Monday Q&A | Grocery Questions + Decluttering
Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!
Hi! I love your blog and found it via another blog. I have done the menu planning like you suggested and I've only managed to get spending to about $130. My problem is this, I have a husband that only eats meat and potatoes (literally) and my daughter is a huge meat eater. How can I spend less when the bulk of the problem is the meat and a picky eater? I would appreciate any suggestions you might have.
-Angela
Well, it's quite possible that a $130/week budget is the best that you can do for your particular family. $100/week works for my family of six, but none of us are large people, none of us have large appetites, and none of us are big meat eaters. I definitely am not of the opinion that $100/week is the ideal budget for every family!
If eating less meat is not an option for your family, then you could consider using less expensive meat (chuck roasts instead of steaks, chicken thighs instead of boneless breasts, etc.). Another option is to keep a close eye out for sales on the meats that you like. When you see a good sale on a cut your family loves, buy more than you need for that week and store it in the freezer. That way you won't have to pay full price the next time you need meat.
You might also want to check and see if other stores in your area have better meat prices. A warehouse club might be good for you, or you may simply be able to shop the loss leader meat sales at traditional grocery stores (loss leaders are the front page sale items on your grocery store's weekly circular).
I am new to your site and in reading this latest post, I am curious how to get away with an approx. $100 wk. grocery bill with a family of six? It is just me and my husband and I easily spend $130 a week on groceries. There are some things that are non-negotiable. For example, we only buy Honey Bunches of Oats - my husband refuses to eat anything else. I generally catch it on a sale and stock up. The only other thing in coffee, we prefer Dunkin Donuts brand, which is pricey. Other than that, I make my own pasta sauce and yogurt. I buy dried beans versus canned and we are not big on microwaveable food. We only drink milk, juice or tap water, so no soda.
Do you clip coupons? Where do you shop? I generally go to Meijers and maybe that is the problem.
-Jackie
As I said in my response to the previous question, I don't at all think that everyone on the planet needs to operate on a $100/week grocery budget. $100 just might not work for you and your husband, and that's ok.
It is definitely worth it to take a look at other stores in your area. I don't have a Meijers here, but I know that some grocery stores are flat-out more expensive than others. If you've got an Aldi in your area, I highly, highly recommend giving them a try. I wrote a post about what and what not to buy at Aldi that might be helpful to you.
Soda is not a healthy drink by any stretch of the imagination, but it's usually cheaper than milk and juice (I'd consider those beverages to be more of a budget buster than soda). So, if you really need to shrink your grocery budget, consider trading out the juice for water. Milk does at least have nutritional value, but bottled juice isn't much more healthy than soda and it's waaay more expensive than water! If you can't bear to live without juice, maybe you could drink juice from frozen concentrate. This tends to be less expensive than bottled juice.
When it comes to lowering grocery budgets I usually recommend these 10 things (which are in no particular order):
1) Shopping at stores with good prices
2) Cooking from scratch when possible
3) Drinking (tap) water instead of other beverages
4) Stocking up when prices are lower
5) Eating leftovers
7) Planning a menu, making a grocery list, and sticking to it
8 ) Eating less meat
9) Switching out expensive foods for semi-equivalent inexpensive foods (oatmeal instead of cold cereal, chicken salad sandwiches for lunch meat sandwiches)
10) Buying generics when possible (I know some generic groceries are pathetic, but some are really good, so don't be afraid to try them!)
If you're doing all of those things and are still spending $130/week, then I think you should conclude that you've gotten your budget as low as you can, and you should not stress about it any further. 🙂
I was just wondering what you do for organization purposes in your house. Your house always looks so clutter-free and peaceful that I was wondering what your secret was. Bins? Baskets? Furniture that you paint from Goodwill or Freecycle?
-Bonnie
Hee. Well, my home is not always clutter-free and peaceful. 😉 I'd like it to be, and I work towards that end, but I am not ever perfectly successful, due in large part to the 4 children that inhabit my home. The last time my dwelling place was completely clutter free was 5 years ago (we had our townhouse on the market) and that took several weeks of focused effort!
That said, here are a few things that help me to keep clutter from taking over our home.
We don't own tons of stuff. The less stuff you own, the easier it is to keep your house clean, so get rid of stuff you don't need! Generally speaking, I've found that I can happily function with far fewer possessions than I think I can. If I'm on the fence about whether or not I need something, I usually get rid of it and I find that I don't even miss it.
I have designated locations for stuff. Library books have a basket, the legos have a bin, the dress-up clothes have a chest, and dirty clothes have a hamper. These sorts of locations are simple enough for children to understand, which means that they can put things in the appropriate places (that doesn't always mean they do, mind you!).
We clean up nearly every day. Picking things up isn't too hard if the mess is only what's accumulated in a day. It's when the mess is composed of 7+ day's worth of living that it gets overwhelming. We try to clean up toys every day, do the dishes every day, sort the mail every day, sweep/vacuum the main floors every day, and do laundry every day. I know some people seem to function ok with a feast or famine cleaning method, but I'm much better off if I do a little bit every day.
I do deep decluttering semi-regularly. Even with daily or semi-daily picking up, a low-grade level of clutter does eventually build up in my house. So, during the summer or sometimes during the school year, I do deeper decluttering. This summer I'm systematically working through the rooms and closets in our house, getting rid of things we don't need so that I can start the school year sort of clutter free.
If you don't have a big block of time to declutter, though, you can accomplish quite a bit in small blocks of time. Try setting aside 15 minutes a day to declutter something small, like a single drawer, or a single shelf. You won't get as much done as you would in 8 hours, but you'll get more done than you would if you didn't spent those 15 minutes getting rid of stuff.
____________________________________________
Readers, do you have any good organization/anti-clutter tips for Bonnie? And of course, if you've got something to add to the grocery discussion, comment away. 🙂
Today's 365 post: I hate it when bananas do this.
I try to declutter one thing every Saturday. Whether it is the mail drawer or the spare bedroom closet is a matter of ambition and motivation. If I'm on the fence about whether I need something or not, I'll put it in a paper box (free from work) destined for Goodwill and then move the box to the trunk of my car. It usually takes me a solid month (or several) to actually get to Goodwill and if I need it in that period of time, I pull it back out of the box. Usually, by the time I get around to taking stuff to Goodwill, I have entirely forgotten what was in the boxes to start with.
Our household rule is generally this: if we haven't used it in 6 months, we don't need it. Of course that doesn't apply to seasonal items and the like, but for most household
things, it's a good rule to have. I also made it a quarterly habit to clean out our medicine supply. Expires medicines are nothing to mess with and it's easier to keep a constant stock of the things we regularly use if we know what's available.
If you have a really hard time parting with things, you can take pictures of them and put them in albums before getting rid of them.
That way you still have a physical memory of the stuff, without the clutter in your home. Pictures are much easier to store and organize than tons of items. 😉
I have 3 kids, some still home during the school year, and we have found that general pick up works best if done every day. I do a light toy pick up and dishes at noon, and then at bed time, with the kids helping. I also try and keep up with laundry and other reoccuring tasks like mail on a daily basis. We vacuum every day. I sweep the kitchen every day. That keeps the general mess to a minimum. I also try and designate a room or 2 of the house a week for a more significant clean. today the bathroom really needs a deep clean, yesterday I hit the kitchen, though I do have a drawer or 2 that could stand to be dumped out and re organized.
If it is a larger task that I know needs more than a day, I will break it down into smaller steps on a list, so I can pick one small thing when I have a minute and get that done, rather than feeling overwhelmed by the largeness of the project.
And in the play room, we have the toys in bins with both photos and word labels attached. This really helps the kids clean up they know what goes in where, and if you need to, put another picture on the shelf where the bin goes. It makes clean up easy.
If you feel you have too many toys out, I suggest rotating the toys. If they are in bins this is super easy. Every week, pick or have your kids choose a few toys to put into short storage and then get out a few other ones. This keeps the clutter down as there is less out to get messy, and it keeps kids interested in what they have. Barbies might be boring now, but put them away for a week or 2 and see how fun they are when they return.
My husband and I probably eat for about $50 a week. The only thing that I use coupons for is yogurt (for my husband's lunches), granola bars, and a few ceraels. I usually shop three different grocery stores (not every week, it is actually really rare that I go to all three, I might stop at two), but I do check their sale papers out each week. I stock up on things that I know we will use when they are on sale. I freeze a lot of meat and cheese. I make it a rule that I don't buy anything at grocery stores that isn't on sale, unless I know they sell it for cheaper or about the same price as Walmart or Target. When I go to Giant and Super Fresh it is only to buy sale items.
Other than just being careful about what you buy and when you buy it, I also find that stretching meats makes meals cheaper. I do a lot of casseroles or dishes where the meat is mixed in with everything else. If you add beans or cut the meat in half, it doesn't usually make that much of a different. My husband has never notices. I just try to plan most of my meals where meat isn't the focus point. Mexican dishes are great for this. I cut the meat out completely in a lot of italian dishes.
Being careful and eating the leftovers are the best ways to cut costs.
This works well for me too. I replace at least half the meat (if not all) with veggies or beans.
I'm fairly good about de-cluttering everything except photographs. I have so many and they sit in boxes or on shelves - I need a good way to organize them - any suggestions? P.S. I don't create scrapbooks, so that is not an option. Thanks!
K. Smith, I used to have boxes of photographs, and I don't scrapbook either. I finally realized that I never look at them if they're in boxes, so I bought 1 album a week at Michael's with a 40% off coupon (they give you another one on the receipt each week, and it's within walking distance, so no gas cost!) and then put all the pictures in them. I didn't organize them, I didn't scrapbook them, I didn't add notes, I just put pictures in albums. I did make sure all the albums match (same size, all black, different textures), but that's it. And I feel so much better about them! I'm more likely to look at them and enjoy them now.
Just my two cents.
I think the most useful practice I've developed for fighting clutter is to develop a one-in, one-out rule. For anything new that I bring into the house, I have to sell, donate or give away something of similar proportions in my house. I'm a pack rat by nature and this has been the only way to force myself to stop accumulating things I don't need. It forces me to really consider whether a new item is going to add meaningful value in my life & stops clutter before it enters the door.
Your cleaning system sounds a lot like flygirl!
As for grocery budgets: It's me and my husband, and we budget $450/month. We just started this budget in August as a way to really try to get some of our spending under control.
I managed to stay within my $450 budget during the month of August, with 5 Saturdays (I only grocery shop on Saturday mornings), so I'm pretty sure this will work for us long-term. My goal is to stash any extra money away to use towards a CSA share next summer, and hopefully also towards buying a quarter of a grass-fed cow.
*and my son! Didn't mean to leave the little 2-year-old munchkin out!
I budget $50 for my family of 4, but it's not easy at all. We recently became vegan, so that has helped a lot. Meat and dairy are expensive! I use a lot of "filler" vegetables like carrots in my cooking, to make it more substantial and nutritious.
As for containing the clutter, I pretty much try to minimize our possessions, I make sure the closets are cleaned out once a week, and I do a major "Spring cleaning" twice a year.
Angela - just a thought. I'm not sure if you have a crock pot, but they are a really good way to make cheap cuts of meat taste great. I make Kristen's beef au jus sandwiches in the crock pot all day, and then use the left over beef/broth to make beef barley soup. Usually the meat I buy for the crock pot only costs about $1.99 a pound (I buy it on sale).
I don't know if it's just me or not, but I wonder if the prices in the States are lower than in Canada. I feed a family of 5 plus a part time stepchild and we have a grocery/household/personal care budget of $225/wk. I have tried to get it lower but then I feel like I'm seriously sacrificing nutrition in my efforts. We do eat meat almost every day, but nothing fancy - chicken, pork, ground beef, hamburgers... and we don't eat organic unless it's on sale. I shop sales and do 80% of my shopping in a discount grocery store. I use coupons whenever I can, and I meal plan and shop with a list, rarely straying from the list for "extras", unless it's a sale on an item we use regularly. I buy generic whenever possible. We eat our leftovers and throw out much less food waste than we ever did before. I WANT to get my grocery costs down but I'm driving myself crazy with the ineffective effort I'm making. Hubby says "we can afford a grocery budget of $225/wk, and experts suggest $50/person per week so we are well within that range, so don't sweat it", but still, it bugs me!
I envy those of you who feed 4 to 6 people on $100-150/wk...
I think you are right that there seem to be better deals in the States combined with more coupon opportunities. I currently have a weekly budget of $140 for my family of five but my kids are only 4, 2 & 1 with the 2 and 1 year olds in that stage where they appear to live off nothing. It is not easy to stay in this budget now and I know that it will grow with the kids. In the next year or two I will be fighting to keep it under $200 and can only imagine what it will be like when my two boys hit the teenage years!
I've recently started the "pick up your age" game, which I picked up from some organizational game. Whatever your age, before you brush your teeth and get ready for bed, you have to put that many items back in their rightful place. I never have a hard time finding 31 things that are in the wrong spot. I love the counting -- makes me feel so accomplished and has that counting sheep lull to it-- and i really feel a million times better about the house right before bed. Win, win. Don't know how this will work when we have kids...I imagine a four year old is going to need to pick up more than four items, but it works for the moment. 🙂
Two thoughts for Angela and Jackie: one, don't forget that you may live in more expensive places than Kristen does. Two, buying meat in bulk (half a pig, quarter or half a cow) is generally cheaper than buying cut by cut, if you can work with a wide variety of cuts. It's like stocking up when its cheap but more so.
when buying generic brands, i look at the back of the can to see who makes/distributes the product. you will be suprised to see how many brand names are making private labels. also, check the canned goods/food stuffs at your local dollar/99c stores. alot of those items just have regional labels that you don't recoginize but are made by name brand companies. i buy a corn chowder at our local 99c store that is made by bird's eye. it's very yummy and only costs 99c a can. the name brand at our grocery store is $3.50 a can and doesn't even taste as good.
another example is Aldi. they have the best bread there for 69c a loaf. it is made by the same bakery that makes Sara Lee bread that sells at our local Albertson's for almost $3 a loaf. the milk at Aldi's is also supplied by the same people who supply borden. aldi milk is about $1.29 a gallon versus borden at almost $4 a gallon. the savings really add up.
thank you frugal girl. your site/blog has helped me to cut my food waste way down. and your recipes....so totally awesome.
I, too, am a big Honey Bunches of Oats lover. My husband brought home the Meijer brand the other day, called Oat and Honey Clusters (or something like that). It was a pretty close imitation, and cheaper too! 🙂
I have spent the last two (yes, two!) years de-cluttering my house. My main problem was relatives dropping off items they felt I "needed" (haha!) and then finding out I was pregnant (after already having a 13 year old) and having to re-buy baby items (and being gifted with many unwanted baby items).
So needless to say my house filled up in a handful of years, and one day I had enough. I started small, selling a desk in our office (which took up too much space). From there on it just snowballed. I would come home every night and work on something, whether a bag, box, corner, shelf, closet, drawer, room, you name it. I have had two (large) yard sales, not to mention I have freecycled, recycled, sold, ebay-ed, donated, bartered, given away, given back, and even set out on the curb with a sign that said FREE. Whatever it has taken to clear out the mess that formerly inhabited my home, I have done it.
And yes, it took two years to get my house in order. However now I feel I can really enjoy what I have. And as I have gone through the house I have been able to fix and clean things that had formerly been neglected. Now when I shop, I think about what I NEED, versus what I WANT that takes up space. The real payoff came when my mom came into my house and told me how great and clean it was - and for her to tell me that - I knew I was on the right path.
So, I still de-clutter my house at least once a week. I keep thinking I'm done, and then I find something else I realize I can live without. Its not perfect, but at least I can have company over and not be embarrassed. Also having less = much easier to clean!!!
My husband and I budget $50 a week for food. At first, I thought that this was going to be next to impossible since my husband is a BIG meat eater and really prefers to have meat with every meal. But it's gotten easier. During the summer we have a large garden. We make our own spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, dill pickles, and we can our own peaches, pears, apple sauce. We also freeze/can many of the veggies that we grow in our garden. Since we live in the country we are able raise chickens that we use for meat and eggs which saves us money but it's also healthier knowing that they are organic. ALDI is the main place we buy groceries and we try to support our local grocery store for fresh produce during the seasons we don't have our garden.