Monday Q&A | Which Klean Kanteen to buy, plus basics on grocery savings
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!
I like the idea of the Klean Kanteens and have decided to cut down on my bottled water purchases. I'd like your advice, I have gone on the Uk Amazon site and there are so many different KK to choose from. Have you any particular type, you would recommend?? Or is it just trial and error?
-Laura
I'm so delighted to hear that you're going to be purchasing less bottled water...that's great!
This is the Klean Kanteen that I have...the 18 ounce bottle with the sport cap. I like the sport cap because it makes it very easy to drink from the bottle, and the 18-ounce size is perfect for me. Not too big, not too small.
If you're going to be out a while and need to carry more water, the 27-ounce Kanteen is a good choice, though. If you choose to get a screw cap instead of a sport cap, you should know that the larger size of this bottle makes it a bit difficult to drink from without spilling.
When we bought Klean Kanteens a few years back, we chose the smaller size for Sonia and Zoe. It was great for them back then, but now that they're 6 and 8, they tend to need a lot of refills since they drink more water now. They're probably due for an upgrade!
In addition to a traditional loop top and sport top, you can also buy a flat top and even a sippy cup-type lid. And if you're really, really committed to keeping plastic from touching your water, they offer a lid that has a stainless steel inside.
I hope you love your Klean Kanteen! Ours have served us really well, and the quality of the Klean Kanteens is definitely superior to that of other, cheaper water bottles we've tried.
(Just so you know, I bought all of our Klean Kanteens with my own money and Klean Kanteen doesn't even know that I exist. I just think their water bottles are fabulous.)
I have recently read on a blog that you are spending 450$ a month to feed your family of 6.
Needless to say I was in shock because we spend at least $800 on food monthly for a family of four - and I do cook from scratch. It is true we buy quite a few organic products but not everything is organic.
I have noticed that you invited one of the posters to e-mail you on tips, so I decided to write to you hoping you don't mind. I would appreciate any advice you might have for us.
Thank you so much,
C.
First off, please don't think my grocery budget is necessarily right for your family. My kids aren't teenagers yet, we don't have any allergies or special diets to follow, and none of us has football-player sized appetites. What works for me might not work for you!
Do you plan a menu? That saves me so much money and time. Here's how I plan mine. And here's how I come up with meal ideas.
Also, you should check to see if your grocery store has the best prices in town If you have an Aldi, I so recommend shopping there, and do compare prices at other grocery stores too. A bulk club like Costco might also help to keep your budget down. If you're into buying organic, have you checked to see what's available from local farmers? Sometimes you can find produce that's organic in everything but the name, and it's usually cheaper than official organics.
Do you spend a lot of money on beverages? We drink mostly water at our house, and this single habit makes our grocery budget much more sustainable.
Also, here are a few posts from the archives that might be helpful. I'm not a couponing gal, so I wrote about how to save money on groceries without using coupons. I also did a series about the basic of saving money on groceries. Here are the first posts and here are the last three.
This is for the reader who asked for ideas on cutting down on grocery spending. Our family spends remarkably little on groceries as well. Grocery costs will vary according to where you live. I can't say it's entirely possible for others to spend as little as we do. We spend about $210/mo for 5 of us.
We don't have Aldi's nearby, or grocery salvage stores, or double/triple coupons. I don't have a membership to Costco, either. What our family does, I don't hear about much from others, but it is available in most areas. We shop at a restaurant/institutional supply for many of our items (in our area it's Cash and Carry Wholesale, in other areas, there is Smart and Final).
I buy grains and beans in 25 to 50 lb. sacks, canned items like tomato paste/canned tomatoes/ketchup in the large about 7 lb. cans, and cheese in 5 lb. bags. What I buy is also available at Costco, but there are also many tempting non-necessary items at Costco, that drive the grocery bill up.
I buy milk, eggs, coffee and whatever loss leaders are available weekly at traditional grocery stores, as I often find those well priced there. Most of our milk, I find marked down. One store near us will have quite a supply of markdown milk once every couple of weeks. I know the calendar of their employee who does the mark downs and make sure to hit that store on that day. I buy a month's worth of milk at a time, and freeze all that we won't consume right away.
I cook and bake most everything we eat from scratch. We eat a lot of vegetarian meals. I don't buy much in the way of convenience or snack foods. Our family's favorite snack is popcorn, popped in a pan on the stove. I bake all our bread. I make tortillas, buns, muffins, sandwich bread, etc.But years ago, when my twins were just babies, I bought all our bread at bakery thrift outlets, and was able to save substantially.
When I notice a price jump in something, like this last fall, peanut butter prices spiked, I find an alternative (for this, I started making my own sunflower seed butter). We don't get locked into eating any one particular thing.
We have a vegetable garden and several fruit trees. I try to get as much from our own supply as I can.
That's what we do, and it saves us quite a lot, I think. Hope you can find ideas in it.
I LOVE Smart and Final! When it comes to throwing frugal parties, it's the least expensive way to set the table.
Lili
I find what you do is awesome! With my family of 3, I try to get by with ~$80-100 a month. I also by in bulk and discounts. My husband and I were able to find wheat flour for $1/5lb. so we bought ~50lbs and figured out with bread making that should last until another deal. I take it with the garden and fruit trees, you must be a canner?? Anyways, I think what you do is amazing! I will make sure to add your blog to my daily stops! Have a great Monday!
Hi Lisa,
Buying in bulk when you find a great price is a huge savings. I often find myself shocked by regular grocery store prices. I'm so used to the prices that I pay when buying things as loss leaders, mark downs, or in large institutional sized packages.
I only can things like jam/jelly, pickles, relish, salsa, and chutneys. (I don't trust my canning abilities for other stuff -- don't want to lose a family member!) The rest I freeze. And with a garden and fruit trees/bushes I do have quite a lot to freeze for the non-gardening months. Where I live, also, I can garden or at least pick from the garden about 7-8 months of the year. I've learned which things will still be good in the garden late in the fall and which things I can count to come back in early spring (kale is a favorite of ours, it's still looking good in early November, and then comes back in late March ). All those things are huge helps. But mostly I think it's that we're quite satisfied eating simple meals most of the time. Good luck with finding deals and stocking up! I found that it had something of a snowball effect -- the more I saved each month, the more I could put towards even more good deals.
I can like you do, for the same reason. However, I started doing a lot of dehydrating a few years ago and find that is a great way to preserve for later use of vegetables in soup and stew.
Good idea, Lindsey.I'm going to try dehydrating some veggies this summer. It would really save on freezer space. I do use my dehydrator for all our herbs, and some fruit (mostly for the fruit it's to change the texture of something like apples, and make them more suited to adding to oatmeal cookies, instead of raisins. We grow apples, so cheap! Our grape vines have yet to produce more than we can eat just standing there -- so raisins I have to buy!)
You know the absolute favorite dried thing at our house? Watermelon pieces. It is like healthier candy and addictive. Really, it ends up the consistency of fruit rolls, only in smaller segments.
We put all the veggies in jars, mixed, and when I make soup in the crock pot I just throw in random amounts. Each pot ends up being different, depending on whether there were more or less beets or corn or whatever.
If you live in the West or the Midwest, a great source of organic food at a fantastic price is Azure Standard (http://www.azurestandard.com/). You place your order online, and it is shipped to certain drop points across the country every month where you meet the truck and load up your car with your purchases. Their prices definitely beat out any grocery store I have found, and when certain produce is in season, you can find some great buys. Last fall I was able to get fresh organic apples for $1/lb and organic juicing apples for $.50/lb! You can find out if there is a drop point near you by giving them a call... I am not sure how far East they drive. I am in Missouri, so they at least go that far!
We don't have an Aldi's nearby (there are about 4 located 1 hour in different directions from us) and there are three places to shop for groceries one being a Wal Mart Super Center- which is where I shop just because they have the best prices on their store brand and with three small children who I have to shop with I can't take shopping the sales at all the stores but I just recently found out that my Wal Mart will price match with ALDI's!!! This mostly helps for produce but it is a huge savings...Sometimes as much as $2 a pound or $2 off a pineapple. So that is something to try- I would feel bad doing it to the smaller grocery stores in our community but it does not make me sad at all to make Wal Mart price match. They don't even require that I have the fliers.
Oh and also, we have Kwik Trip gas stations here and they usually have the best prices on milk- either in a half gallon bag or in the regular gallon and eggs and butter..so we pick up that stuff there.
Where you live also makes a huge difference. We currently live in Ohio, but we're moving to Seattle in August. The cost of living there is 150% of what it is here. So we're planning for my $450/month grocery budget for a family of 4 to jump to around $675. There are things I'm planning to do that will help mitigate that jump (for example, my daughter turns 1 just before the move, so no more formula at $20/week, and we'll be going carless, which makes sticking to a grocery list and planning carefully much more important!), but it's still going to be a bit of a culture shock on prices.
So if you're living in a high cost of living area and looking at The Frugal Girl's grocery budget, keep in mind her area's cost of living may be dramatically different from yours!
Hi EngineerMom, I'm a native Seattleite and I have to say, you will probably love our un-humid, sunny summers, our spectacular views of mountains and water, and our many cultural activities. But you will HATE the cost of living----as you noted, it's ridiculously high. You are smart to plan ahead. I've always just ignored how much Kristen pays because I knew it was not comparable to my life. Also, my son has 2 neurological disorders and I try to buy mostly organic, unprocessed food because that seems to help. (No extreme couponing for us, we couldn't eat 99% of what I've seen people buy on that show.) I've wanted to move to a small town in a different state for a long time (I've been worrying about earthquakes all my life and have experienced more than I care to remember!) but my husband loves his job with a local company. So maybe in my retirement years, I'll get a break. Anyway, good luck and best wishes!
Hi, soon to be neighbor! We're north of Seattle about 15 miles. Not having a car is difficult when trying to buy groceries in bulk. You might want to check out Zipcar once you get here. It's a car sharing/rental thing, pay an annual fee, and then by the hour. I know people who use Zipcar to do once-a-month major grocery stock-ups at Costco and Cash and Carry. The annual fee sounds steep (I think it's $60), but averaged over a year that's just $5/month. I think it's about $8 per hour, and insurance and gas are included. Anyways, you could check out their website to see if it would work for you. Otherwise, transit is pretty good close to town.
Not having formula to buy will also be a big help. And actually, not having a car in town will keep you from stopping in to a store just to get one thing, but then coming out with 20 other things that you could've figured out how to do without. If you'll have a small scrap of land where you'll be living, you can garden in Seattle for about 6-8 months of the year. I read a book years ago -- Year Round Gardening, very helpful. Good luck with the move!
We use insulated stainless steel water bottles from stainlesscups.com. (There is a sneaky website that leaves out the final "s", so be sure and enter the name correctly.) When I fill them with ice and water, they stay cool for a long time. I've gone back even a day later and found the water cool enough to drink. There are many sizes and bottle top styles. The company was started by a mom who wanted alternatives to plastic, and they also have stainless steel cups and straws. We've got 4 cups and I wish I'd bought more, plus my son uses the straws every day. I'm not affiliated with this company, I'm just a really happy customer. They also sell some products on Amazon but have a bigger selection at their own website.
We use the KK with the sports caps, too. I love that the cover for the drinking part is attached to the bottle which means it will never get lost. I need to order sleeves for the bottles to help the water stay cold longer. I think I may order the smaller size for school. My kids bring a water bottle for lunch and one for snack time.
I am also amazed that you have your bill so low! That is about what my husband and I spend/month, but it is just the two of us! We do buy a lot of organic, though, and are pretty health conscious, so that can jack our bill up. We do save, however, by eating primarily vegetarian - for example quinoa/beans/canned tomatoes is a cheap, healthy meal!
Great ideas! I haven't seen this posted anywhere, but we have found that, at the farm market, on some items (apples and peaches in our area) you can purchase "seconds". Often they are just smaller sized than the regularly priced produce, or perhaps have a small spot. We freeze our homemade applesauce/apple butter and we freeze peaches as well--if you are cutting up your fruit, a small spot or bruise is insignificant and worth the financial savings. I have also noticed that the larger pieces of fruit are TOO big for little ones to eat and the smaller items are better options for school lunches.
We happen to live in an area which produces a lot of fruit. We go to U-pick orchards for blueberries, strawberries, and cherries and save a lot of money that way as well. You can guarantee the quality of the fruit you purchase, something that you can't necessarily do in the grocery store. Depending on the age of your kids, it can make a fun family outing.
Hope this is helpful to somebody! 🙂
Wow, KK's look different than when I bought ours a few yrs ago. Anyway, I like to have a couple different sizes - 40-oz. for at home and 18-oz for excursions.
I love that the KK bottles have sport caps! I got a stainless steel bottle with a twist-off cap at Ross for $2.99. I really wish I could have found one with a sport cap! We'll probably invest in good bottles like KKs at some point.
Amazed with the lower expanse, TFG !!