My Frugal Life: Stay Out of Stores
I pay myself an allowance every two weeks. Out of that comes the food, gas for the car and my thrift store shopping. For grocery shopping, I make a menu. I use recipes that I don't have to buy many ingredients for. That means I have to look in the cupboard and refrigerator to see what is on hand before starting my menu. After all, the cheapest meal is one that is already waiting for me, right?
Right now I have frozen leftovers from Cajun Red Beans and Rice (a ThriftyFun recipe), two pounds of butter, a bag of chopped bell peppers and a bag of chopped onions left from last summer's harvest, a pound of ground turkey, 8 cups of rhubarb and some cottage cheese. Right away, I know I can make turkey meatballs one day, red beans and rice one day, and a luscious rhubarb tart for dessert on Friday night.
In our big freezer we have ground beef, so I'll make either beef enchiladas or a casserole. The tortillas are easy to make from scratch so I don't buy them unless they're really cheap. The cottage cheese will probably become cottage cheese patties because that's our favorite recipe for it. There are always leftovers enough for lunch the next day. (I was talking with a friend yesterday. He stockpiles nonperishable food. Once he had to live for a year on it except for a few perishable items. His wife quit nagging him about the stockpiles after that.)
The second place to look is at the grocery ads. Spread them out on the table where you can see two big pages at a time. Examine the sales to see if you have coupons for any of the desirable items. By desirable, I mean good for us! If they don't build health, they tear it down. That's the reason we have dessert once a week instead of every day.
Desirable also means within my means and very reasonable in price. Sale items are not always marked down. You may have already noticed that prices are amazingly flexible. I have seen the same item at $2.99 and $1.00. It pays to have an idea of what to shop for by the price. I carry mine mostly in my head, but a price book is a good idea. If I find a really good bargain on an item and I have a coupon for it, it's a no-brainer. If I have ten coupons for it, I ask myself whether I would have a use for ten of that item. This week it will be ring sausage, because the price is incredibly low, and with coupons it will be almost free! I can freeze it, and it goes very well with our homemade sauerkraut. I will buy three, because that's how many coupons I have. One day's supper just got planned!
The budget is not a hard thing to do. I have an idea of how much I want to spend. I put that amount in my wallet in a separate compartment as soon as I get my allowance. When I run out of money, I quit. This tells me how much to spend, and whether I can buy "beef or beans." Once I have my menu made out, I make the list, noting which store carries each item at the price I have chosen. I may go to three stores. In our small town of about 10,000 souls, this takes less than an hour. I always know that if I don't get into a store, I can't spend any money. So I limit my shopping to once weekly unless something unexpected comes up. The exception would be for a sick friend or an emergency like getting stuck in town and not able to cook.
On the same day as I go to the grocery store, I go to at least one thrift shop. That's where I look for needed clothing articles to replace what's wearing out, gift items, books and craft supplies. I read a couple of books a week, and my husband does, too, and they are not always the same books.
For 2008, I kept a record of all my grocery store expenditures, including the non-foods. My out of pocket cost was $1,800, while the combined coupon and sale savings and a few rebates came to just over $1,700. If someone offered me that much money for a few hours' work, do you think I would turn it down? Not a chance! That's better pay than I make at my part-time job, hour for hour.
For 2009, I hope to spend less. It would be nice to see the coupon savings and rebate portion be even larger than the out of pocket portion. Those savings go into my bank account. Although I will need to get another car soon since ours is 11 years old and has over 250,000 miles on it, I hope that there will still be money in the bank when that's done. No payments, Lord willing! Ultimately our goal is to have six months' income saved for emergencies. Maybe someday?
By Coreen from Rupert, ID
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