$300/mo for groceries & all household expenses

[janerose]

Anyone else out there getting by on about the same or even less? How do you make it work for you? I need new ideas!

I have $300/mo for everything, including cat food, copays, toiletries, clean stuff, paper products & diapers. This is not a negotiable amount for me. It is the most my husband can afford to budget for us in this area without taking money from other bills. Because we've been living frugally for many years already there is not much left that we can cut from the budget either!

We're a family of 4 & live in the northeast. We're all big eaters & enjoy lots of fruits/veggies & have meat a couple nights a week. I haven't found using CD to save much money, as our electric bill goes up enough to make up the difference we save not buying sposies. Also, DD2 gets horrible rashes if in CD FT, so we PT CD and PT sposie.

For a long time I struggled to stay in budget. I still go over occasionally (like if I have several more expensive bulk items run out all at the same time), but we're working on a system for that too.

For me what's really helped me stay in budget is:

1) Stop buying most convenience foods & cook from scratch. I'm not saying I don't buy any, but they are the same basic ones. Saltines & graham crackers. A few salad dressings & condiments, which I find are cheaper to buy than make. Occasionally treats like chips or ice cream cones (all of these are under $1 a box for me). By simplifying & being able to make 90% of what we eat from scratch from a basic pantry I've been able to....

2) Finally bite the bullet & put together a price book. I *talked* about doing it for years, but it was just SO daunting to me with all the various things we'd buy before. It was like I needed to track the price of everything in the store! Now, there are just a few dozen basic things we buy, so the price book didn't seem so hard. It has revolutionized my grocery budget. I spend WAY less than I thought we could & we eat healthier. I "shop" before I shop with my price book, current fliers, & a list of what I need to stock up on. And I don't really use coupons. As in, if I come across one for something I buy anyway, great, but I don't kill myself finding them.

For me, a big part is even if I can't buy organic I *always* shoot for fresh whenever possible, bulk basic ingredients, minimal processing, rBST free, no extra sugar, HFCS, MSG, dyes, local & preferrably in season.

Honestly, I find that by cooking most stuff from scratch, I save enough money to keep us stocked on things like fresh fruits/veggies & some meat. Buying in season & knowing prices from following the sales has also helped with fitting that stuff into our diet.

At the moment we don't grow/store any of our own food. Although that's going to change this upcoming summer hopefully!

I'm finding that most people are shocked when they hear how little our budget is. Just wondering how other families who do it manage?

[Pinoikoi]

Originally Posted by janerose

2) Finally bite the bullet & put together a price book. I *talked* about doing it for years, but it was just SO daunting to me with all the various things we'd buy before. It was like I needed to track the price of everything in the store! Now, there are just a few dozen basic things we buy, so the price book didn't seem so hard. It has revolutionized my grocery budget. I spend WAY less than I thought we could & we eat healthier. I "shop" before I shop with my price book, current fliers, & a list of what I need to stock up on. And I don't really use coupons. As in, if I come across one for something I buy anyway, great, but I don't kill myself finding them.

I have a couple of questions. How many people are you feeding everyday? (I don't think that was mentioned unless I missed it).

Can you explain more about the price book? Is it a list of items you normally buy and the prices they SHOULD be at or what?

Where do you usually shop? I am buying more in bulk this year than ever before, but besides a local butcher and costco, I don't know where else to buy in bulk..

I have a family of 6.. one thing that we do is we swap quite a bit.. I give my jars to a lady that makes jam and syrup every summer... I give her boxes of jars, and in return I get several jars of syrup or jam- salmonberry or mossberry or blueberry- whatever she has gathered that year.

When I bake I usually make an extra loaf to give to the neighbors.. she does the same for me.. it isn't an expectation or anything, but it has allowed us a treat we don't usually have.. She made us banana bread this week, I haven't made that in MONTHS.. as we have been eating our bananas pretty quickly lately.

We were given a whole bunch of salmon when a friend's freezer started fritzing.. we gave one to a neighbor, one to the mailman, etc.. I think when people give their extra more often, everyone ends up better off- more variety, better universe, etc.

[janerose]

Originally Posted by Pinoikoi

I have a couple of questions. How many people are you feeding everyday? (I don't think that was mentioned unless I missed it).

Can you explain more about the price book? Is it a list of items you normally buy and the prices they SHOULD be at or what?

Where do you usually shop? I am buying more in bulk this year than ever before, but besides a local butcher and costco, I don't know where else to buy in bulk..

I'm feeding a family of 4. I hadn't mentioned it because it's in my sig. DH, myself & 2 girls 4 & 2. We are all hearty eaters. DH could easily count as 2 adults himself sometimes! He bikes to work, so by dinner time he's famished. Even the girls, who love fruits & veggies, eat a fair amount.

Be very careful of bulk buying. It can be a great deal, but you'd be surprised how often it's not as much of a savings as you'd think. For example I can buy a 25# bag of flour at Sam's, but it's the same price per pound as the 5# bag at Aldis. I'd rather buy the smaller bag simply because it's easier to handle. Don't assume that *any* place or any one method of buying is always cheapest!

For the pricebook I took a small steno type pad & walked through each store writing down the price & unit price of each item we regularly buy. I didn't worry about sale prices, just whatever the regular shelf price was. I didn't do this all at once. It took me about 2 months to get Sam's, Walmart, Aldi, & our co-op done. I still need to do 2 other local grocery stores & I'd eventually like to add in some on-line bulk places like Frontier & Walton Feed.

An entry would look like: Aldi -- #1 macaroni -- $0.89 -- $0.89/lb

Even without having all the stores done it was a huge help. I quickly realized that Aldi was generally the cheapest on anything they carried, followed by Walmart/Sam's, and then the sale prices at the other places. Because it's in a small notebook I carry it with my shopping list. When I'm at one of those other stores I haven't done yet I can take it out and quickly flip through to see if something they have is really a great deal or not.

Now that I know which items are the best prices where, when I sit down to shop I:
1) Write stuff on a whiteboard in our kitchen as I realize we need to buy more.
2) The day before I shop I do a quick inventory of our pantry/fridge/freezer/toiletries/paper products/cat stuff/meds & add anything that needs to be added to the list.
3) Sit down with my list & compare it too my pricelist & sales fliers.
4) Make a shopping list broken up by the places items are cheapest. ie: at Aldi I may buy butter, apple juice concentrate, flour & sugar. At Walmart I'll get diapers, paper towel, beans & eggs. At Sam's I'll buy cheese, 5# honey, frozen chicken, & TP.
5) Since I know the prices I put them next to the items too. That way I can calculate ahead of time if I'm within my budget or if I need to eliminate some items. It also makes it easier for me to tell if an item has gone up or down in it's regular price when I'm picking it up.

I know that all sounds really complicated, and the first couple weeks it did take me an hour or two each time to get it all together. But the beautiful thing is after a bit you've done all the leg work & now I can do all that in less than 30 min.

I also know many people don't like the inconvenience of shopping at multiple stores. For me, all those stores are within a couple miles of each other. And, honestly, by shopping with the list I'm in & out of each store so much faster I can do 3 or 4 stops in the time it used to take me to do 1 or 2. It does help if you can have someone watch the kids or go after they go to bed. I can't do all those places in one trip if the girls are with me, and I really prefer too since it saves on a trip into town.

Sure all together it took me probably 20-30 hours of time spread out over 2-3 months to get everything together & organized (and I'm still working on it!). But for the $200+ it saves me each month it's worth it in the long run.

Of course NOT having the money to spend more than that is a big motivator too!

FYI, I based my pantry list off a monthly menu I made up. 5 weeks worth of 3 meals a day. These are meals that I've found to be cheap, simple to prepare, tasty, and that my family doesn't mind eating on a regular basis. I went through my recipe collection & made a pile of the ones we actually ate on a regular basis and wrote them down.

After I came up with the list, I went through & wrote down all the ingredients I needed to make those things, which was the basis for my pantry.

Because I essentially cook from my pantry, knowing that at any given point I have the makings for multiple family-approved meals sitting there, when I shop I'm now usually shopping for staple items to replenish pantry stuff that's low or out. Now I've been doing it awhile I know what staples we need, so when I see a great sale advertised I can assess what we have on hand and determine if it's worth stocking up on it or not. Also, I'm finding that as the months go by I'm seeing a definite pattern to the sales.

I don't record sale prices in my pricebook. I may get to the point where I do that eventually, but I really wanted it to be based on just the regular shelf price since that's what's consistent to work with. Comparing it against the sale fliers each week seems to be working pretty well so far.

Sorry this is so long, but hopefully it answered some of your questions!

[ekortering]

Great, Great Post!!! ITA with everything.

I compiled a Price Book 5 years ago when I was pregnant and it was really, really helpful. I stopped using it once I pretty much memorized "base" prices. That's changed in the past year so I need to make a new one. It's a daunting task but I.MUST.DO.IT.

[Teenytoona]

Wow! I hadn't thought of making a price book! Such a great idea. I know there are a few items in my head generally (like where are the best prices on cabbage) but that's such a good idea. I've been noticing that Giant Eagle always has stuff on sale but it's rarely, if ever, any better priced than Acme, Kreigers or Aldi's. But, I don't know that for everything, so a book would be such a good idea. It would be quiet a project, to be sure, but it's something I'd looove doing. Cuz, I'm a dorkalah like that.

[janerose]

Wanted to add something to clarify about my pricebook.

I don't write down the prices for every brand of a particular item. Only the one that's the cheapest price. If the cheapest one is a brand we don't like, then the second cheapest.

Example: I use a lot of stewed tomatoes. They are one of the only canned items I still buy actually. But we don't like the Walmart "Great Value" ones. They were, IMHO, just bad. So in the W-mart section of my pricebook under stewed tomatoes I have the DelMonte ones listed. The Walmart ones are cheapest, but since we don't like them it makes no sense to record that price. If someone doesn't ever use stewed tomatoes, then I would say not to include them in their book at all.

Also, once I got a couple stores into the price book I took my master pantry list & looked up each item in the price book. Next to the item I marked the cheapest price I can regularly get it for & the store it's at. Now when I make up my shopping list I don't have to sort through the whole pricebook. I just look at my pantry list.

Looking through the flyers is a lot easier too, because I'm generally not looking at all the convenience items. I can quickly scan for sales on staples, produce & meat.

I also don't have produce & meat in my price book yet. Produce I've found hard because it varies so much from week to week & season to season. Instead, I make my shopping list up for what I need in the pantry & try to make sure I have X amount of $$$ for stuff like produce. Then I bring the flyers with me & compare prices while I shop just on produce.

Really, it sounds complicated & kind of daunting to get started, but once you're doing it it just kind of falls into place.

[beansmama]

I'm probably not much help...but i buy in bulk. When i say "bulk" i don't mean i buy 100 pounds of rice at a time...i just go to stores with bulk BINS. Super cheap and you can just buy what you need.

Nix any beverages other than water and milk (soymilk). That's what i did. We don't really drink soymilk though, i mostly use it in cooking and DD (4) will have a cup a day.

Cut out meat.

Use vinegar/baking soda for your cleaning. Knock off brands of shampoo/conditioner, soap, toothpaste, etc.

We don't have pets, but our current budget for a fam of 3 (i'm prego as well) is $260. I don't plan on upping it when the baby arrives, either. For cleaning/misc. supplies add another $30/mo.

I dunno...your budget is REALLY tight. Especially since that is your *everything* money. I'd look into WIC and foodstamps. Really. They are there to help.

[Sasharna]

Wow! What an inspiration! Awesome thread.

I began to record prices this month, too. It's great to read how this is working for your family.

I wonder if incorporating more of your tips, we could get more fresh foods. I often find myself buying convenience foods (say... a Trader Joe's frozen stir fry) because they are cheaper than buying multiple fresh veggies, chopping them up, etc.

[janerose]

Originally Posted by beansmama

I'm probably not much help...but i buy in bulk. When i say "bulk" i don't mean i buy 100 pounds of rice at a time...i just go to stores with bulk BINS. Super cheap and you can just buy what you need.

Nix any beverages other than water and milk (soymilk). That's what i did. We don't really drink soymilk though, i mostly use it in cooking and DD (4) will have a cup a day.

Cut out meat.

Use vinegar/baking soda for your cleaning. Knock off brands of shampoo/conditioner, soap, toothpaste, etc.

We don't have pets, but our current budget for a fam of 3 (i'm prego as well) is $260. I don't plan on upping it when the baby arrives, either. For cleaning/misc. supplies add another $30/mo.

I dunno...your budget is REALLY tight. Especially since that is your *everything* money. I'd look into WIC and foodstamps. Really. They are there to help.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Yeah, it's tight, but I'm finding it doable with good planning. Just looking for even more ideas to stretch those $$$. What I probably should do it really start making an effort to use coupons for those couple name brand items we do use regularly. There just aren't very many of them any more!

Strangely, I've found that around here for some reason even items in bulk bins tend to be more than what I can get the same items for at Sam's/Walmart/Aldi or on sale at another grocery. There are only like 2 places in our town that have bulk bins though. Frontier is good for some stuff, but I havn't had the $$$ to put together a $250 order to get the free shipping lately, and most of our family & friends just aren't interested in ordering from them.

I do already make most of our cleaning products. I buy generic scrubbing bubbles on sale because we have very, very hard water & it's the only thing I've found that keeps our bathroom even somewhat clean looking. I buy huge bottles of Ajax dish detergent at Walmart for under $3 & use it for dishes (no dishwasher), laundry (yes, laundry...1-2 tsp & some baking soda seriously works *better* than most laundry detergents I've tried), and our the recycled foaming hand pumps we have at both sinks.

Actually, we do get WIC. Forgot about that. It is some help. Although we don't eat all the stuff on the checks. Like box cereal. I actually end up donating some each year because we get SOOO many boxes piled up in our pantry. There's no way 2 adults & 2 small kids could eat that much cereal before it expired. At least not in our house! It's a help with eggs, milk & juice especially. I have limited our milk/juice drinking and that really helped get us consistently under the $300 as well.

Meat I won't buy unless it's under $2/lb for red meat & $1/lb for chicken. I can pretty regularly get chicken leg quarters in bags at one local store for about $0.33/lb. Red meat I only buy once every month or two, in bulk, when it's on a super sale. I get a big package & divide it up into 1/2#, sometimes 1/4#, packages. Save your empty bread-type bags & the wax paper bags that come in cereal boxes too. They're the best for dividing & storing meat. I always hated storing it in freezer baggies & then having to toss the baggie afterwards since we normally use and use and use our baggies until either the zipper breaks or they get a hole.

Frankly, I would be happy to get food stamps, but on our whopping income of $25K we actually don't qualify. I've applied & was denied. Oh, we also have a couple thousand in emergency savings we've slowly managed to build up over the past couple years & that counted against us as well.

The system is SO managed to force you to stay poor. It's kind of sad.

[dantesmama]

Wow, great thread! After reading this, I'm too embarassed to say how much we spend on food. This has definitely inspired me to overhaul the way I shop. Thank you!!!

Originally Posted by janerose

Frankly, I would be happy to get food stamps, but on our whopping income of $25K we actually don't qualify. I've applied & was denied. Oh, we also have a couple thousand in emergency savings we've slowly managed to build up over the past couple years & that counted against us as well.

The system is SO managed to force you to stay poor. It's kind of sad.

I absolutely agree. We looked into food stamps last year, because things were so tight we literally didn't have enough money to keep even the basics in the house. We didn't qualify, at under 30k for the four of us, and I also found out that all of my financial aid for school - even loans! - counted as income.

[janerose]

Originally Posted by dantesmama

Wow, great thread! After reading this, I'm too embarassed to say how much we spend on food. This has definitely inspired me to overhaul the way I shop. Thank you!!!

No reason to be embarassed! Before I started shopping this way I was probably spending twice as much on groceries. I say "probably" because I'm not actually sure exactly WHAT I was spending.

Either way it was too much & taking money away from other areas we need to spend more in. Like paying down our debt....student loans for example. :

Yes, it kills me that student loans are considered income for the purpose of things like food stamps. We've run into that in the past too. It was yet another reason that we were turned down for them.

Oh, well. The silver lining is it's forced me to get a grip on my spending & become much more simple and yet creative with what I cook.

[janerose]

Originally Posted by Sasharna

I wonder if incorporating more of your tips, we could get more fresh foods. I often find myself buying convenience foods (say... a Trader Joe's frozen stir fry) because they are cheaper than buying multiple fresh veggies, chopping them up, etc.

Yes, this was one of the big advantages I found of the pricebook. It lets me consciously decide where my dollars are best spent.

I don't buy really any canned fruit/veggie. Just applesauce & stewed tomatoes.

I do get frozen stuff. I've found that the things that are consistently cheapest in our area (NE NY) are:
~ Broccoli in the big 5# bag at Walmart
~ 2# bags of stir-fry at Aldi
~ any place I can get frozen peas, corn, or beans for $0.99/lb or less. That's the regular price at Aldi, but sometimes I can find them on sale for less other places.
~ Sometimes the frozen diced green peppers. Strangely enough these are often cheaper for me then the fresh ones are unless they're in season.

As for fresh stuff, I have a list of things I pretty much always have on hand. I shop 2x a month when DH gets paid. They are:

~ celery
~ whole carrots
~ baby carrots if on sale, which they usually are somewhere (these are just a treat for the kids. I cook with the cheaper whole ones. If I'm having a really tight week these get skipped.)
~ potatoes
~ cabbage
~ onions
~ cucumbers
~ 3 packs of Romaine hearts
~ apples (we live in apple country, so these are pretty cheap year round for us)
~ whatever fruit/veggies are in season & on sale.

I spend about $80/mo on produce. It's totally worth it too me, even though it ends up being the biggest single category of my grocery purchases most months. We'll hopefully be gardening this summer & the farmer's market will start back up in a couple more months. That will definitely help.

I cut back on pretty much everything else, especially meat, before I cut back on produce. You just can't beat those fresh, "living" foods.

[Adamsmama]

Thanks for all the info. I'm in the process of changing the way we shop (now buying more bulk) and we've stopped buying prepared food/boxed food of any type except for cereal and saltines (for the kids snacks). I buy from bulk bins -- but found out that if I buy a whole bag full I get 10% off at all the local health stores.

[1hautemama]

Wow, this is a great thread! It has definitely opened my eyes as to how wastefull I have become about grocery spending. At times I have treated it as a form of therapy. We are looking for ways to reduce our grocery bill, and I think I will start with keeping an organized pantry, use up what we have before buying more, cut out alcohol (for now), and definitely incorporate your tips for keeping a price book. Thanks so much for this thread!

[rainbowmoon]

just : here mainly and fascinated you can keep your budget so low!

[janerose]

Originally Posted by rainbowmoon

just : here mainly and fascinated you can keep your budget so low!

I noticed in your profile you're from Greenfield, MA. We used to live in St Johnsbury, VT & drive through Greenfield at least once a month on our way to visit family.

We LOVE Greenfield! We broke down there once & everyone was just SO nice & helpful. Like, literally would have been sleeping on the side of the road somewhere if it hadn't been for some great workers at the Mobil & hotel & a super mechanic who got our truck in & on the road first thing the next morning. We used to joke you should have a sign as you drive into town claiming to be the friendliest city in MA.

It's such a nice area too. Close to decent shopping in Amherst & Springfield & a not to bad drive to Boston, but still beautiful & rural.

OK, so that was totally OT, but I just get so excited when I see someone on here from somewhere even *sort* of near where I live or that I'm familar with! LOL

[carouselrider]

One thing I'm noticing about buying in bulk, I think there is a certain psychology that comes into play that might be defeating the price gains I made by buying in bulk. It's called, "we have it, let's eat it." For example, I figured out that it is cheaper to buy 5# of grated cheese at costco than to buy the big blocks, even on sale. So I bought 5# and sorted it into weekly bags to get us through the month. But I found that I think we are using it faster/more than usual, simply because when it runs out, it isn't realllyy out. We ran out of this weeks last night and I told my husband not to bring anymore down from the freezer until Sunday. I think that's the only way to stop burning through it.

Same thing for chocolate chips. The 10# bag at costco was cheaper than any of the sale prices, so I stocked up. Also for the string cheese I bought for snacks for the kids. I can't get over how much they've gone through. I won't buy it in bulk again because even though the per unit is lower, we end up spending more. (DH is home w/ the kids during the day, otherwise I think I'd be a little more strict with snacks etc).

It's just interesting to me how even what is cheapest on paper can get subverted by the psychology of consumption.

Also, I noticed through my pricebook, that bulk often is not cheaper, and is sometimes significantly more expensive. But sometimes it is cheaper. As long as you don't eat it all!

[Ygle]

Originally Posted by carouselrider

One thing I'm noticing about buying in bulk, I think there is a certain psychology that comes into play that might be defeating the price gains I made by buying in bulk. It's called, "we have it, let's eat it." !

I definitely noticed this as well and this is what really inspired me to get serious about meal planning, I found the only way to keep my family from scarfing up whatever item I bought tons of because it was on sale was to have a plan laid out for all to see... my telling them to try to spread it out just didn't seem to work, they would obsess all the more over whatever it was, but if we all sat down and planned out all our meals and snacks together for the whole month (which really, truly annoys me, but I have to do it!) and then print it out and post it on the pantry door and refrigerator door then everyone can see if they eat all the bananas today there goes next Wednesday's fruit salad, for example... I don't have to say a thing anymore.

[Jenn_M]

Great thread!! I'm very inspired to get creative with our budget!

[Denvergirlie]

Our budget is the same, $300 for everything. I find it's not a challenge at all, but it did take time to get to the point. I buy when things go on sale and stockpile at that time.

So my normal $300 doesn't have to cover the actual food we eat on a monthly basis, but maybe buy a bunch of ketchup and chicken one week, and the next week lots of beans and lentils, the next week steak and cheese and so on and on, and on. Just buying what's on sale and rotating what is in the cabinets.

Of course always have fresh produce and milk needs, but that might be $100 of the budget a month.

However, as I mentioned it took some time to get to this point. For a while I was just able to add a few things to the pantry and used the $300 for the month, but slowly over time it built up. I also had a once time $200 stockpile budget to restock some items, but that was about 2 years ago, with planning it's fairly easy to maintain now.

best of luck to you all.