I am NOT an expert, just a momma with little cash and lots of hungry mouths to feed so I have been working at making it work. I thought I would share some of my tricks and please do share your own!
The Meal Plan. Meal planning is crucial and I have finally gotten back into this and have already seen a HUGE difference. not sure why I got out of it, I used to always have a meal plan for the week (way back before I had kids!). I did it then because I was just learning to cook so I had to plan ahead. Now I can make a good meal out of just about anything so planning has become unnecessary (so I thought) and I would just stock up once a week at the store, buying the usual and whatever meats were on sale and then each night throw something together. The problem with this approach was that I often bought a lot of groceries that I did not need that week, I might eventually use it, but I could have put the money that week towards something else. Another problem was that because I had no plan in place I often became overwhelmed when it came time to cook because I had no idea what I wanted to make or didn't start early enough for some meals. I have only used the crock pot (the one I *had* to have) once because I rarely knew what I wanted to cook early enough in the day to warrant using a slow cooker. So now my Sunday night/Monday morning ritual is the meal plan/shopping list.
Sandwich Night and Left Overs. At least one night a week is deemed sandwich night and another left overs. this cuts down on the grocery bill dramatically. Sandwiches filled with peanut butter and jelly, eggs and bacon, chicken salad, or good ole turkey and cheese. Left over night is a potluck of whatever is in the fridge or freezer. Sundays are country kitchen left overs, we get lucky with that one! So with Sundays taken care of and two other days marked as easy, cheap fixes that only leaves four meals. I know what things I can get a pretty good deal on and I make a meal plan based loosely on that. For instance, I know something in pork will be on sale so I plan on pork for dinner without necessarily deciding what that might be, pork chops to pork roast. I know I can buy a 5lb roll of hamburger meat the cheapest, and that renders at least four meals so I plan for at least two meals that week of hamburger meat and carry over two meals to the following week. A whole chicken makes a great chicken stock, and can be de-boned and divided into two meals, a good chicken soup and a jambalaya or mixed with BBQ sauce and put on sandwich bread.
Watch out for the produce isle! I find the hardest place for me to stick to a budget and a plan is in the produce section. I can easily get carried away, and because I rarely stop to weigh in how many apples add up to a lb the cost adds up quickly. The other problem is that I generally buy more than what we can or need to eat in a weeks time. I would buy lots of veggies and then put off the meal they were to be paired with for too long and then have to throw them out. Again meal planning has just about solved this problem. First I let the kids pick out a reasonable amount of fruit for snacks that week. we don't need oranges, apples, bananas, and grapes...maybe just a couple oranges and some grapes. I also plan meals that use a lot of fresh produce for early in the week and meals at the end of the week might contain frozen veggies, or something I can come back for later. I also started using that big scale they provide so you actually know how much you are spending on those apples. This has become a fun thing for the kids to help with too.
The Food Envelope. We are taking the David Ramsey financial peace class on Sundays and the best thing to come out of it so far is the envelope system. I won't go into detail here, you can find him online and research it. I highly recommend the class. Basically you divide your money (in cash) up at the beginning of the week and plan ahead on how much money goes into each group. The Food Envelope, for us, is just that - what we spend on food for the week. Mine feeds the whole family, Nat has one for his own personal lunch for when there are not any left overs for him to take to work. A good portion of the money goes to the groceries, but since meal planning has become a priority I have been left with some cash after the trip to the store, and that money goes towards any outings (like brunch with the LNB or pizza night). If I know I don't need money for an outing it goes into another envelope.
Sticking to the plan and dealing without the goodies. It is not always easy to know what I will cook four days from now. There is no way to foresee what will happen on that day, what obstacles will get in the way of seeing our plans through. Sandwich night and left over night are usually my fail safes. And that extra money for pizza comes in handy now and then. And sometimes sandwich night happens more than once a week, which means an extra meal will carry over to the next week thus lowering the grocery bill for that week! This comes in very handy when I have a weekend off at the CK. My income covers the "extra expenses" like food, gas, households, etc. I don't work every weekend, so it helps when I have meals carry over from week to week. Another sacrifice has been doing without a lot of "goodies". This one probably hurts Nat and the kids more than me. If it's not in the budget we do NOT buy it....and sometimes gummy bears are just not in the budget. Isaac came and asked me the other day, "please, you put Capri Suns in the budget?" I said sorry, just don't have it right now but you can use your chore money to buy them for yourself. And that is what he did. It is nice when there is a lil extra room, I have a good Sunday at work, or enough meals carried over that we have just a bit more $$ than hungry mouths so we indulge in a gallon of ice cream or a bag of cookies.
Conserving and Savoring. Some things we do just have to have that are not so budget friendly. Orange juice is one of these things. I like good orange juice and it runs us about $6 a gallon. So O.J. has become the guilty pleasure around here, our indulgent treat in the a.m. You get ONE glass of O.J. in this house ... ONE. One glass per day, spread over three people makes a gallon last just over a week. Mondays we usually have a bit left, so we get to indulge in a couple extra glasses! Peanut Butter is another thing I spend a bit more money on, I like the good PB and it's better for us so I make room in the budget for the good stuff. When we do splurge on something like ice cream or cookies we enjoy it so much more, no longer taking it for granted but instead savoring every spoonful.
Room to grow. I have done pretty well these past few weeks and kept the grocery bill at or under $50 consistently. This does not include households, that has a separate envelope and has also gone down dramatically. In the past month I have spent a total of $10 on household items. We do not use any disposables anymore, no paper towels (expect for poop messes), no paper plates, no disposable sponges, I use white vinegar and some essential oils to clean with and an old school cotton head mop and regular old broom. We do still use toilet paper ;) some things are worth the expense! There are still plenty areas I am sure I can cut back on, and coupon clipping is still an art I have yet to learn. I hope to start growing some of our own veggies some day and would love to raise some chickens in the back yard. It is not about depriving our family of all the luxuries, it is about making better choices for our family. There is always a trade off, a side effect of every decision you make. For us, the benefits that come with my being able to stay home while we provide for our family essentially on one income have made the sacrifices worth it. There is also more thought put into what we really need versus what we really want. The sacrifice or postponement of some wants doesn't always feel bad. Sometimes it really feels good to work for and wait for something I really want. I also feel like it keeps me from losing sight of what is really important to me, I don't ever want to be in a place where I feel like a new outfit or the latest iPhone is a top priority in my life. My kids, my health, my emotional well being, my marriage, and my happiness are among the top priorities in my life.
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