saving BIG on your grocery bill: part 1

Of all of the things that people ask my advice on, this is way up there, because we only spend $100 per week on groceries for our little family of 4.

Seriously. It's true. Our grocery bill is just $100 a week. For all of us. And that's not just food. That includes toiletries, pet food, and even diapers. At this point, only 3 of us eat actual food (since Max is just shy of 4 months old). So that leaves 3 adults x 3 meals a day x 7 days = 63 meals. Our $100 bill includes things like shampoo and cat litter and other non-edibles, so it's more like $80 of food per week. That means each meal we eat only costs $1.27. And we eat well. Lots of fresh foods and tasty meals. No Ramen or Hamburger Helper on our menu. Oh, and that includes beer and wine. Remember how we have 2 small children?

And you can totally do it too. 

If you think this isn't for you because you only eat fresh produce and meat and you don't eat processed foods, to you I say:

B O L O G N A 

Even the crunchiest among you probably use at least some of these things: deodorant, soap, razor blades, rice, pasta, milk, flour, cereal, oatmeal, diapers, and, um, feminine hygiene products...just to name a few. And if you're paying full price for these, you are getting gouged.

Every single week, I save a minimum of 30% off my grocery bill. Usually up to about 50%. That means I'm walking away with between 1/3 and 1/2 of my groceries FOR FREE. If you compare out current food spend to what we used to spend before we started trying to save in this area, it's probably closer to 75% or more. I'm not joking. This is real money - an extra TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS (or more) a year - in our pockets. 




Time wise, the steps below take about an hour a week. On a given week, I save anywhere from $30-$100 per trip, which is a pretty decent hourly rate, if I do say so myself. 

As a family, we are really used to living off of little money. In fact, we have only been a dual income family for less than 3 years of our 9 year marriage.  Here's a brief family history. If you don't care, just skip to the next paragraph. I'll never know. 

• 2005: The first 6 months of our marriage were while we were still in college. We both had part time jobs, but we barely had two dimes to rub together. But we were in love and barely noticed. Pay days were special because we could afford to buy ground beef and eat Hamburger Helper. It's the simple things in life.
• 2005-2008: For 3 years Steven was in law school and we lived off my entry level salary. We graduated from Ramen and Pasta Roni Into eating actual food. I watched a ton of Food Network and discovered a passion for cooking. Steven was eternally grateful.
• 2008-2009: The blessed year of 2 incomes. We bought a house and went on 2 vacations. We are well at home and went out to eat with friends regularly. The glory days. 
• 2009-2010: The recession hit hard and Steven was out of work for 18 loooong months. Is that when we started trying to cut our grocery bill? You'd think so, but no. I thought that we couldn't possibly save any money clipping coupons because we only ate fresh food (see my bologna rant above...this was not the case). We had to dip into our emergency fund a little each month to cover our expenses. Thank The Lord we had one (but that's another post). Thankfully Steven found some contract work while I was pregnant with Henry and all was well in the land. That is, until...
• June 2011: I was on maternity leave with Henry in and Steven's contract work ended. We were a family of 3 with ZERO income for a month. Yikes. Talk about a wake up call. That was at the height of popularity for the TLC show Extreme Couponing. We needed to cut our expenses in a big way, so I gave it a try. My first grocery trip I saved $80. I was hooked. 
• September 2011 - November 2013: blessed dual income status once more. We kept the couponing up, because we know how much we could really save and put that money in the bank. It came in handy when I decided to become a stay at home momma in 2014.
• 2014: Steven is bringing home the figurative bacon, and I supplement our income with extra hourly design work. My penny pinching ways are a huge part of what has made staying at home possible.

I am definitely not as extreme as those (crazy) people on TV, so this week I'll share a few of the basic ways I keep our grocery bill low that you can totally implement (next week I'll share some 200 level tips). I did all of this while I was a working mom, too. It is possible. It does not have to take countless hours per week or take over your life. 

7 basic steps to slash your grocery bill:

1. Set a budget goal. Nothing too crazy. If you're spending $300 a week on food on average, shoot for $275. It's important not to go overboard when you start out. Ease into it or you may burn out or get discouraged. Also, as you start finding great deals, you will get sucked into spending more to save more. Which isn't really saving at all. Important lesson - avoid the temptation to go after every deal.

2. Meal planning. This sure isn't what most people want to hear, but friend, THIS is the best place to start seeing savings. Why? I'll give you three reasons.

• Because it will keep you from wandering around the store because you keep thinking of ingredients you need as you try to plan your meals on the fly. And you know what happens as you wander? You impulse buy things you don't need (oooh! Oreos!) Especially if you are shopping hungry and without a list. 
• It keeps you from making multiple trips to the store throughout the week to pick up forgotten ingredients. And then impulse buying even more stuff while you're there. 
• It keeps you from eating out because you have no food. Or at least not the right kinds of good to make an actual meal. Make no mistake, I'm not saying it's bad to eat out. I LOVE eating out. But, let's face it, it's expensive. I'd rather do it because it's a special occasion or I'm craving something, not because I don't have another choice. 
• BONUS REASON - less stress every day of figuring out what you're going to eat.

I like to decide what we will eat each week, but I don't always assign it to a specific day. If I have bought ingredients that spoil quickly, we will eat those meals first. Otherwise, I leave a little spontaneity in our meal planning and choose what sounds good each day (or what I have time to make factoring in the day's activities).

3. Choose your store. Everyone has an opinion on where to shop. Many people go to Walmart because of their low prices and price matching. Personally, I'd rather stab myself in the eye repeatedly with an ice pick before hauling my rear end (and the rear ends of my two small children) to Walmart every week. I instead shop at Tom Thumb (it's called Randall's or Safeway in other parts of the country) for two reasons. First, because it's literally at the end of my street less than 2 minutes from my front door. Second, because they have good member deals, I can earn gas rewards to reduce the cost at the pump, and they have a convenient app with extra savings. 

You'll want to become familiar with your stores savings policies. How many identical coupons per transaction, multiplying coupons, price matching, etc. It may weigh into your decision. Now, you can certainly shop multiple stores to get the best deals, but that's an advanced move that I'll cover in a future post. 

Here's a peek at what my Tom Thumb app looks like. I can see what's on sale this week, I can search by item or category, and it even has digital coupons that I can download right to my club card. Every week or so there is also a free deal. It's usually a new product that the manufacturer is trying to drum up interest in. Free is good. 

4. Only buy things when they go on sale. Most non-perishable items go on sale every 6-8 weeks. It will obviously then take you about 2 months to begin to see deep savings as you learn this rotation. How do you know what's on sale? There are a couple of ways: 

• Online or via app, depending on your store. 
• Newspaper. Just about all stores have ads in the Sunday paper, and many have ads in the Wednesday paper as well. Don't get the paper? You should consider it. I saved enough on my first couponing grocery trip to cover a full year's subscription...and then some. 

Now, I am a realist. I know that you can't always buy things on sale, but it's a good goal. When you can't...

5. Buy the store brand. Sometimes brands make a difference, but most of the time they don't. If you can't find what you need on sale, consider the generic. Most of the time the generics are made in the very same building as the brand name stuff. They just get different labels on the way out the door. 

6. Stack coupons with store sales. Here's where the actual couponing comes in. There's a reason this is #6 and not #1 on the list. Coupons are the icing on the cake, but you need all of the other steps to support it. Otherwise that $0.35 coupon isn't going to amount to a hill of beans.

The goal here is to pair coupons from your Sunday paper or the internet (coupons.com is a great place to start) with store specials. Here's how this works:

The grocery store has a sale on cereal. Normally $2.99, today it's $1.99. 

You have a manufacturer coupon for 50¢ off a box. 

Your store multiplies coupons. They double it to $1.00

Final cost of your cereal is 99¢

You just saved $2

Do this with multiple items on your list and you will begin to see HUGE savings. 

7. Build a stash. Most people call this a stockpile, but i dislike that term. This is not the apocalypse (at least I don't think it is). I set aside roughly 10% of my weekly grocery budget for adding to our stash. We buy multiples of the things we use the most that don't spoil quickly. For us, that includes diapers, wipes, deodorant, shampoo, cereal, granola bars, graham crackers, pasta, rice, marinara sauce, etc. You'll do this buy buying multiple items beyond what you need that week in a single trip. This is also a great way to save on meat - buying when it's deep on sale and stocking your freezer. You'll want to have multiple coupons to maximize savings. I'll cover how to do that in the advanced moves post next week. 

Phew, that was a lot to take in. Thanks for hanging with me. My best advice is to take it slow and implement these one at a time. You'll be hooked when you begin to get away with 1/3 of your cart for free each week. It will probably require getting the ridiculous car-grocery-cart for the little ones to keep them entertained. You will look ridiculous, but it will pay off.

Stay tuned for next week's post where I show you how to save even more. And if you try any of these tricks out, please leave a comment and let me know how it worked for you!