Two hundred bucks per month. And I swear she’s a real person: I’ve met her, and she breathes and laughs and has birthed three adorable kids.
Kara Riedl, co-founder of our local chapter of MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), wanted to take care of her children full-time when childcare costs rose as her family grew. So she and her husband sat down and figured out how much they would have to cut back so that she could quit her job. Her efforts on reducing the grocery bill put this frugal mama to shame!
In a talk she gave to a MOPS meeting called Eating Well on a Budget, she laid down how she did it. You can read all of her tips on her blog, Just Simply Live, but here are some of the highlights:
1. Open a separate bank account for groceries
Put a set amount in each month, so you don’t go over and you don’t have to keep track of your grocery spending. If you find you can spend less, deposit a smaller amount the next month. (Many banks will do automatic transfers.)
2. Plan your meals for the week
Kara reminded us that 27% of the food available for consumption is thrown away. How often do we toss moldy bread, spoiled milk, or green cheese? Sticking to a plan and a list helps eliminate wasted food and thus wasted money.
a. Make a master list of:
- your family’s favorite meals
- healthy meals
- meals you want to try
b. Choose a meal from the master list for each day of the week.
c. Write up your grocery list (while you are in the kitchen so you can check what you have). Add breakfast, lunch and snack items.
3. Stick to your list
In this meal-planning system, if we veer from our list we risk overstocking or making impulse buys (usually on snacks or sweets that can prevent us from cooking and eating healthier foods that spoil if not used in time).
4. Don’t go to the best supermarket
Do you have a beautiful, delicious and overall wonderful grocery store in your area? Don’t go there. Here in Central New York, we have the blessing (or curse) of having one the country’s most highly-praised grocery stores, Wegman’s. Kara hates it.
All the gourmet, international, pre-prepared, organic and luxury choices can do major damage to your will — and your budget. If you have a choice between an upscale store and a down-home one, observe your shopping behavior in both. If you find you are a better person when you are presented with fewer temptations, maybe you can save the sushi aisle and olive bar for special occasions.
5. Make your own food — and we’re not talking about dinner
I was all proud of myself for cooking meals almost every night until Kara revealed all the things she makes from scratch: bread (see her recipe below), yogurt, granola, fruit leather, trail mix, smoothies, kefir, and peanut butter. She buys the raw ingredients (like flour, nuts and dried fruit) in bulk at an Amish store to save even more.
Plus she cans and freezes in-season fruits and vegetables. She makes blueberry and strawberry jam, apple sauce, pie filling, butter, pickles, sauce, and salsa. And she freezes veggies like beans, carrots and corn.
What the $200 Does Not Include
- A lot of meat. Kara’s husband is a no-meal-is-complete-without-meat kind of guy, and his brother runs a farm. So the family buys an entire cow, which lasts about a year and a half, as well as a pig occasionally, which also lasts a good while. (They store the meat in an extra freezer.)
- Farmer’s market stuff, where she is known to buy gallons of honey (remember, buy in bulk) or baskets of cucumbers to make pickles.
- Milk. Kara buys raw milk which is delivered to her house by a dairy and she pays cash (about $22 per month or less if she doesn’t need to make yogurt).
- Toiletries. Since non-food items are usually more expensive in a supermarket, she buys them from a separate account at Target.
- Honey Do. Last minute trips to the store where hubbie has to pick up some ingredients for dinner.
I’ll let that final piece segue into a point Kara made over and over in her talk to our group of moms. No one is perfect. Even her! Sometimes the plan will be for chicken parmesan and she’ll heat up chicken nuggets. Just because. Sometimes she throws out boxes of stale Triscuits. Sometimes they do McDonald’s drive-thru. Most weeks she spends $50 per week on groceries, but sometimes she goes over. Sometimes she goes under.
As Meagan Francis notes in The Happiest Mom about extremely simple meal planning, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough.
Kara’s Bread (or “The best whole wheat bread…EVA”)
Cost: $0.50 per loaf
Yields 3 loaves
- 2 tablespoon yeast
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 3 tablespoons sugar (raw if you have it)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup butter (melted)
- 3 3/4 cups warm water
- 6 cups wheat flour
- 3 cups white flour (I use a high gluten flour and occident flour blend)
- More flour for kneading
In a large bowl combine yeast, sugar, and warm water. Let sit for a few minutes (it will get a bit bubbly). Then add remaining ingredients except the flour. Combine well. Add flours slowly and form into a ball. Knead for 8-10 minutes on a floured surface, adding flour to eliminate stickiness. Place in a greased bowl, cover with a towel. Let rise 1 hour until doubled.
Punch down and divide into thirds. Place in 3 pans and let rise until doubled (about 30 mins).
Heat oven to 375 degrees, and bake 30-35 minutes.
Do you know how much you spend on groceries? What are your strategies for keeping costs down? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Photo credit: bread. All other photos from Kara’s blog, Just Simply Live.
Share this post:
Very impressive. Whether you get to $200 or not, it is great how Kara’s example highlights that through creativity and smart planning you can eat better while saving money. Using master lists and grocery lists are great for saving time, and addition to the savings from wasting less food and steering clear of impulse buys, there is also the fact that grocery prices can vary dramatically by season or even from week to week, and learning to pay attention to this can save you a lot even if you don’t have time for coupons. Like if grapes are less than a dollar a pound and taste better in the summer, and over 5 dollars a pound in some parts of the year, seems smart to learn to enjoy grapes more in the summer :)