Cutting The Grocery Bill--How?

I’m reporting success this week with my attempts to drastically cut the grocery bill. I cut ours by more than half and we made it (almost) all the way through to today, the day of the next big shop for the week. All in all, I spent an extra $20.50, which may not seem so great to you. My “failures”: I spent $3 at the divinely-inspired Krispy Kreme drive-through (don’t ask, I just got a vision and followed through on it as the spirits were advising me–you would totally have bought those donuts, too). I also spent an extra $3 at Dick’s Drive In, when my husband looked
positively forlorn about a lack of Root Beer, and so since he got the
RB, I got a Coke. My first Coke in ages! It was great! (And yet the baby kicked all night and I couldn’t sleep.) The point is, we could
have eaten for $12 instead of $15 by sticking to water. I spent $6 on “emergency” lattes from Starbucks the morning after we ran out of coffee, and $8.50 at Safeway when I failed to buy two key ingredients for taco night. (See my very first ever post for a healthy way to make tacos.) At that point, we were out of milk, juice, and coffee as well. That was Thursday, and we had two days to go until I was supposed to buy more food. But when faced with drinking only water for the next 2-1/2 days for all of us, I broke and bought more milk and juice and a mini bag of coffee. But for the juice, I bought frozen concentrate instead of a ready-made jug or carton. It was a third of the price of ready-made juice. Course, I realized when I got home that my only remaining pitcher had been confiscated and left in the sandbox outside all winter. So there is literally a bucket of OJ in my fridge right now. But so what? I ain’t so different from you am I? With my pitcher in the yard and bucket in the fridge?

Frankly, I thought I was going to make all this big effort, then crack on the 2nd or 3rd day and splurge on a bunch of ready-made stuff, or eat out at every meal and then crumple in a heap and cry every night over my failure and because we’re going broke during the recession, with another baby on the way. (We are not quite living the lyrics of every hard-luck country song, but it feels like it could go that way sometimes. Ever hear Fancy by Reba McEntire, or Poor Man’s House by Patty Griffin? Lord have mercy.) Likely as it was for me to fail and crumple this week, it didn’t turn out that way.

I’ve been talking this whole thing up with my girlfriends as we gathered on various playgrounds and in the preschool lobby, and I got some comments that made me feel much better. A couple of mothers I know said, “Oh, I try that, but then when I try to stick to a plan of such limited choices, I get really fickle and think ‘I don’t want to eat that for lunch or dinner,’ so then it doesn’t work.”  It made me feel better that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. None of us wants to be limited so much. It’s like dieting. As soon as there are strict rules in place, we explode in a manic fury of breaking them. So how does one do it?

First, I think when it comes to saving money, necessity plays a big role in motivation. Don’t cry. Don’t crumple. Just do it. And forgive yourself the small stuff, like responding to the “Hot Fresh” sign when you drive past Krispy Kreme. Next, don’t be silly about your menu choices. I planned a menu full of stuff I knew we loved already, and figured out how to make them cheaper. I took a couple chances, like on the take-out joint we never tried before and on Cat Cora’s chicken recipe, but both were winners. I lucked out. Last, I cut out every single ready-made item at the grocery store. I didn’t buy the yummy organic flax toaster waffles from Whole Foods, nor Amy’s Organic Toaster Pastries, nor did I buy the ready-made multi-grain pancake mix. Stocked with my bag of Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Flour, I was armed to make pancakes, muffins, and waffles from scratch. And it was easy! And they were yummy! Also, you already know I bought no produce at Whole Foods. Remember the old joke where everybody calls them “Whole Paycheck.” That was true for me. Not funny. So I bought all my fruits and veggies for the week at a local produce stand two blocks away and saved a bundle. I was able to shop at Whole Paycheck, buying the store brand everywhere possible, and still feel comfortable with the healthiness of my choices. I probably could buy things cheaper at a different grocery store, but I find that trying to buy the organic things at a regular grocery chain triples the grocery bill! Do you find that? So I balanced out what’s important to me and managed to shop where I wanted and got things we liked and were good for us.

One thing I realize though, is that it’s impossible to stay at or under an exact amount every week. For example, we still had big jars of peanut butter and jam, so I didn’t need to buy them, but now we’re out. Also, we had plenty of soap, shampoo, dishwasher and laundry detergent, etc. But I can see how there will sometimes be giant spending when stocking up on staples, but then lesser spending in later weeks. I guess we’ll have to do a monthly average over time to achieve our weekly/monthly goal.

I can leave you with one thing that makes me feel really good about this week. It’s fun to run out of everything. It’s really neat to see an actual empty cupboard and fridge shelves. It feels good to consume everything you’ve bought, down to the last grape, with no waste and nothing left over.

–Sweet B