8 Easy Ways to Cut Your Grocery Budget

I don't profess to be a financial wizard by any means. I'm too lazy to do extreme couponing, and planning my grocery list is something I always kind of dread, which is why my husband and I now do it together so it seems like a fun game we're playing instead of a chore that I have to do every week. However, we've gotten pretty good at the budgeting thing over the past year, and groceries are a huge area where we have found we can spend a lot less than we think we can. Here are a few things that have worked for us, and I'd love to hear what works for you!

1. Don't go to the grocery store more than once a week. Every time I go to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk, I come out with $50 worth of stuff. 90% of the time, whatever I need can wait until my weekly shopping day.
2. Eat more produce. I swear the ridiculously cheap price of most fresh produce was a revelation to my husband. After two years of me hearing, "This bag of gummy bears is only $4," now I suddenly hear, "Yeah, get some bananas! They're so cheap!" (He doesn't even like bananas, but I do, and so does our baby, so that's good enough.) Substituting apples and pears for fruit snacks is not only healthier for your body, it's healthier for your wallet. On that note . . .
3. Go vegetarian - at least sometimes. We try to plan at least one meatless meal per week, because it saves us some money and it's good for us to eat vegetables. We've found that we really like egg plant, that cauliflower is excellent Chinese food style, that tostadas are just as satisfying without the meat and you don't have to remember to thaw anything, etc. (Also, we've found that some meals don't need as much meat as the recipe tells you it does. Lasagna is a good example.) 
4. Plan your menu before you go. We have a weekly family planning meeting where we sit down and look at our schedules for the week, and then plan a few meals. Sometimes these get juggled a little, but because we plan it in conjunction with our schedules, we know to fix something quick on a night when my husband works late, so we don't buy a bunch of fancy stuff for a meal we won't get to. We also know that even if we're out of pork chops, if we aren't going to make them this week, they can get pushed to next week's grocery trip, and we can just buy chicken this week. It's much easier to spread out our purchases this way, and we don't have as much food go bad before we can eat it. 
5. Set a realistic but firm budget, and keep a running total as you go. Ice cream is a luxury in our house. If you want ice cream and you realize it doesn't fit in this week's budget, maybe you should put back the 24 pack of soda. (I'm not saying you should never buy treats. But you should buy real food first and then decide how many treats belong in your cart.)
6. Pay in cash. Something about having the grocery money in your pocket makes it easier to put things back if you're about to go over the set budget. 
7. Make a list and stick to it - or make trades. I know, I know. Those chips look SO GOOD. And so do those pita chips. And you really could use some new shampoo just for a change. And doughnuts. You NEED those, right? Wrong. All of those tiny little extra things that only cost a couple of dollars add up more quickly than you can possibly imagine. If you really want something that isn't on the list, figure out what you're going to cut before you add it to the cart. Steak is on sale? Great. Are you going to have that instead of hamburger this week? 
8. Price Match. Oh my goodness guys. Do you know how easy price matching is? We never buy name brand stuff, so some of those deals go out the window for us, but we save a BUNDLE on produce by just having a list of places where it's on sale. At our grocery store, you don't even need to bring an ad - you just tell them where grapes are $0.98 a pound and you're golden. There are millions of websites that collect all of the data you need so you can just go through the list and decide if anything you need is a fabulous deal somewhere. 

You don't have to overhaul your life to make your budget stretch a little further - you just have to be thoughtful about where your money is going. 

Being Good Enough

A couple of months ago, I was having one of those nights that I'm pretty sure most new mothers have at least once every couple of weeks. (Actually, I'm not sure how long this period lasts, but I'm pretty sure right now I can still lump it officially in with normal baby blues.) I was sobbing to my husband about how I was failing at everything and not doing enough, and I hated that I could never get everything done, and who knows when the last time I managed to vacuum was, and now that the baby is crawling she'll probably find something I didn't vacuum up off the floor and choke on it, but she's just so clingy right now and she hates the noise of the vacuum, and so on and so forth.

And after I'd collected myself a little, my kind husband said, "Meg. Think about what you did today. You got up and nursed the baby. You ate breakfast. We played with the baby. You worked on your lesson for church tomorrow. You nursed the baby again. You took half an hour off to read a book while the baby napped. We went to babysit your brother's kids. You came back, put the baby to bed, finished working on your lesson, and cleaned up the kitchen. Just when were you going to do something else?"

He then went on to tell me that if I was feeling overwhelmed and he wasn't, clearly we needed to reexamine our division of labor. (For the record, my husband is a rock star. He cooks dinner at least as often as I do, is great about taking care of the baby, changes his share of diapers when he isn't at work, and is really good about picking up after himself and doing the dishes without me nagging him about it. I wasn't feeling overwhelmed because he is a bum - just because we're still figuring our lives out.) We talked about adjustments we could make to help me feel more in control of my life, but also talked about how ultimately, I might also need to adjust my expectations about what success entails at this point in my life.

Because honestly, I'm still pretty new at this whole, "My life revolves around a tiny person now" thing. I don't know why I assumed that less than a year in I should have the whole thing figured out. When my daughter is learning something new, I never get frustrated at her because she doesn't do it perfectly at first. I clapped for her the first time she rolled over, even though it took another two months before she could do it on purpose every time. I watched with delight as she tried to sit up and would fold in half and tip over while she tried to grab her feet. I relished her ridiculously ungraceful army crawl with her legs flying in the air for no apparent reason. And then one day, she suddenly had all of these skills mastered.

Except it wasn't sudden, because it took weeks of less-successful practice before she figured out that skill. And now she'll move on to learning to walk and talk and pee in a toilet and a myriad of other skills that she will take some time to master, and I will celebrate her progress along the way - not just when she's totally grown up and has her act together.

So why don't I celebrate my own growth the same way? I may not get the vacuuming done very regularly right now, but I am very good at making my baby laugh. I've figured out how to make baby food; nursing is something that has become completely second nature; I read my baby's cues and know when she is tired, hungry, overstimulated, or just lonesome for Mommy. I've gotten very good at a lot of things that I didn't have a single clue about twelve months ago. And right now, that's more than good enough.

“The earth is what we all have in common.”

Happy Earth Day, lovely readers! 

Don't feel bad if you didn't get to do anything awesome like plant a tree or recycle your car; every day is Earth Day, and every day is your new chance! There are a million trillion ways to start taking care of the environment, and some of them are easy. (Some others aren't, it's true--but losing natural resources because we didn't take care of them isn't any easier! Just think of it that way. :) )

I didn't get to do anything epic today, either, but I did see a woman at the Barnes and Noble Starbucks getting her coffee in a mug she brought from home, and that made me pretty happy. All I did was my usual--skipping the plastic bag when I stopped at Target, picking up a little trash here and there, and putting a cardboard box in the recycle bin instead of the trash. 

Here are some great lists of really simple ways to do your part:

• http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/green-living/ways-to-go-green
• http://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/remodeling/eco-friendly/easy-ways-to-go-green/
• http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/article.aspx?cp-documentid=8318407

Have You Voted?

Oh loveliest of readers, have you voted today? There's still plenty of time if you haven't! Our system only works if we all participate in it, and what's more lovely than doing your part in your community? (Well... lots of things, probably... but it's still an important thing to do.) 


Don't let other people make all the decisions--your input is just as essential as anyone's. Make sure you're informed about your candidates, and do your part to support those you believe in.   It might even be the most valuable thing you do today.