Is cutting our grocery budgets the holy grail of personal finance and budgeting? It seems like this is always a hot topic for the personal finance bloggers out there. I wrote about my progress with grocery spending problems last month and thought I’d share a few good posts that came out recently.

Can you feed yourself for $21 a week at the grocery store? The Simple Dollar is giving it a try. It seems to me that it is possible if you already have a decently well stocked kitchen or pantry. I came close to that number last month, but I also had a lot of food already on hand. I think the only true way to figure it out would be to throw away all the food you have and head out to the store for a fresh start. However, that may not be very frugal. Good read and you should definitely check it out if you are spending a lot more money than that on food now.

27 Ways to Save Money on Food. If you want to try to spend only $21 a week on groceries, you’ll definitely need to check out the tips compiled by The Frugal Law Student. You’ll find a wide range of tips from saving those extra ketchup packets to finding a good farmer’s market. By the way, many thanks to The Frugal Law Student for the link love on a few of the tips that came from my post.

Grocery Price Books for the Semi Lazy. The price book concept is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but haven’t made the commitment to try yet. Honestly, it seems like a lot of work and I tell myself that I can track prices in my head (doubtful). This post from I’ve Paid For This Twice Already is a good way for the ‘lazy’ person to get started on a simple price book. I’m going to give that a try this week.

I don’t know what it is about grocery spending that draws so much attention, but I do think it is an easy part of our lives to target for saving money without making drastic lifestyle changes. A little planning and wisdom have gone a long way for me so far and I hope some of these tips can help you too.

By Eden, Mon 8 Oct 2007, Comments Categories: Food, Frugality, Web Favorites

This morning I decided to stop by one of my old regular places for breakfast- something I’ve given up since writing up a strict budget. It’s a bagel shop that makes a great pumpernickel bagel. On the way in I was thinking to myself that I would just get a pumpernickel bagel with butter. No cream cheese, no coffee. Just keep it simple and cheap. When the cashier gave me the total, I seriously went into sticker shock! $2.05 for my simple bagel order. I couldn’t believe it cost that much. I’ve changed my shopping habits so much at the grocery store lately, always seeking the best deal for my money, that I was truly surprised. I’m afraid to say it, but I think I’m becoming frugal! At least I hope that is frugal behavior and not just cheap. 

By the way, if frugal food interests you, here is a great frugal food blog that I read- Cheap Healthy Good

By Eden, Wed 3 Oct 2007, Comments Categories: Food, Frugality

I posted earlier this month about my seemingly out of control spending on groceries. Now that we have reached the end of the month, I have some nice progress to report.

Quick review- in August, for two people, we spent $628.26 on groceries. To be clear, that was just groceries. No eating out, no fast food, and no household items. Seems like way too much money to me.

Now the good news- for the month of September, we managed to spend only $195.83. How did we do that? I’m not sure if I know exactly what made the difference, maybe we just got lucky, but I will try to share all the details I can think of now.

My first trip to the grocery store this month was very different than it used to be. I actually have fun shopping for groceries and because I like to cook I tend to spend a lot of time looking for specific, hard-to-find items that I may have seen on a cooking show or heard recommended somewhere- almost like a kid in a candy store, but with produce and spices.    This time, I didn’t allow myself to do that. I stuck with the list I had prepared and I didn’t always look for the ‘best’ items. I spent quite a lot of time comparing prices across different brands and doing some quick math to figure out what was the best deal per unit. I also brought an envelope full of coupons and made sure to use them all (can’t tell you how many times I’ve brought coupons with me and simply forgot to use them).

I saw results right away after taking this new approach. The bill was much lower than I had expected for the amount of food that I purchased. I also made sure to pick up items that I knew could go a long way for little expense (bags of rice and beans for example).

The other change I made was to focus on eating what was already at home. Yeah, that probably sounds obvious, but I would always go out and buy more food when I already had a lot to eat at home and this often led to me throwing away a lot of food.

That’s about it really. All it took was some effort. Instead of just walking through the grocery store with only a vague idea of what I needed, and grabbing what looked good along the way, I planned ahead, I stuck to my plan, and I really labored over every extra penny I had to spend. For example, we wanted a little Mac and Cheese (not healthy and the stuff in the box is really awful compared to home-made in my opinion but my wife likes it). First I looked at the Kraft brand, it was $0.99 per box. Then I found some generic brand for about $0.70 per box. I thought I had found a winner until I looked a little further down the shelf…and there it was! The cheapest of the cheap, $0.33 per box for Mac and Cheese. That’s a huge price difference and there is very little taste difference, if any.

Ultimately, if I want to lose weight, I can’t afford to be eating cheap food that is loaded with empty carbohydrates and lots of sodium. I really want to explore how to prepare my own foods at home, make them as healthy as I can, and do that while still spending less money. In my mind, I have always equated eating healthy with spending a lot of money on groceries, but I suspect that isn’t really true. Look for more on that some day. For now, I will take the $432 saved on groceries and throw it at the debt snowball.

By Eden, Mon 1 Oct 2007, Comments Categories: Food, Saving, Spending