Frugal Living #2 - Saving Money at the Grocery Store

I did a money-saving series last April (hmmm, wonder what it is about this month of the year that makes me think so much about saving???) Rather than repeat what I wrote last year, I thought I'd start out by sharing the links to those particular posts instead...



Saving Money on Groceries by Menu Planning

Budgeting for Groceries

Paying With Cash

Establish a Price Comparison Book

Summing it Up: Some Final Tips to Saving on Groceries

I really do hope you take time to check these posts out. These are all things I have learned through trial-and-error as well as through reading many, many books on the topic of frugal living.

Have a blessed day!

Frugal Living Post #1 - The Heart of the Matter

Before we start looking at ways to cut costs in our home and daily living, before we try to figure out some ways to save the dollar bills, we need to assess our heart condition when it comes to possessions and stuff.


"Why do I buy the things I buy?"

Of course, we have the purchases that are necessary to living ~ groceries, hygiene products, diapers, cleaning products, gas for your vehicle, etc., etc.

But what about the purchases that are not necessary? The fun purchases. The purchases we make when we feel like we need a little "pick-me-up?" The purchases we make because a friend has the same thing and we want it now?

As frugal as I have the potential to be, I still live within this body of flesh. And despite my bend toward frugal living, I have, at times in my married life, dealt with discontentment and a desire for more. And I have fulfilled that discontentment many times in the past by buying those things that I just thought I needed to have to make myself feel better or to make my life easier or more fulfilled.

So step number one in living a frugal life is to evaluate our heart condition towards spending.

Are we buying/purchasing/spending to fulfill a void? Because if we are, we are NEVER going to have lasting fulfillment from that purchase.

I have been there. I have done that. I have worn that t-shirt.

God has put that void into the heart of every human being, but He made it to be fulfilled only by Him. Other "things" may temporarily make us feel content, but before we know it we're thinking about the next thing we just have to have. Shopping bag fulfillment is never lasting.

I am absolutely not saying that we should never go out and make fun purchases. I would be a hypocrite if I did say that, because I like to buy books (which I honestly don't need) and I like to pick up new clothes occasionally or new decor for my home.

But if I'm constantly hopping online to shop or making frequent trips to the mall (even if the intention is just to window-shop), I may need to do a heart check.

So, my first challenge to you (and myself) is to look at our hearts. Why do we make unnecessary purchases? How often do we make unnecessary purchases? Are we compulsive shoppers who buy to fulfill a need or to boost our mood?

One thing I find helpful is to ask myself, "Am I still going to feel good about this purchase a month down the road? Am I buying this to make myself feel better? If I waited a couple of days, would this purchase still be really important to me?"

When you get down to the heart of it, spending less is more than clipping coupons or menu-planning. In order to make these other good habits work for us, we need to start by looking at the root of why we buy what we buy.

And as you may have already guessed, sometimes it's necessary to repeat these heart checks every now and then to keep our spending habits on track.

Because here's the naked truth: even if we buy everything at the thrift store, and are, therefore, saving money, if we're making constant trips to that thrift store to purchase unnecessary things, then there just might be a bad spending habit that has rooted itself in our heart.

I say this from experience, not with condemnation towards anyone. I have been guilty of this, and I have been convicted of this. And I'm still learning how to live a life of healthy spending manners.

And I am all for learning new ways to save money or make my dollar stretch, but I've learned that if I don't assess some deeper issues first and work on those, I'm only going to spin around into that vicious cycle of "save for a while, but spend too much again" over and and over again.


Challenge #1 ~ Look into your heart. Think about the purchases you've made recently. Were they necessary purchases? Or did you make a lot of compulsive, mood-elevating purchases? What were the motives behind the purchases?

Living Frugally: Why We Do It and a New Series!!!

Known as always being on the frugal side (I'm the girl who collected and folded all the tissue paper at my niece's birthday party to reuse later and totally got made fun of. Smile.), I've usually always been really good at making my dollar stretch. There have been periods of laziness or just extreme seasons of busyness (i.e. - a new baby) in which I was willing to pay a little more for the sake of convenience, but all-in-all, I've always been pretty good at spending minimally.

(Source)

Now, my dear husband, is even more of a saver than I am! He is always looking for ways to save and live more frugally. I think it comes from him being the sole bread-winner in the family (although, in all honesty, God is the sole bread-provider.) So he's always been even more conscious of where the dollars go.

When Brad and I got married, we were both making minimum wage, and I still had a year left of nursing school. We lived in a basement apartment in my parents' house, and so we had very minimal financial responsibility. We had one very small car payment and two car insurances payments, two school loans which we hadn't started paying on yet, our cell phone bills, and groceries. That was it. My parents were extremely gracious and let us live in their basement (which is fully equipped with a full kitchen, living area, sleeping area, and full bathroom) for free.

We lived there for two years. The second year of our marriage, Brad and I both got jobs and we saved and scrimped like mad. We saved up enough in a year's time to put a down payment on our home, which we built and moved into by the end of 2002. Two years after getting married.

During that year of scrimping and saving before building our home, Brad's wage was fairly low and I was making a new nurse's wage. So we weren't bringing in a large income by any means. But not having to pay for rent was a huge blessing, as we were able to put all of our extra money back towards our home that we wanted to build.

During that year, we did not spend even one dime unless it was absolutely necessary.

And we did the same for a year's time about five years ago when we were following the Dave Ramsey debt-payoff plan. In one year and on one income, we were able to pay off our car loans and Brad's school loans. We do not carry credit card debt; we do however have a mortgage still which we are working on paying off early.

We try desperately not to make saving a penny our "god". Some people can get so wrapped up in frugality and saving that they lose sight of the good stuff of life (which is not "stuff" by chance.) We make it a point to do things as a family, but often that looks like a picnic and a long bike ride. Very infrequently we will go out to a restaurant to eat or go see a movie. And we usually try to go to the zoo every year. We also take an annual family vacation to the beach most summers. (But we found a new beach that is closer and where the houses are much more affordable to rent.) This year, I've saved up two free nights on my Marriott rewards card and we're planning to use those nights to visit Washington, D.C.

I tell you this so that you don't get the impression that we're a bunch of cheap stick-in-the-muds. We do have fun. Economically as much as is possible.

We look for ways to have fun without spending a ton of money, or without even spending any money (other than the gas to get where we're going.) It can be a challenge at time, but the challenge can be fun!

My sister and brother-in-law recently took a very big leap of faith. My sister resigned from her position as a social worker, and, at the end of this month, she will become a full-time stay-at-home mommy.

Having just had her second child in January, she began to feel that tug while on her maternity leave. I knew the tug she spoke of; I'd had it once too. And for four years.

That feeling of being pulled in two directions. Of not being able to give her all to either her job or her family. Gosh. I thought I had been the only one to feel that way. I remember looking at my working friends back when I worked too, and thinking about how they seemed to just go with the flow. Working and raising families didn't seem to conflict in their minds. And then there was me: feeling torn and feeling like I wasn't doing my best in either arena.

And I've already shared my "I quite my job to be a stay-at-home mommy" story.

So, my sister came to me for counsel back before she made the final decision to quit. And I offered her my counsel: Pray about it and then do whatever you feel the Lord is telling you to do. And do it in faith. And trust Him to provide.

And she told me that she and her husband were feeling led for her to come home, but she was scared. And I told her that was normal. And I told her that God would do great things, more than she or her husband could ever imagine when she took that step of faith in obedience to His calling. He's so good that way, you know.

As I began talking to her about the things I do to stretch the dollar and save money, I began to realize that I knew more than I thought I did. I guess these money-saving practices have just become routine, second-nature to me. I never knew that others didn't know them or practice them.

But she didn't know all of them. So that got me thinking about other families out there that maybe haven't had the time to really read up on living frugally.

So I want to share what we do.

So, Lord-willing, I plan on devoting next week's blog posts to living frugally and living on one income. I pray that you would all have patience with me as I juggle blog posts and real life (real life always trumps the blog), and if I don't get all my writing done during next week, I'll continue the series on into the next week, the week after that, and until I've exhausted what I've had to say. Smile.

I do want to conclude with one thing:

God always provides for His children. Always. As I said earlier, He is the sole bread-provider. Your name may be on the paycheck, but that job comes straight as a gift from His hands.

And when we, as His children, step out in obedience to His calling on our hearts to come home and raise our families, to fore go the extra money and the luxuries, He will reward that step of faith and obedience.

Oh, and why do we live frugally? Because there's really not a need not to! We live a full, blessed life without living an extravagant one!

Many blessings!

The Problem With "Stuff"...

I started my annual declutter and purge cleaning sessions yesterday afternoon.

And although I do this every spring, this year I'm doing it with conviction.

Source

"Why in the world has purging and decluttering become necessary every year?" This is what I ask myself.

Sure a lot of the stuff is trash-worthy, but there are also bags of "things."

"I just did this last spring. Why am I having to do this again, just a mere year later?"

Purging is good. Ridding the home of clutter and things that are not useful or beautiful is good.

But I'm looking deeper than that. I'm asking myself why it is that I accumulate enough stuff in the short span of twelve months that decluttering is necessary.

Ummm. Maybe because I'm buying too much stuff and stuff that is unnecessary at that. Whether I buy at the discount store or at the thrift store (which, honestly, is where I do most of my shopping), doesn't matter. I'm not necessarily looking at the price of the stuff, I'm looking at the mental thought processes behind the accumulation of the stuff.

I like "stuff" too much. I depend on "stuff" too much.

So how is my love and dependence on these things holding me back in my relationship with Christ? How are they holding me back (even if just a teeny tiny bit) from serving Him?

Would I be willing to give up all my "stuff" if He asked me to?

I'm not saying that Christ calls every believer to give away all of their possessions and serve Him in rags. I'm not even saying that that's what He's calling me to do.

What I am saying is that I feel convicted. Me. Myself. I feel convicted that I put too much substance into my possessions. I live a very comfortable, very blessed life. Our family doesn't want for anything. We have many resources at our disposal.

But what if all these earthly possessions were taken away? How would I react?

Because, honestly, the thought of it makes me kind of cringe. I know that God would be my refuge and my provider, as He's always been, but, honestly, I think that losing my "stuff" would be very sad.

And then I think of some who have so very little, but they KNOW they always have Christ. And in that they experience true joy. They have an abundance of spiritual blessings.

I have an abundance of spiritual blessings too. But are they being shadowed by my earthly, material blessings? I don't know for sure. I'd like to say no, but it's something my mind and heart is still grappling with.

Just sharing my thoughts with you all.

And I pray that you all would not mind if I share something dear to my heart.

Open Arms Ukraine, the organization that worked in the orphanage Sergei is from, is having their annual graduate camp this coming week.


In Ukraine, when a child turns 16, he/she is literally placed out of the orphanage, waved "good-bye" to, and is sent off to fend for themselves. This is not an exaggeration. One of the adoptive families was in Ukraine at the time of graduation and took pics of all the graduates walking down the road together, not knowing where they would eat or sleep or anything.


Very sad.

The Open Arms Ukraine ministry runs a graduate camp every spring for the graduates of the Pravdinska Orphanage. But they need help.

They need sponsors for the graduates.


The cost to sponsor one graduate is a mere $65.00.

I emailed Anika, one of the girls that founded the ministry; she said that they are up to 16 sponsors but would like to get 25.

Not only do these girls run this camp every year, but they also stay involved in the graduates' lives afterwards. They open their apartment up to the graduates. They provide assistance as needed and as God provides. They model the love of Christ to these young kids who have never really experienced real love.


So, I'm humbly asking you all to consider sponsoring a graduate. This is real, ladies. All those graduates that are featured on the Open Arms Ukraine blog? Brad and I met them. We talked to them. We hung out with them.


If you are feeling called by Him to donate, you can go the the Open Arms Ukraine blog and donate using their Paypal link. If you are unable to donate through Paypal, you can email Open Arms at OpenArmsMinistry@gmail.com.

This is what our family has decided to do this Easter season in leiu of Easter baskets and treats this year. Perhaps you'd consider making your gift this Easter impact the world?

Summing it up...

Today concludes my "Saving Money at the Grocery Store" series. I enjoyed sharing my money-saving practices with you all, and I hope that you all have found something helpful and practical for your families. I realize that not all ideas will work for every family structure because we all have different ideas of how much we're willing to be inconvenienced in order to save money.

Because, really, it is much more convenient to just hop in the car with no plan, credit cards in hand, and buy all the prepackaged, pop-in-the-oven meals that the freezer section holds. It's more convenient to do this until those credit card bills come rolling in requiring payment and our health begins to deteriorate from all the processed junk we've been ingesting.

And so I just want to end this series with a few more practical money-saving (and health saving) tips. As I've already said, some of you may find some of these ideas inconvenient or overwhelming while others may be ready to try anything. Only do what works for you and your family, but, at the same time, don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try something new!

Tip 1 Buying Organic

A reader said that she spends about as much as I do on my family of five as she does on her family of three. She asked if I buy organic because that really adds the dollars onto her grocery bill. So, I will say that I typically do not buy organic. I used to buy organic when both my husband and I worked because, although it was expensive, we had two incomes coming in and had more dispensable income to work with.

Now, having said that, all of our veggies are organic because we have a HUGE garden in the summer in which we grow massive amounts of veggies which we then preserve. This stock lasts us enough until the next garden is ready to harvest. This is such a blessing!

But that still leaves fruit, and I do buy a lot of fruit. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for me to fork over $4.99 for a small container of strawberries compared to $1.99 for regular ones. Same with all the other fruits. So I wash everything carefully and thoroughly. Apples, which contain high levels of pesticides in their skin, are a staple in our home during the winter. So anytime we eat an apple, the skin gets peeled off. And in the fall, we head to my grandparent's old farm and stock up on fresh-from-the-tree organic apples. Apples keep a really long time if you store them properly.

I had tried buying from a local farmer's market once, but they even admitted that they had to spray their crops to prevent insect invasion. This was quite disappointing.

There are also fruits that you can buy that do not contain high levels of pesticides. Fruits that have thick, inedible skins, are very safe to eat ~ pineapples, cantaloupes, melons, bananas, oranges, etc. So I buy a lot of these things when they are in season and at reasonable prices.

And the fruits that are some of the highest for pesticides, such as grapes and strawberries, you can wash them in a solution of water and vinegar. It's amazing the gunk that this solution gets off of the fruit.

What I do is dump the container of berries in a big bowl, pour about 1/4 cup of white vinegar in and fill the bowl the rest of the way up with cold water. Let it soak for five minutes or so and then rinse well. No, your fruit will not taste like vinegar, but it will be so much cleaner than if you just rinse them in the colander under running water for a few seconds.

Brad and I and my sister and her husband planted a pear and apple orchard back behind our house. It's been about five or six years since they were planted, so they will soon begin producing fruit. My dad also has a bunch of blueberry bushes that are grown organically, and they produce massive quantities of blueberries in July and August. Couple that with all the wild blackberries and the cherry trees that grow around our property, and we're usually set for the summer with fruit.

I do buy as healthy as I can within our budget. For example, I spend a little extra money to buy whole wheat flour and unenriched white whole wheat flour (both made by King Arthur) and any pasta I buy is whole wheat. I also buy 100% whole wheat bread which is more expensive than a loaf of white bread. So I buy very little in way of white flour products. I'm in the process of experimenting with making my own crackers and graham crackers so that I can have these products with whole grains.

Tip 2 Grow your own food.

Planting a garden has saved us a TON of money. I've already discussed the how's and why's up above. In addition to what we plant every year, I also want to try some strawberry plants one of these years. I put some in several years ago, but the plants all failed. Bummer.

I also have a herb garden that my wonderful hubby put in for me last spring for Mother's Day. I LOVE my herb garden. It runs the whole length of our back deck, right off the kitchen, and with easy access. Most of the herbs I planted are perennials so they will come back each year, and then I also planted some annuals such as basil, lemon verbena, and dill which I use a ton of. I'm still learning how to preserve herbs because I had such success with my plants last year, and, sadly, a lot of the crop went to waste because of my ignorance in how to properly preserve them.

And if you don't know where to start or you think you don't have enough land to garden, The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre! is a great book that discusses gardening and such, even if you only own a small plot of land.

Tip 3 Preserve Your Food

Along the lines of growing your own food, comes preserving all the yummy goodies that you've reaped. I freeze most of my veggies and fruits using my Food Saver because this locks in more nutrients than canning.

I do can jams, salsa, spaghetti sauce, beans, ketchup, tomatoes, relishes, and pickles. We have a can cellar in our basement where we keep all of our canned goods.

You can also preserve fruit/veggies/meat that you get on sale at the grocery store. I've never done this, but I was just talking to a friend this past weekend who bought a large amount of beef and was canning it in various ways. What a great idea!

Tip 4 Coupons

Oh, I am SO not a coupon girl. I maybe use three or four (at best) coupons per month. Not because I don't look at the coupons. I do! It's just that most of the coupons are for brand name items or convenience foods that I don't buy anyway. And usually, I can get off-brand names a lot cheaper than the brand name price even after the coupon discount. You have to be smart with coupons.

And I'm definitely not going to buy something just because I have a coupon for it. That kind of defeats the purpose in my mind!

If I do buy a coupon, it is most likely for a toiletry such as shampoo or shaving cream or toothpaste or deodorant. I would say that those are the coupons I use most often. And sometimes I get really lucky and my local grocery store puts one of those items on sale and they double coupons, so I get a really good deal! But that doesn't happen so often! So, I am, admittedly, not a coupon guru.

So, my advice is to use a coupon only if you would usually buy that product at full price. And check to make sure that the generic isn't even cheaper still than the coupon price.

Tip 5 Cook from Scratch

I am a big proponent of cooking from scratch. In fact, I make almost everything from scratch. Exceptions would be bread and yogurt (although I have been experimenting with making my own yogurt as of late) as well as some snacks like pretzels and tortilla chips. But all of my dinners and desserts are made from scratch. It's healthier and much more economical. I understand that it's difficult for working moms to cook all of their meals from scratch, so maybe you could commit to making two from-scratch meals per week, and look for meals that would utilize the crockpot (a lifesaver for busy moms.)

I love cooking from scratch. I find a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that my hands and hard work produced the end result. And it's fun!

Tip 6 Watch sale flyers

I always check out the sales flyers every week that I receive in the mail. However, most of my shopping is done at Aldi's and Walmart. Once a month I go to Aldi's and buy the majority of my food, and then I head across the street to WalMart for the rest. Shopping at Aldi's has saved me a huge amount of money. Check the Internet to see if you have one near you.

But if I find that our local grocery store is running a great sale, I will stop by if I'm going to be in town. I typically don't make a special trip in for sales. This is another area when my price book comes in handy because I can check from home whether the sale price really is a good price.

I also shop for the majority of my meat at this local store because they always mark down their meat at the end of the week (a lot of grocery stores do this) when it is reaching the end of its shelf date. Then I bring the meat home, divide it up into appropriate proportions, and freeze it in our deep freeze. I then mark what meat I have in the freezer on my calendar, and I then plan my next month's meals around that.

Thank you so much for reading along this week! It's been a pleasure to share this with you all, and I do hope that you find some of it helpful or at least feel motivated to find ways to save money at the grocery store. And please feel free to share any of your own tips in the comment section. I love new ideas!

Blessings to you and your family!

Step Four in Grocery Savings: Establish a Price-Comparison Book

Have you ever been at the store, seen an item on sale, and wondered, "Gee, I wonder if I can get that even cheaper at Walmart than the sale price here?"

I used to do that a lot. And it would drive me crazy because I was not about to go to Walmart and then run back to the other store for the sale item if I found the sale price to be cheaper than the WalMart price. Especially not with kids in tow!

For years, I heard women talk about price comparison notebooks that they kept to compare prices on items at the different stores they frequented. I could see how it would be a great idea, but I didn't want to invest the time in actually researching and setting one up.

But I thought I'd give it a try at the beginning of this year when I knew I was really serious about this whole money saving thing.

Here are a few pages straight from my price book. As you can see, I compare prices at three stores that I frequent most often. As you can also see, not all of my columns are completely filled in because I'm in the early stages of getting my book set up.

The easiest way to start is to make categories in your price book. You could even do the same categories as you did on your shopping list that we discussed on Tuesday. My categories are as follows: baking, beans, beverages, bottled/condiments, bread, breakfast, canned goods, dairy, frozen, meat, nuts, pasta/noodles/rice, produce, snacks, spices, and then cleaning, paper products, and toiletries for the non-food items. I have these categories alphabetized because I'm a sucker for organization, plus, it makes it a lot easier when you're thumbing through trying to find the price of an item while at the store.

Once you have your categories, write down the items that you buy on a regular basis. You can look at some of my photos to see items that I have included in my price book.

Now, you need to start marking down prices. One important note when doing this: do this part in pencil!!!!! I cannot stress the importance of that! Prices are always changing so you want to be able to erase and record the new price all the while keeping your book neat and organized.

When I first set my book up, I grabbed all the receipts from the past months that I had saved (because I always keep my credit card receipts for a couple of months), and I got prices from those. Now when I go to the store, I'll jot down a few more prices/items as I see them depending on how much time I have. Some people recommend taking a field trip to the stores just for the purpose of filling in your price book. That would be ideal, but it wasn't realistic for me. So I just fill it in as I go, and I'm hoping by the summertime to have a pretty complete book.

One other thing I do is make notes regarding size next to the price in pencil. For instance, you might be able to get laundry detergent for a couple of bucks at one store, but that size may only do 64 loads, where you might be able to get a different brand at another store for a few dollars more that does double the loads. This is when a price per ounce value comes in handy. You can calculate that by taking the price of the item and dividing it by the total number of ounces. A lot of the bigger stores already do this for you and have this value marked on the shelf under the product.

I know that you're probably thinking that this sounds like a bigger pain than what it's worth. That's what I thought for years! But now that I have a price-comparison book, I use it constantly and I have found it to be such a helpful money-saving tool!

Paying With Cash

Paying for groceries in cash... EWWWW. The thought used to turn my stomach. I hated carrying around cash. And credit cards were so much more convenient. Plus, we always paid off our credit cards every month so we always got nice cash-back rewards for our purchases.

Several years ago, I read a Dave Ramsey book in which he expressed the importance in paying for everything in cash, or at least with a debit card. He doesn't believe that you should charge anything to a credit card. We put a lot of Dave Ramsey's ideas into practice, but I just couldn't accept the whole paying in cash thing.

That is until a couple of months ago when I cut my grocery budget from $600/month to $300/month for our family of five. Then I knew that I would have to pay in cash to resist the temptation to buy something that wasn't on my list. The credit card made it too easy to spend over my allotted budget. I knew that I had the money in our checking account to pay off the credit card bill, so I would buy more than what I absolutely needed. But the problem was that I was buying unnecessary items when the money could be used in other necessary purchases or put back into our savings account or used to pay down our mortgage.

Now that I've been paying in cash, I've been extra careful to stick within my budget because, frankly, it would be really embarrassing to get to the checkout counter and not have enough money to pay my bill. Yeck. That thought alone scares me enough to remain very conscience of what I put into my grocery cart.

So each time Brad gets paid, I go to the bank and take out $150.00 for groceries, $25.00 for cleaning/toiletries, and whatever money I have allotted for "extra" things such as a last minute pizza-delivery. The extra category is determined by whether or not I know that there are upcoming things that will require a little extra money such as a youth group activity for Sergei or a homeschooling field trip. I then put the money into envelopes marked with their appropriate categories.

I'm in the process of making fabric envelopes for this purpose using this tutorial as they will be so much prettier and so much more durable for this purpose. This is not necessary, however, and I'm just using fabric I have in my fabric stash to complete this project. Here's also a link to make a really pretty scrapbook paper cash envelope system. Looks like an easy project; it just wouldn't be as durable as fabric envelopes.

Then when I pay for my groceries, I take the money from the corresponding envelope to pay for those items. And once I run out of money, it's done until the next paycheck. Now, I do have extra money I could use if there is a food emergency such as house guests or something like that, but I don't want to do that on a regular basis as that would defeat the purpose of a budget.

Paying in cash along with meal-planning have been the two biggest money-savers for our family. In fact, I'm kicking myself for not having started these two things earlier in our married life. All the money I could have saved our family!

Next time I'll be discussing another money-saver known as a price-comparison tablet. This is yet another tip I had heard about over and over but never wanted to invest the time in establishing. Now that I have one set up, I realize what a helpful, money-saving tool it really is! Have a blessed day!