Saving money basics, part 1

Everyone wants to save money. It makes sense with the old saying, work smarter, not harder right? Well, the food manufacturers and grocery stores want to make money. How do we as consumers beat the big food giants? By being smart!

Think about the last time you were in a grocery store. The rich deli and bakery smells waffing through the air, making your stomach growl as the clock ticks closer to dinner time. Sure how easy it would be to just grab something from the deli, like a rotisseri chicken for example (at my local Bilo is usually $6.99). They know how to get us! If we have a plan already in place, we will easily not spend $10-$11 at the deli because we have ran out of time.

So how do we beat this game?

I will show you how our family did it in the next series of posts.
Step one:
(this will be fun!)

• Make a list of all the meals your family enjoys and makes on a regular basis. (Don't worry if you only have a handfull, I think we initially came up with 5, and one of those was pizza lol)
• List all of the ingredients required to make each specific meal, including amounts that will be relevant to purchases, such as ounces of meat.
• Resolve to try at least one new receipe every week

You now have the first list of your very first meal plan!

For me and my family, just having that list of things I know my family would eat was so helpful, so that I wasn't rummaging through my cookbooks or scouring the web for something I crossed my fingers my husband wouldn't turn his nose up at and just grab a bowl of cereal. Knowing what I was going to make in advance for the next week was key to saving money initially. I would shop for the groceries once a week, and thus limiting those impluse purchases the marketers and big food companies bank on us making. The first week I did this, I spent $76 at Walmart (yeah I know but I have learned better now using coupons) as opposed to $160 (my usual grocery bill).

Step Two:

• Implement the meal plan for the week

Its always great to make a plan, but following through when you have kids tugging at you and a million things to do, alas, is another. Find a spot on your fridge or other central location where you can place your meal plan calendar. For each day of the week, decide which recipe you will make and write it in. We allways have pizza on thursday, so that is allways written in. My son plays tiny tots soccer on Mondays, so I try to make something from my list that is easy and fast, like spaghetti.

My mother-inlaw gave me a dry erase calendar board a few years ago to help me remember when to pay bills. My husband now does that, so I pulled this guy back out. It has worked wonderfully for meal planning and schedules. If you have something like this laying around it would be great if you like to meal plan/follow kids schedules month by month. I liked it because I could write in the menu for the week or just write out on the side the menus with the date.

Here it is



The point is to have something in a permanent (0r semi) location you can easily see so you know whether or not to thaw out chicken or beef for the next night. (more on that on the next post)



So, take your menu list, and write down anything else you will need for the week, milk, eggs, bread, etc. so you are only making one trip to the store saving you time and money.