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Help me cut costs, 900/mo normal?
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Depends on whether a stockup month - January was a big month for us because we did a costco trip - so two big things of diapers, wipes, lots of meat, lots of mac-n cheese, water, allergy meds, toothpaste - that came to about $400. Then grocery wise it came to another $400ish with about $250 in restaurants - that's for a family of four - two boys under age of 5. Don't expect Feb to be like this though. |
Anonymous
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Op here. Thanks all for input and advice.
It seems that keeping the grocery bill down is a part time job I itself! Dh suggested I don't use the credit card anymore, and plan meals. He says take $100 and when you run out , you ran out. Always using the cc can get tricky (although we do pay it off in full every month) |
Anonymous
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check this out OP
http://e-mealz.com |
Anonymous
Previous poster here who asked about what types of meals you cook. One thing we did was switch stores - from the Giant in McLean to the Wegman's in Sterling. It's a little out of the way, but it saved us over $100 per week in grocery costs. |
Anonymous
I'm the pp who does the serious couponing. I just want to debunk the myth that couponing takes a long time. It took a few weeks to really get into a groove and takes maybe 15 mins to get my list/coupons together now. I buy Sat/Sun newspapers and then just drop the dated flyers into an accordion folder. Each week I open the website with the coupon/sale matches for HT and copy the list into Word. I then delete the items I don't want and boom there's my shopping list. They typically list all fresh produce and meats on sale as well so I don't typically have "add" anything to my shopping list. The coupon matches designate which weekend the coupon was from so I pull that coupon flyer and cut whatever I need from it. I then paperclip all of the coupons together and head to the grocery with my list and coupons. At the beginning I took a little more time and imported my shopping list into the HT website which prints out the list by aisle. I go into the store and don't shop beyond my list or browse. I go aisle by aisle and just pull the items on my list and I'm done. This has also cut down on my shopping time. Yesterday, I went to HT and paid $62 for $125 worth of groceries. It included a variety of fresh fruit, fresh veggies, a large pack toilet paper, a case of water, a couple of boxes of pasta, shrimp, etc. |
Anonymous
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I feel for you. My family of 3 (DH, myself and DC) spends a lot of groceries. Particularly "cheater" meals, you know already prepared stuff at the store and frozen entrees for my work lunches. I figure it's cheaper than eating at a restaurant or buying lunch every day... So we spend a little more on groceries than you do, but less eating out.
But in 2010 my DH and I committed to cooking one vegetarian meal on the weekend (a doubled portion for dinner on multiple nights) and each of us cooking one veggie meal each of us one night each week. To do this, we went through and selected 6 "easy" non-meat recipes, like a 30 minute mac and cheese dish. We buy the ingredients for these 6 easy recipes each time we're at the store, so we always have the ability to make one of these 6 recipes on Sat night (when we cook our double-meal together) or when one of us is cooking our one night of the week. For me, it's easier to have a few recipes that we have the ingredients for on hand and that I am capable of cooking than thumbing through cook books or websites and wandering around the grocery store, trying to figure out where the heck they shelve some random can of stuff. The idea is that 1) meat is really expensive and 2) we'll eat cheater meals only 3 nights a week. Here's to saving money in 2010!!! |
Anonymous
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I haven't read every post, so forgive me if I am repeating.
We are a family of 4 with older kids (they eat more food) and we spend less. Maybe $700/month. We still buy diapers for one kid, so that cost is included. We also buy almost exclusively organic/local, so it's not like we're eating hamburger helper every night. First of all, I'm sure you can cut down on paper goods and cleaning supplies. As a PP said, vinegar is a great cleaner. I buy a gallon jug from Giant and it lasts a few months. I also add it to really stinky laundry (diaper leaks). I rarely buy paper towels - maybe 1 roll every month or two. We have a TON of cotton towels that we use for hand-drying, after-meal face wiping, etc. We probably use 15-20 towels a week, but that's just 1 extra load of wash. We also never ever use paper napkins. We have about 3 dozen cloth napkins that we use for meals. As for food - we rarely eat meat (especially in the winter). Maybe only once a month. We eat fish a few times a month. That cuts down a lot on our food bill. We also buy no prepared foods. We have our milk and eggs delivered which has saved us a TON of money. It's healthier (grass-fed cows, milk bottles with no chemicals, free-range chickens) and saves us at least one trip to the grocery store per week. Which means I'm not picking up a few other things while I"m in there. If you're interested, check out Southmountaincreamery.com They also sell some free-range meats and chicken (not everything is certified organic because it's an expensive process. But it's local and hormone/pesticide free) I buy no little snack-pack things. I don't buy plastic baggies for food - we wrap sandwiches in wax paper or put in a reusable ss-steel container. Good luck. If you stop eating out so much and make some relatively easy changes, you can probably reduce your bill by at least $100 per month. |
Anonymous
| PP here - I noticed that someone mentioned they buy water at Costco. Don't buy water! What a waste of $$. First of all, it's in a plastic bottle that likely has BPA, so it's less healthy that anything coming out of your tap. And the tap water is practically free and has fluoride in it for your kids' teeth. |
Anonymous
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Op here.
I just came back from Safeway, fresh from my $100/week plan. I spent $50, and I didn't even get stuff for dinners really, as I decided to use every single thing in my refrig. freezer and pantry this week. I bought: 2 gallons of milk, on sale at $2.50 each 2 gallons of tropicana orange juice, on sale for $6.50 each Red seedless grapes, $3.84 3 progresso soups for my lunches, $3 Mozzarella cheese $5 Turkey Deli two oscar mayer packages, $7 Tomatoes $6.22 Spinach $3.50 Bananas 2 lbs for $1.15 How the hell will I stick to my $100 like this??? I eat a spinach, tomatoe, mozzarella and turkey salad every day. Or a $1 soup. |
Anonymous
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I love this thread, many great ideas here. I can't wait to try making my own taco seasoning!
8:38, Question - is Wegman's really cheaper than Giant? I assumed it would be more expensive. Wegman's is a 15 min. drive for me, versus Giant and Safeway which are 5 min away. But if the prices are much better it might be worth the drive. |
Anonymous
| Orange Juice is expensive this time of year (and can be bought with coupons). You could also think about doing concentrate, which is much cheaper. And again 2 GALLONS? do you really need that much oj during the week? If you're having it with breakfast, that's 8 oz per person (excluding kid) so 16 oz a day x 7 which is 112 oz, which is about 1 gallon. Are you talking 1/2 gallons? if so, a 1/2 gallon at my store is $3.69 this week. The Oscar Mayer packages have coupons as does the mozzarella. Grapes are INCREDIBLY expensive this time of year, and we consider them a luxury. How many tomatoes did you buy for that much? Did you compare prices among the tomatoes? The cost can vary wildly depending on whether hothouse, organic, local etc. But, again, fresh produce is more expensive this time of year. The milk you got a good price on, I think. I assume you meant 1/2 gallons. |
Anonymous
I hear ya, OP. Have you considered buying produce at Asian markets. We go to H-Mart in Falls church, and we can usually walk out with week's worth (3 bags) of fresh fruits and veggies for about $20. Here's the link for store locator: http://www.hmart.com/company_new/shop_main.asp |
Anonymous
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Op here
PP thanks for the link, I will check it out. to 15:11: I did buy 2 gallons of orange juice, it was on sale and they expire April 1st, so they should last 2 months! I am trying to stock up on sale items as someone else had suggested, lol The milk was also 2 gallons, expires Feb 15th, so we'll use it up before then (dd drinks 20oz a day still) |
Anonymous
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For me, right now, I consider it a small victory if I stay out of the grocery store, cook/freeze ahead, and eat up what's in the pantry. (I'm horrible at the last one.) We also don't eat out but that's because we have two small children and it's a pain to go out right now. That said, our grocery bill is still high. I'm sure I could get it down with more veggie meals, eating up every last bit of leftovers, and buying cheaper versions of tomato sauce/cheese/deli meats/etc.
Today I'm making two different types of chili (chicken that we'll eat this week, bean/beef that I'll freeze), a bolognese sauce, and a veggie/tomato/bean soup that I'll also freeze. None of this looks/smells appetizing to me today, but later in the week or the weeks to come, the meals are delicious after a long day. All recipes are family approved -- everyone, our 2 & 4 year old and DH eat this stuff up. I'm new at this meal planning stuff, but it's not so bad. Whole Foods has wonderful easy recipes on its website. That's helped as well. |