go bad before you eat it or use it, and think about use before you purchase.

5. Use coupons. Coupons are most handy when it comes to cutting down your food budget, but remember that you can get coupons for just about anything. The more you search them out and use them, the lower your costs will drop.

6. Stop eating out. How often do you eat out? Chances are, this is impacting your budget in a larger way than you think. Take the time to cook at home and see how much you save by limiting your eating out to once or twice a week.

7. Head to the library. You can borrow books at the library, but you will also find that you can borrow DVDs and music CD’s as well. The library’s a great way to get your media fix without breaking the bank.

8. Routine maintenance. By doing routine maintenance on your car, your home and your clothes, you can make sure that it stops at small repairs without needing big ones. Take some time and save some cash.

9. Do your research. Never make a purchase until you have seen what the other place is offering. You will find that a little bit of price comparison can save you a fair amount of money.

10. Think before you buy. Ask yourself if you really need something. It is fine if the answer is yes, but just taking the time to ask yourself this question can weed out a lot of spur of the moment purchases.

Take some time to really think about saving money. It’s a lot easier than you think it is to do, so just keep a few of these tips in mind and put them into action where applicable.

Once you have a budget and you know what you are spending, the next phase is to improve your spending habits. Making your spending more efficient means making your spending in each expense category more efficient, and each expense category has its own techniques of efficiency. By working with each category separately, you can dramatically improve your overall spending efficiency.

Perhaps the largest part of your living expenses category is your food budget, and food spending has its own set of improvements. Since everyone eats, everyone has a food budget. This spending can be improved in several ways, but I want to warn you, there is a certain amount of spending that must occur here. While you can save on your food, you can save even more in other areas. But many people start with saving on the food budget, so let’s cover some of the basics. There are both general and specific techniques of improving your spending on food.

General Techniques

There are four general techniques that can be applied to your food budget and have good results.