The most challenging part is the budget itself. We do $45/week, which divided by four people and seven days, works out to about $1.60 per person, per day. It's not easy, but it almost always works.
The second most challenging part is that I try not to buy too many processed foods. If you're a textbook couponer, you could probably budget $25 per week and feast daily on every new variation of Activia, Fruity Pebbles, and cheap turkey dogs. But I read this book and I'd rather not.
I'm an unconventional shopper. My brain just works differently when I think about what to buy, where to buy it, and how much of it to buy. Here are ten things I'm intentional about.
1. Buying seasonal foods
This is pretty common knowledge. Buying seasonal produce is best, it's fresher, tastes better, and is cheaper. Blueberries were $3.99 a pint a few months ago, I bought and froze several pints in the past few weeks for $.99 a pint. Love it. I also lovesuperlove the farmer's market for the 7.5 seconds it's open in this midwest climate.
2. Shopping the sale cycles
This changed the way I shop. I used to go to the same places every two weeks and buy the same things. If I went to an "Everyday Low Price" or "ELP" store like WalMart, I would pay pretty much the same thing every time, which would be a not too high (but not too low) price. If I went somewhere like Dominick's, I could spend nearly $4.00 one week on the same box of cereal that would cost $1.49 in three more weeks. At non-ELP stores, there really is a pricing cycle, rumored to last 12 weeks. Within that cycle, there will obviously be a highest price and a lowest price. Ideally, you can buy enough of the product at the lowest price of the cycle to last roughly 12 weeks. Even more ideally, you will have some coupons to bring the price down even more.
3. Stockpiling
This is just a fun way of saying "hoarding". Just kidding. Kind of. We bought a chest freezer a couple of years ago. Since I'm buying fewer processed foods, it means I'm buying more perishables. That makes stocking up for 12 weeks or more difficult, unless you have some sweet freezer space! Which we do. And I love it.
4. Watching Coupon Blogs
My favorite coupon blog for the past three or four years has been mashupmom. I like to keep my eyes on these for awesome deals and coupon links for things I already want to buy.
5. Rocking the store cards and perks
I'm a big fan of Dominick's just for U. I just added "$5 off a $20 grocery purchase" to my card, which is just a bonus on top of physical coupons and all the other deals. Just for U has a "Deal Match" feature so you can get the same prices that Jewel and Target are offering this week in their ads. There are store coupons and personalized deals based on what I have bought before, all of which you can add to your card before you go to the store. A few months ago, there was a store buy one get one free sale on a nice brand of bacon. The store price for one package was a ridiculous $7.00. In my personalized deals, I had a price of $2.50, so I got them for $1.25 a package, which was definitely the best deal I would get on that brand for a long time. So I bought 50. And we still have lots of bacon in the freezer. It sounds a little crazy, and sometimes there's a little bit of an investment on the front end, but the longer term savings pays off. I told you, not conventional.
I also like grocery shopping at Target now. Because I got a REDCard, I get some good grocery coupons in the mail. You can stack coupons and deals like a complete, total boss at Target. They text you mobile coupons, you can print coupons, you can stack their store coupons with manufacturer coupons, you can use your mail coupons for things like "$5 off a $30 grocery order", and you can use the Cartwheel app for extra percentages off. I also almost always have at least a $2 Target giftcard because I use the Shopkick app. THEN you get a bonus 5% off at the end if you have the REDcard. You can do really, really well with smaller, well-planned grocery shopping trips at Target.
6. Not being too loyal to any store
I liked living in Joliet because there were lots of grocery stores in a small area competing against one another. This made for good sales. I could sometimes even be drawn into the unpleasantness that is Food4Less. Sometimes. I still try to keep up with the ads and make my way back there for a shopping trip every now and then.
7. The order you hand over your coupons is important
This is a real thing. I mentioned Target sending coupons like $5/$30. Last week I did a trip with one of these. I used a smattering of paper manufacturer coupons, Target mobile coupons, printable Target coupons, Cartwheel, my REDcard, and a $2 giftcard on my phone from Shopkick. I got just over $30 of groceries, handed that $5/$30 coupon over first (because my other coupons would bring my total below $30 and I wouldn't be able to use it). The paper coupons aren't such a big deal but I tend to do them next, then the mobile coupons. It seems to work best to do Shopkick last. It wasn't a TLC Extreme Couponing type trip, but we got a lot of real, healthy food and we didn't pay much for it at all.
8. My level of savings seems to be directly connected to how much food prep I need to do
Obviously, foods that are fully or partially prepared will come in smaller portions and cost more. Also, I am my mother's daughter. For a lady that spent ten years in the military, she totally could have been a homesteader in a peasant skirt, a gypsy Ma Ingalls, if you can imagine the awesomeness of such a combination. I remember homemade bread, clothes on the line, and being the last family in the western hemisphere to get air conditioning. I find myself feeling like I'm doing things "right" when I'm cutting chicken off the bone and when I cut and peel my own vegetables and fruit. I try to save scraps and make chicken stock. I try (try!) to be creative and not waste much. The smaller budget kind of rules out convenience foods, which works for us but might not for others. My proudest discovery of the month is this homemade substitute for canned cream soups. It's legitimately tasty!
9. Planning around what I have rather than what I need
I find recipes based on what I have and what is on sale, rather than planning a menu and shopping for all those ingredients. Allrecipes has a great little feature that lets you type in what ingredients you have on hand and pulls up recipes based on those. I experiment a lot. It usually works out for my poor family. It's sometimes a hard life when the cook is the only one with an adventurous palate.
10. ...and more planning...
I plan the heck out of my shopping trips. Sometimes I plan for a day or two. I know where I'm going, what I'm getting, and what I'm getting it for. I have my nerdy coupon envelope in hand. I don't impulse buy very often, usually because I have no energy for deviation from "the list".
So now I've done it. I've laid bare my hippie food hoarding ways for all of blogosphere.
But really, people, it kind of works.
Please don't submit my name to TLC. We're not actually hoarders. :) Come on over, I'll fry you some bacon and prove it!
2 comments:
I DID read it and DID like it and WILL send Guy Kolar here to do the same! :)
She's telling the truth!! I live with her!!!
Judi Koehler -sweet mother-in-law!!
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