Do you shop with a list? If you don't you should. Without a shopping list you don't have a hope of sticking to your grocery budget and getting all the groceries you need at the same time. No matter how good your memory is you will forget to pick up something, forget your best price or be in the middle of baking or cooking and realise you don't have a vital ingredient because you didn't have a shopping list!
I found many years ago when Disaster Struck and I first becaume a Cheapskate, that I tended to buy the same grocery items over and over; there was very little change in what I bought. It was a real eye-opener for me, and it was the beginning of my perpetual shopping lists and the beginning of real money savings shopping the Cheapskates way. It was then that I wrote my master grocery shopping list and each month after grocery shopping day I run off a copy and stick it to the pantry door. As things are used up they are circled on the list. When I'm getting ready for shopping day I take the already to go shopping list, do a quick stocktake and add anything else I need to buy. It is a perpetual shopping list. You may find that you buy different grocery items in summer to those you purchase in winter. I just made two master shopping lists – one for summer, another for winter. I do so I have a summer list and a winter list. My summer list has things like beetroot, pineapple and coleslaw dressing down for every shop. On the winter list they are down for every second shop. The winter list has soup mix and kidney beans on every list. The soup mix is only on every fourth summer list as we don’t eat much soup in summer. I love my perpetual shopping lists. Everything I regularly buy is already on the list – I just need to tick the things we need and away I go! No more spending time standing in the kitchen wondering if I’ve forgotten to put anything on the shopping list. And no more getting home, only to realise that I forgot to buy half the things I need for dinner next week. My shopping list isn't like anyone else's. These days it's a printed A4 sheet. It used to be a spiral bound notebook. I prefer the notebook but it's too hard to stick to the pantry door! There are groceries I buy weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and yearly and the list is broken down into those categories. It sounds complicated but it's not - the sections are just listed in order down the page, with the groceries underneath. Weekly: usually bought on a Thursday when I take Mum to do her shopping Fortnightly: bought Monday morning straight after the school drop-off Monthly: bought first Monday of the month, straight after school drop off Quarterly: bought first Monday of the Month, straight after school drop off Yearly: sometime in the week between Christmas and New Year when everyone is home to help - it's a big one! Before each shopping day I check the shopping list, do a very quick stocktake of the pantry, fridge and freezer to make sure nothing has been missed and off I head to Aldi and Coles (for the things Aldi doesn't stock) then to the greengrocer (if it's a fortnightly shop) and butcher (if it's time for a meat shop) and home. A monthly shop takes about an hour and a half all up, depending on the queues. A quarterly shop takes about two hours all up. Once it's done and the groceries are put away, that's it. I don't go back to the supermarket or greengrocer or butcher until the next shopping day. When I hit the supermarket, greengrocer or butcher I don't dawdle. I have my list and I get through it as quickly as I can. I'm in and I'm out. Shopping in sections like this saves me a lot of time, at least 3 hours a month. It doesn't take any longer to toss three or four of each item into the trolley than it does one. It does take about 5 minutes longer to get through the checkout. The biggest time saving is in the travelling and parking and checking out - it's done once a month and then that's it - no more supermarket for 4 weeks. This is how I shop. This is how I keep the grocery bill for my family of five to $80 a week, $345 a month or $4,160 a year. It works for me. It may or may not work for you. Feel free to try it to see how it works. Be prepared though to have to make some radical changes to the way you do your grocery shopping. And be prepared for some fantastic savings off your grocery bill.
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Today is the Labour Day holiday here in Victoria and it is a perfect autumn day. It's the kind of day when you just want to be out in the sunshine. Which is not where I've been all day!
AJ had Uni today and of course being a holiday I decided to stay in bed and read. Oops! The poor kid set his alarm, but slept through it. It was 9.28 and I suddenly realised he hadn't stuck his head in to say good-bye. I fairly flew out of bed and down to his room. There he was, sleeping so peacefully - until I screeched "you've slept in" and he was up and out of that bed in 10 seconds! His first lecture started at 10, so Wayne drove him. Thank goodness he doesn't have too far to go and that he was home. I'm not sure the sight of me in a hurriedly thrown on tracksuit is something anyone should see in the morning! Wayne was chuckling when he came home, turns out quite a few people slept in this morning, the queue to turn into the car park was miles long! I have been busy. Hannah and I have been shopping for new clothes for her. She needed a black outfit to wear on Wednesdays when she does her VET course. The uniform is black - trousers, skirt, dress, jumper, blouse/t-shirt - she can wear whatever she likes but it must be black. So after breakfast and a quick tidy up off we went and we only had to go to one shop! Kmart had a clearance sale on with racks and racks of clothing for just $5 a piece. She is now the very happy 15 year old owner of two lovely black t-shirts, a gorgeous skirt and a really nice jumper, all mother approved and for the grand total of just $20! That's the kind of clothes shopping I like. While we were out we decided to do the weekly grocery top-up a day early (I usually do it on a Tuesday morning) and popped into Coles. Apparently we arrived at just the right time because all the meat was marked down so we had a lovely time picking up packages of really, really cheap meat. Rump steak down to just $8/kg, whole fresh chickens (No. 20) for just $7 each, and more. I stocked up on the steak and the chickens, they were too good to pass up. Wayne sliced the steak for me as soon as we came home and it's now neatly packaged and in the freezer with the chickens. I keep a "slush fund" for occasions just like this, when I find a bargain we can use. The slush fund covers the cost without having to go over my grocery allocation. I add the leftover grocery money to the slush fund and let it build up until I need to use it. On my grocery tracking sheet I have a column for slush fund so I know how much goes into it each month. And this helps to keep the grocery budget balanced too. Last month I didn't use all the grocery money and was able to add $32.65 to the slush fund. The groceries don't always cost what I budget each month, sometimes the bill comes in under and occasionally they cost more. That's when the slush fund is really handy. I can go over my allocated amount for the month by however much is in the slush fund and still not go over the allocated amount for groceries for the year. I also have a petrol slush fund that works on the same principle. I allow $75 a week for fuel, sometimes we don't do a lot of driving (long weekends and school holidays spring to mind) so it doesn't cost as much to fill the car. The excess is kept in the slush fund for those times we do a lot of driving (I may have to go into town or travel for stories, or we go to Shepparton to SPC etc) and our fuel costs increase. It also helps cover the fuel costs when we go on holiday or for train, tram or bus tickets when we use public transport. At the end of each year I look over the grocery tracking sheet and the fuel column in our Spending Plan and decide whether the allocated amounts need to be adjusted. If the grocery bill is consistently lower by more than $10 per week, I lower it for the next year. Ditto the fuel bill, although the way costs are going up I don't think it will be dropped next year. I may find myself walking more and driving less so it can stay the same. Petrol was the same price as diesel here last week! There is no point in allocating too much money to a category when it can be useful elsewhere. All it has to do is cover the cost for the week/fortnight/month/year. As long as you have the bill covered, you are right. For example it could be used to help build your Emergency Fund or to pay down debt (or both) rather than sit in the grocery (or fuel) categories and roll over from month to month to a slush fund, effectively costing you money (the interest you pay on the debt you carry). Living the Cheapskates way gives you options and flexibility in your Spending Plan, that's why it works. It's been such a sunny, pleasant day it seems odd to be making soup, but that's what I did this afternoon. I cut one of our pumpkins this afternoon and instead of dusting it with cornflour and putting it in the fridge I decided to make pumpkin soup. Did you know that if, when you cut a pumpkin, you take the seeds and soft centre out and then dust the raw surfaces with cornflour it will last for weeks in the fridge? It's handy to remember when you have an excess of pumpkin and don't feel like making soup. Pumpkin soup must be the easiest soup to make. I just cut up the pumpkin and a couple of onions and cook it in either stock (from the freezer) or water with some stock powder added, until the pumpkin is cooked. Then I whizz it through the food processor. And it's done. My stockpot makes 8 litres of soup, so I put 2 litres in a Tupperware bowl in the fridge. This is my lunches for the week. The rest goes into Tupperware containers in either single portions for lunches and snacks later on. While I was in the cooking mood I made some muffins too. Apple and boysenberry and some raspberry and white chocolate for a treat. The cake dome looks lovely full of nice fresh muffins. It won't stay that way long though. Tom just called and he's bringing some friends home for tea. They're actually coming to play games on the Wii, but they'll stay for tea, they always do. And we'll have muffins for dessert! |
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