Frugal Fridays: Supermarket savings - Part 4
This is a continuation of my Supermarket savings series. For the beginning posts see: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
One thing I wanted to mention was that it is important that you cook and shop to please your husband. Talk to your husband about how he wants your family to eat and how much he'd like for you to spend on groceries. Make sure he is on board and you are pleasing him with all of this.
When we first made our grocery budget, my husband and I knew it would mean some definite sacrifices in certain areas if we were to stick to $35 or less a week. However, Jesse wanted to do this and was willing to make those sacrifices. It has become an exciting adventure for me to see how well we can eat on how little!
-Limit eating out. For the first two years of our marriage, when things were especially tight, we only ate out every few months and then it was fast food, with coupons, for around $6-7 total. Now, we usually go out or get carryout once every week or two, but we still use coupons most of the time and rarely spend more than $15 for the three of us. Split a meal, get carryout (saves you having to leave a tip!), use coupons, and make tea or lemonade at home.
-Don't eat a lot of meat and stretch the meat you do eat as far as you can. We rarely have meat as a main dish unless I get steak or roast on a very good sale. Instead, it is cooked and chopped and in something. When I get a bag of chicken, I usually cook and chop it and freeze it into meal size portions. A bag of chicken (around $6.99) can last us for two weeks this way.
-Drink water. We only drink coffee on special occasions and rarely ever drink pop. I do drink tea (most all of which I get for free either from the store, as gifts, or through bartering). We don’t drink a lot of juice, either, unless I get it on sale. Do you know how much it costs if you drink just one pop (er, soda, for those of you that don't know it's called pop!) per day? It adds up very fast. Learn to like water. It's good for you anyway. :)
-Keep it simple. Just serve a few items with a few ingredients per meal.
-Serve a big salad or soup and bread to start dinner. You'll fill up on this and won't have as much room or need as much of the entree.
-Be thankful for what you have, not what you don't have. It's not the food on the table, but the people around the table that really matter.
That's a start - there's so much more I could say but we have family coming in from out of town for Jesse's swearing in tomorrow (yep, he's just about ready to become a real bonafide lawyer and a good one at that!) and I need to get this posted and finish a few things before they get here. I'd love to hear what you do to save money on groceries. Feel free to add to my list.And don't forget to post something for Frugal Friday on your blog, link to this post, and then post the direct link to your Frugal Friday post below. If you don't have a blog, feel free to leave your frugal tips in the comments section.
posted by Crystal Paine at 4:53 PM
19 Comments:
I don't have a link, but I have two frugal tips.
For shampoo: Buy the gallon size basic shampoo at your local beauty supply. It costs about $5 on sale, and is super concentrated so that you can dilute it. At that price, I don't care if my kids want to use if for bubble bath :o)
For hangers: Now, I realize plastic hangers are pretty cheap, but I wear a lot of skirts, and so do my four girls. The typical metal skirt hanger (Walmart variety) falls apart after a few weeks and in the meantime, gets tangled with all the others in the closet. Many of the nicer stores throw away their shirt, skirt and pant hangers, and they are nice ones! You need only to ask for them. I am in the process of changing over all the closets to those nice, sturdy, clear plastic ones, so every once in a while I go into one of those places and just ask for a bag of hangers. No more rust stains from metal hangers, and I no longer find skirts on the closet floors! This saves not only money, but frustration :o)
Sally
I'm curious about something. Throughout the grocery posts nobody mentioned buying salmon, trout, tuna, crab cakes (which many men like) or any seafood that I saw. Salmon especially is very healthy, well better than red meat atleast. I know you live in the Midwest, is it common there not to get a lot of seafood or is this just personal preference?
Really enjoying these lasted posts.
Anonymous: I like salmon and tuna but my husband doesn't, so we don't eat much fish around here. if I can get it on a good price, I'll get it and use it for myself to eat for lunch, though. :)
Pop? Soda? What are those? Where I'm from, we only have *Coke*. ;) Not that I ever drink it, though... water's SO much cheaper.
Ok, here's my Frugal Friday tip: freezing herbs.
Most herbs can be frozen without compromising the flavor. In the spring and summer, our local Asian grocery store sells herbs in bulk for dirt cheap -- I think this is true for most farmers' markets. Buy them, chop them, and store in the freezer. Then all throughout the year you can take out however much you need right when you need it. Use in the same quantities as fresh.
There are some herbs (notably basil) that need special treatment when frozen. Basil needs to be blanched and then frozen in water in preparation for freezing. Freeze in ice cubes, and add the ice cubes directly to soups and stews for a fresh basil taste in your winter soup. :)
Or, of course, you could just grow them yourself. We have a rosemary 'tree' in our backyard that is taking over the place. You can't beat free rosemary for life!
Thanks for your post on Frugal ways to shop.I have become very lax in that area.I have to laugh about one thing,when we were first married we lived in Icleand ,hubby was in Air Force.One couldn't be picky about prices or different stores to shop.You went to the commisary (military grocery store)or the shoppette(convience store).So I did not get into the habbit of using different stores for shopping.If anything I had to learn to cook without ingredients because the stores were limited,or learn how to improvise quickly,vegetables came in on Thursdays,once there was a parmesian cheese shortage,Icelandic milk was expensive but that was the only milk to use.This was 20 years.
One thing I don't buy is trash bags for the small cans,I use the plastic bags from the stores and then recycle as many I as can when I get overfull on them.
My husband came in while I was typing and had a laugh about living in Iceland!!
I don't have a blog so can't link to anything, but have a tip for people who have multiple small children. We have three four and under and go through a ton of baby wipes. Because I like to use disposable diapers, I gave up buying baby wipes. With more than one child we go through them very quickly.
To make a big batch of wipes at once....just take a roll of paper towels and cut in half lengthwise (ie. halfway down the roll so you have two small rolls) Carefully remove the tube from the center and pull the paper towels from the inside of the roll.
Mix together 1.5 cups boiling water, and 1.5 tablespoons each of baby oil, soap and lotion. Pour liquid over towels, allow to soak through and make sure you don't use them right away! Your kids may not appreciate it if you do!!!!
(Viva towels are the best, they're plain white, soft and have no lines or designs on the towel)
Crystal,
Thanks for all of your hard work with this. How nice of you. :)
By the way, you certainly are very photogenic I noticed in your photos. I am really enjoying your frugal posts.
Hope you are well, Lynda
Hey Anonymous! Depending on where you live, your local grocery store might do "$10 for $10 sales" from time to time. Our local grocery store carries single serving packs of fish like this often. Since its just Aaron and I at home right now, we but 5 of each kind of fish offered. I might stock up and spend $20-30 bucks on this, but they stay nice and fresh while frozen. I always make sure I have at least 4-5 of each variety of fish, because you can easily make a dinner for 4 or 5 if you have company! Also, I watch for when tuna, canned crab, etc, is on sale. Since I live in Wisconsin, many families observe Lent (meatless Fridays), and some all year long. There's always sales on fish in the upper midwest. :) Also, I check the cases for fish that is almost to its "sell by" date. Often times, you just have to ask if they will reduce it for you, as they're going to toss it anyway. This usually works if there's a day or so left. :) Good luck!
Great tips, Crystal! And you are so right about cooking and shopping to please our husbands! I have tried making simple and very inexpensive meals and it disappoints my husband ;) (He doesn't mind if sometimes I really need to just do something quick, like grilled cheese! But he doesn't want soup every day ;D)
We have always done the packed-lunches (with homemade stuff inside!) and it's such a good way to save money. :D Same with not eating out! We haven't eaten out all year (well, one time earlier this year, someone paid half for us to order pizza) and we're so used to not eating out that we wouldn't want to spend the money ;)
I totally agree about the drinking water, too! (Well, I agree about all your points, but I can't practice all of them while pleasing my husband ;D) We have milk on hand and water, and that's it. :)
But I was planning to ask you... what water do you drink? Do you have good city water? Our city water here is so disgusting! It smells different on various days, often strongly of chlorine. We have never drank the city water here. We buy gallons of drinking water and then refill the gallons each week. This costs us a little more than $5 a week (at 37 cents per gallon) but we just couldn't bear to drink the water from our tap! Oh, and we also occasionally buy a case of water bottles (on sale, of course ;D) and wash and refill them, so we can easily take water when we go places. We're perpetually thirsty :D
I am so excited that you're doing this series, Crystal! Although I haven't figured out how to get toilet paper as cheap as you have, I'm pretty darned good at couponing, if I do say so myself. One tip to everyone out there in coupon land who prints coupons: call the stores in your area. Some places will allow certain kinds of printables, some don't allow any. Our Super Walmart takes almost all of them, and their logic is that they do so because the Pick N Saves and Sentry in our area won't. Of course they'll get our business. :)
Also...cooking to please your husband...YES! Do this! Mine is a somewhat picky eater, as mentioned in a previous post, but often it is because they either don't a) realize how expensive groceries can be or b) don't cook and therefore don't know all that might need to go into a recipe. All it took was afew trips with my husband at the store. We bought all the brands he grew up eating one week, and the next week, we bought store brands. Roundy's has a satisfaction guarantee, so if you don't like the quality of whatever you bought, you can get your money back. Of course, everything tastes just as good (and sometimes better!). It took us a while to get him to realize ways to stretch that meat.
Also, we utilize a food buying club called SHARE. Its available in Illinois, WI, and Michigan. Go to www.sharewi.org. I do know that other parts of the country have a program called Angel Food Ministries...the quality of the food is great! We've gotten things like 8 ribeyes for 15 bucks. Broken down, that's 1.87 a steak for 6 ounces. Not bad if you ask me.
Also, Crystal mentions praying before going shopping and acknowleding the Lord in ALL you do...you wouldn't be surprised how the Lord can bless you, just by asking Him to! He loves to delight us, and for us to cast all of our cares on to his shoulders....
Please share how you make one bag of chicken @ $6.99 last two weeks! We do not eat red meats. I have to have protein in my diet due to hypoglycemia. So each time I have a meal with chicken, I have to at the very least use a lb of it in a meal to provide for the protein I need. IE: Chicken Casserole, Soup, Baked Chicken.
Another thing, with all of this cutting back, do you ever buy fruit or other healthy snacks for children?
My kids need those things. Juice we can do without, but apples, oranges, grapes, bananas are really needed. I also bake alot, so I bake healthier cookies or muffins.
Water. Are you using a water filter, a water filtration pitcher, or drinking tap? We don't buy bottled water, but we use a pitcher because the tap water is horrible.
Thanks for doing this Crystal. I love reading all the ideas.
Jennifer
I added my idea for cheap makeup!! Check it out! :-)
Consider paying bills online when possible to avoid: payments lost in the mail, having to drive to varied locations locally, fees charged for phone payments, to save on checks(if purchased), etc. Mycheckfree.com provides a free service and many bills provide their own secure online web address for payments.
Do a google or other engine search for "free healthy recipes", "free cosmetics recipes", "natural cleaning recipes" or "restaurant clone recipes" for ideas!
What an exciting time for your husband, family, and friends, Crystal! God provided me wonderful occasions to speak to attorneys over the years concerning the question whether God's laws or man's laws were higher when they differed. May your husband be a testimony where God places him to those he meets of the sufficiency in Christ in all things including earthly legalities. :-)
Thanks for all the grocery tips, Crystal! We're going to work a little harder on saving money on food. My DH does most of the shopping and he's more concerned with getting it DONE than saving a few pennies.
I posted a Frugal Friday tip of my own. Took me a bit to think of one since I'm not the best with pinching pennies. Now that I'm not working, though, I'm getting better.
I get excited when I ready my recipet to see how much I've saved! I have enough Aquafresh and shampoo to last a lifetime! I posted on my blog about vet bills, always trying to think of someting a little diffrent :)
-Lela
I posted about Freecycle. I know a lot of people already know about it but we have been so blessed by this group that I wanted to remind those who haven't yet joined about how awesome it is.
Have a great weekend!!!
Mel
Do you ever get people who say to you " I do not want to waste time shopping sales or clipping coupons etc. I will spend more money in gas driving around or in time clipping coupons than I save." I have my own answer, but I was curious what other shoppers say/
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