PART 1. That food thing.
The champagne taste we covered in the intro to this mini-series on how we save money is most apparent in my food choices.
This is a good example of what I want to cook and eat:
This is a good example of what I can afford:
Here's what I do instead.
- Educate thyself. Learn all you can about whole food. Where it comes from, right down to what part of the animal, if you're a sharptooth, and where it is grown/raised. Learn which veggies are genetically altered, why, and if they're worth the sticker price. Figure out what the "next best" thing is to what you wanted. Local foods, especially produce can be found at a discount and usually with much better flavor, at farmers' markets. Knowlege is power. Profits are easily made off of consumers who don't have the time or care to figure out what they're actually paying for. Learn to read labels. That salad dressing that is $1.50 more because it's "now made with olive oil?" You'd think that means that ALL the oil in that dressing is healthier Olive, but in 99% of dressings claiming this, the main oil is still veggie or soybean, and they add a drop or two of olive just to stick that on the label. Always read the back, ignore the front. Learn to decipher ingredient listings to pick out fillers and other weird things you're actually going to be paying extra for. But why are you buying salad dressing anyway??? You should be...
- Cooking! Break out those cookbooks and get your domestic god or godess on. I know making things from scratch can be a pain, but if you do it often enough, it becomes second nature, and you can save a bundle while making things that are healthier in the long run. Two things I make often are bread and salad dressing. Things that are also rumored to be made at home for pennies on the dollar include bagels, yogurt (true story.), jam, and others. Just remember to take into account how much time it will take and how worth it the monetary savings are. Yes, you'll still be paying for it some way, but I really like making just two sandwich buns and a loaf instead of throwing 6 perfectly good hamburger buns to the birds when they go stale. Cook with intention to store. The Hero has his own special collection of Pyrex dishes with snap-on lids that hold a lunch-sized portion of whatever we have had for dinner. This way we don't purchase "to go" style foods, at fast food restaurants or in the frozen and prepared food sections. They always cost a ton and are less than healthy. He prefers glass for food storage, and these are incredibly easy to fill with a lunch, stack in the fridge, and he can just grab and go. We also cook up REALLY big batches of things like chili, bolognese, chicken soup base (cook up the noodles per serving), etc. and freeze in large ziplocks. Then be sure to keep an inventory of what's in your freezer! Mine's in dry erase on the door of the freezer.
- Consider buying in bulk. This requires knowlege of what's better to buy bulk and what's not, and also how much storage space you have available. Buying bulk and then letting it go to waste is just as bad as not pricing it at all. My dry pantry space is about 3 feet by 1.5 feet by 2 feet. Not much. I keep my dry staples, corn meal, rice, flour, sugar, balsamic, honey, peanut butter, etc. in there, with some cans of veggies I can't find fresh easily (read: green chile), and some cream of fillintheblank soup. I know that buying staples in bulk won't work for me, I have nowhere to put them, but it does work for some. Our typical grocery trip includes less than 5 "center aisle" items anyway, so I'll cover that later. I do buy bulk meat often, and freeze it. My mom taught me an easy tool for supermarkets a long time ago, and I use it every week, especially for bulk purchases. Know your price per oz./ct. Check what the product costs at a base comparison. You can find this info on the shelf price tag.
- Know how to work your grocery shopping. Plan, plan, and then plan again. I shop weekly, on Monday. I plan seven full meals, plus our favorite snacks and breakfast items. Then I go online and look at the circular ad for our main grocer, and make changes to the menu accordingly. I pay special mind to what meats on on sale. About 1/3 of our food budget weekly is spent in the meat department, and I want the most bang for my buck. I know that every 3-5 weeks chicken breasts go from $4.29 per lb. to $1.99 per lb, and sometimes the meat department can't sell the large cuts of pork tenderloin, so they mark them down from $50 to $30. I buy these big packages and then cut them into smaller portions and freeze them, rotating each week to whatever meat is on sale then, and using the frozen portions until another sale. :) Checking the circular is key. My main grocer posts theirs online, or you can pick them up in store. If you use the circular and any "member" deals, you can save about $30 easily without clipping a single coupon. And my store has an added bonus of a "ring yourself up as you go" gun system, so I'm ringing and bagging groceries as I shop. This way I can see what I'm spending as I spend it, so I never get an unpleasant surprise at the end. And don't forget your re-usable bags, most stores offer a small rebate for each one. My usual grocer refunds 5 cents each, but my organic grocer refunds 20 cents each, and their organics are usually CHEAPER than the big chain store for the same products, so I visit them bi-weekly for my organic and allergen-free must-haves.
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