Things are tight right now. I’m looking for tips and tricks to save money on general expenses.
I’m particularly concerned about our outrageous grocery bills. For two people, $175 a week is not unusual. A lot of it is from specialty foods - my husband has a number of allergies and requires gluten-free stuff. In addition to that, we try to eat as healthy as possible - fresh produce and other whole foods - which also costs money.
We are using budgeting software to keep track of all this. Our extras/fun money or arguably ‘‘not required’’ expenses comprise 5.7% of our total expenditures.
The rest is every day living stuff, and that’s where advice on cutting costs would be most helpful. Food, gas, toiletries, pet supplies, utilities, what have you.
Also, ideas for extra income are welcome. I’m currently seeking employment so consider ‘‘find work’’ a no-brainer.
Oh, and another thing - for those of you who are compulsive spenders who were forced to cut back out of necessity - any tips and tricks on psychologically dealing with the urge to consume would be most welcome.
I used to have a six-figure job and no responsibilities. I got into bad spending habits. Then I got married, had a baby, and quit my job. We are living on my husband’s salary, which is half what I used to make. My pieces of advice:
Getting over bad spending habits will be a slow process. It will take months or a year, but you will be incrementally improving over time. Build up a dialogue between you and your spouse about how silly the luxuries are, why you don’t really like them, and what you can do or have instead. That helps a lot. Then, re-direct your consumer energy. I’ve re-directed mine in two ways: selling old stuff on eBay and using that money to buy “new” used stuff, which is often so nice that the brand-new luxury items start to seem obscene. Also, couponing and chasing sales, which is very interesting and satisfying. According to my receipt I saved $42 off of last week’s grocery bill, and it was fun like playing a game.
Coupon and chase sales. I read coupondivas.com and savvycouponlady.com. Almost every week at Walgreens and CVS there is stuff which you could, if you’re in a major market, get for free. Other stuff can be gotten for a tiny fraction of the retail price. Entertain yourself by stocking up, stacking coupons, and getting that free stuff. You won’t have time or energy left over for idle shopping.
Re-evaluate your food choices. This means getting rid of brand loyalty for packaged items and buying whatever costs least. It also means figuring out what’s cheap in produce, dairy and meat, and forming a taste for it. Potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions and celery are cheap so we eat a lot of them. The fruit that comes in big bags is cheap, so we eat a lot of that. I used to pick the big, individual apples… those days are over.
Treat yourself sometimes. You may find that with your adjusted expectations, something that costs very little seems like a big treat. For example when the supermarket first put out the winter vegetables this year, I treated us to savoy cabbage, sugar dumpling squash, fresh brussels sprouts and parsnips. It was practical and enjoyable and didn’t cost much.
PS, about compulsive spending… I’ve also tried to re-direct my enjoyment from the rush of buying something RIGHT NOW into enjoyment about contemplating it, trying to figure out exactly how I want to spend my money for maximum satisfaction, then thinking about the purchase overnight to make sure I’m making the right choice. Needless to say, by the next day I’m often not interested in buying it at all.
Here’s some things I did when I was saving money. I got myself out of $20k in debt in about 2 years after I bought my house.
Don’t go to stores unless you have to. Which means, just grocery shopping. I never went to Target, Wal Mart, KMart, clothing stores, anything. Especially not with my mom, or just to browse. There was always something there that I ended up buying.
I remember I was so excited to buy a shower caddy when I first declared myself out of debt. I had sort of needed one but could live without the $10 expense. It did make my life a lot easier to have it but I wasn’t going to die without it.
I just didn’t buy ANYTHING other than food during that time.
Do side work. I made about $1500 building Web sites in my spare time while I was saving. I do it for a living but I don’t particularly like doing sites “for friends.” I bit the bullet and did it because every little penny helps.
Every little penny helps. People don’t seem to realize this but it does. It adds up to a lot of pennies. Maybe it was easier for me because I had a goal and not just “stay alive.” But my brother who is in debt thinks nothing of spending $5 on something on eBay and I would have never done that when I was in debt.
Eat like shit. Eating healthy is expensive. And never pass up free food. I always always took free food when available. I signed on to do this volunteer construction program over one summer because they had free lunch and breakfast. Woohoo!
Unfortunately for your husband’s allergies, this is possibly not an option.
I personally gave up having a “fun budget” because I didn’t feel that I needed it. Because my “fun” was watching my debt go down. I did nothing during that time, just read and watched TV and took care of my house. But other people feel differently about that. It’s a personal thing.
The best grocery-bill-saving technique I have is what I learned from my dad (who saved, according to his receipts, over $1000 last year using this method): only buy what’s on sale. Every week your grocery store puts out a sales flyer – go through that carefully and plan your week’s meals based on what’s on sale.
Buy the least-processed groceries that you can. Say you’re going to make a soup. Ignore the bags of pre-diced carrots and celery, and get the whole carrots and celery stalks. You get a lot more food for a lot less money.
For groceries a huge factor is controlling waste. Waste less, buy less, spend less. Start by not buying anything unless you have a specific plan to eat it in the next 7 days. Veggies are important but for many popular veggies there isn’t much advantage in buying them fresh over frozen. Frozen veggies have almost all the nutrition of fresh, are usually cheaper, taste good and take ages to go bad. Frozen broccoli, peas, squash and green beans are my frozen go-tos. (and spinach, which I don’t eat straight, but usually mix into other dishes). Maybe you have secret, snobbish feelings about buying frozen veggies (I did). Get over it.
Look for ways to use up things that have gone “less than perfect.” If you have a couple apples that are getting soft and unappealing, cook them down for applesauce. Toss celery tops, odd bits of leftover herbs, turnip or beet greens, and any other veggie odds & ends into a baggie in the freezer. Save chicken bones likewise till you have enough saved up for broth*. Cook leftover bits of meat with potatoes, cabbage, and onions for hash. Etc. When you buy something, especially meat protein, try as much as possible to use it up completely. Ethnic markets - such as latino markets or asian markets, can be really cheap for certain things, including meat and the more exotic produce, plus gluten-free staples like rice noodles, corn tortillas, etc.
*Heave everything into a pot, with some garlic onion and carrots if you have 'em, cover with water and simmer 3 hours, strain off all the solids and throw them out, freeze the broth. I just made a lovely quart of soup from 2 chicken thighs with most of the meat eaten, some turnips greens, carrot, onion, fennel tops, celery tops, leek tops. Makes the house smell good, too.
If you’re spending more than $3 or $4 on an item, think about it. If it’s a food item that will feed several people, do the math. $10 for 2 steaks would be $5 per person, but you also have to add in the other components of the meal. Almost might as well eat out. Maybe you’re better off with 3 pork chops for $6.
And the old adage “don’t grocery shop when you’re hungry” is true.
Write down all your expenses and address the largest ones first. Can you eliminate them, can you reduce them? Can you without cable TV, smartphones, etc? Netflix has a lot to watch and it’s less than $10 per month for unlimited streaming.
Another thing that works for me is to pick up the item in the store and pretend I’m going to buy it, walk around with it and everything, then put it back before I leave. It felt like mine for a short time, but I didn’t spend money on it. If you’re not someone who can do this, don’t try it.
Buying on sale is a good idea. I have enough room in my house to store food items; when peanut butter was on sale buy one get one free, I got two large jars of peanut butter that’ll last me about a year. When I’m running low on something, I start looking for it on sale, then store it for a week or two.
I always check out the clearance racks and the clearance meat - if it expires tomorrow but I make it for dinner tonight, it doesn’t matter.
Individually packaged things are almost always more expensive, but do check the per unit costs (assuming your local grocery store gives them) - we assume that the big box of cereal is less per unit than the small box, but sometimes a sale changes things around.
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts seem like a very expensive meat, but it’s pure protein - no waste at all. I buy a big tray of them and aliquot them into baggies and freeze each breast separately. I also aliquot and freeze vegetables and cheese - the freezer is really your friend when you’re trying to save money, because you can buy larger, cheaper quantities than you can eat fresh.
I wrote this post a few years ago for a different message board when our income was really tight. I think the suggestions in it are still valid, even though I actually don’t do most of them right now:
$175 a week for two people seems like a lot. Are you using everything you buy? Lots of leftovers being tossed? For that kind of money, you could eat out and probably save.
Go through the fridge and pantry to see what’s not being used, and don’t buy it again. A few times a week, eat “poor” – ramen noodles, a Banquet pot pie, fish sticks, tuna and noodles, mac and cheese, creamed beef on toast. Don’t eat out unless you’ll be leaving with leftovers – most Chinese is fine the next day.
No more fancy olives, pickles, deli meats, eight different kinds of salad dressing, crackers, chips, designer mustard, olive oil. Blow your nose with bathroom tissue instead of Kleenex. Find one cleaner that works for everything. Use rags instead of paper towels.
Buy generic aspirin and toiletries, and use shampoo and body wash until there’s absolutely nothing left in the bottle.
Don’t do laundry unless you have a full load, and (assuming you don’t stink), get more than one wearing from shirts and jeans.
Don’t buy anything except food. No more books or DVDs, that’s what libraries are for. If you’re paying for TV, consider an antenna and a converter box instead of cable or satellite. If you have pay channels, dump them.
About cleaning products–ditto on knowing what you really need. I find that a paste of baking soda and dish soap cleans a whole lot of things really, really well. It’s replaced Comet, Soft Scrub, Magic Erasers, and kitchen/bathroom surface cleaners.
I still find it worthwhile to buy commercial glass cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, and harsh floor cleaner.
There are lots of websites about make-your-own house cleaning stuff and ymmv, of course.
Hell yes. 1 lb. of dried beans usually costs me $1 - 2, depending on what kind, and makes, oh, 6 - 8 cups of cooked beans. For that, you could get maybe a can or two of the same kind of beans.
Also, the Crock-Pot is your friend.
Buy groceries at ethnic shops whenever possible - beans are much cheaper, for example, in an Indian or Mexican grocery near us than they are at a supermarket. Ditto spices, cilantro, etc.
You know those used notebooks from previous classes you have laying about the place? Take the smallest one w/ the most remaining pages and make it your price book. Head each page w/ an item you buy frequently. Take it w/ you every time you go to a store whether or not you’re going to buy that item that day.
Each line will look like this -
STORE NAME FULL PRICE SIZE/QTY PRICE PER UNIT TODAY’S DATE
This book will help you save money almost immediately. You’ll see what store gives you the best price and what the best price really is; larger quantities don’t always equal a better per unit price. Also, don’t overlook reusable packaging when shopping; a resealable bag that comes w/ an item is one less Ziploc you need to buy.
Making a grocery list seems to keep spending under control, too - I shop from my list, and add things if I see them and remember I’m getting low, or they’re on a good sale. I have also recently heard that impulse buying goes up if you shop with a basket instead of a cart, so always use a cart.
With regard to clothes shopping, you might still need to buy some clothes while things are really tight, especially if you’re going on interviews and need nice clothes. I always shop the clearance racks in department stores, too - I’ve sort of made it my mission in life to never pay full price for retail items. Head to the back of the store where the clearance stuff is, and be prepared to spend some time finding what you’re looking for. You can find some very nice stuff at thrift stores, too, but I’ve noticed that their prices have gone up so much that I actually do better shopping the clearance racks at department stores. Strange world we live in.
