Another Idea...
Add in a couple of 'dollar meals' each week or even more often... depending on how much you want to save and for how long in balance with health.
Dollar meals for me, come in at about $5 for the meal. For the whole family.
A couple of examples: Tomato Pasta Bake: 2/3 bag of pasta 66c, cooked plus a jar of stir through tomato pasta sauce $1.60, 2/3c shredded cheese on top 80c. Additions to this can be a drained can of tuna in spring water and/or a cup of frozen corn kernels, or some gently fried onion & mushrooms or stir fried literally 'whatever vegies are leftover in your fridge'. How about a Vegie Fried Rice... a couple of cups of rice, steamed, a few eggs diced after being 'ommeletted' (my word LOL) and then some diced vegies - whatever you have in your fridge which for us seems to be capsicum, mushroom, broccoli, carrots along with some onion and frozen peas/corn/beans. A few splashes of worcestershire sauce or whatever you like to use and you're done!
Spend some time brainstorming low cost meals you can make for your family! Baked beans on toast is about $4 for our family - including 2 large cans of baked beans... and if your family won't eat what you feed them, then you've bigger issues on your hands than dollar saving!
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Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget. Show all posts
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Cutting the grocery budget
This is not always straight forward because you have to be able to live with yourself too! I could feed our family on about $100 a week long term if I wasn't so determined to go with the health benefits we've discovered of raw dairy, high protein and best practice preparations of grains and other foods.
However, sometimes I'm happy to switch to 'budget' of our dietary needs or 'super budget' and not do too badly in the health department. $100 a week for the 6 of us would be a 'super super tight budget' and wouldn't not have much room to consider our chosen food health. So something like that would only be a short term 'we need cash now' option. Usually I spend $200 a week on groceries for the 6 of us - yes, Miss Charlotte does count as nappies and formula are in there! $200 a week allows us things like smoked salmon, free range eggs and plenty of meat... so that's not too tight and gives me room to trim it down a bit if I want money for other things.
Here are some really easy ways to shave the grocery budget
-Toilet paper... I'm amazed at what people will spend on toilet paper. I use to go on the guage of 50c a roll being a good deal. Now with thicker fancier toilet papers it's not a good deal as you end up using more of those!! We use Aldi 16 rolls for $4.99 which is 31c a roll which saves us over $113 a year - on just one simple item. If I wanted to save more, I quite probably could. Because of different roll lengths and thicknesses, the best way to calculate cost & savings is to try different options for a week and see how many rolls your family goes through in a 7 day period and work out your costs from there.
-Dishwashing liquid... again, you need to test how long a bottle lasts you to figure this one out. We were using one skin friendly one (you can't get such a thing from a supermarket btw) and were going through it too fast. All this year I've been using a new one and have been dating my bottles. One bottle at $23 dollars lasts me 14 weeks, so $1.65 a week. I'm pretty happy with that, especially as it had been up around $3-$4 a week. I've used cheaper ones but they're loaded with chemicals I don't want on my dishes. We do a LOT of dishes here as we cook from scratch and I'm really happy with how this one is going. Again - you need to do your own testing/assessment based on how many chemicals you're happy to have on your plates and what you're willing to spend.
-Don't throw out food. Buy a capsicum at $6 a kilo? Half of it doesn't get used and goes in the bin? The capsicum you did use, just became $12 a kilo, which you'd have never paid in the first place! Dish small serves and allow for seconds instead of uneaten portions going in the bin. Cover a meal and make sure it DOES get eaten later.
-Home made 'takeaways' can save a fortune... Pizza from the shop is $17 for our family or about $10 with frozen slightly topped bases and our goodies added... Fish n chips about $25-30 from the shop or about $13 oven baked. Choose to adjust your taste buds accordingly. One takeaway a week turned into a home done one can save over $500 a year! What would you do with that $500? Work out your own 'no time to cook' meals that will help you save on takeaway, like frozen spaghetti sauce and shepherd's pies, and your own 'we want a treat for dinner' options like spring rolls, oven baked fish, dim sims, pizza etc. Put the thinking cap on, then remove these items from the regular menu plan so they become the treat or time saver you want them to be.
Just doing these things saves us $700 a year which means I can either a) buy higher quality foods like smoked salmon etc OR b) I can use the cash for other things... and that's not all the savings that are available either!
There's a whole lot more buzzing around in my brain but this is it for starters... remind me if I forget to come back to it!
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However, sometimes I'm happy to switch to 'budget' of our dietary needs or 'super budget' and not do too badly in the health department. $100 a week for the 6 of us would be a 'super super tight budget' and wouldn't not have much room to consider our chosen food health. So something like that would only be a short term 'we need cash now' option. Usually I spend $200 a week on groceries for the 6 of us - yes, Miss Charlotte does count as nappies and formula are in there! $200 a week allows us things like smoked salmon, free range eggs and plenty of meat... so that's not too tight and gives me room to trim it down a bit if I want money for other things.
Here are some really easy ways to shave the grocery budget
-Toilet paper... I'm amazed at what people will spend on toilet paper. I use to go on the guage of 50c a roll being a good deal. Now with thicker fancier toilet papers it's not a good deal as you end up using more of those!! We use Aldi 16 rolls for $4.99 which is 31c a roll which saves us over $113 a year - on just one simple item. If I wanted to save more, I quite probably could. Because of different roll lengths and thicknesses, the best way to calculate cost & savings is to try different options for a week and see how many rolls your family goes through in a 7 day period and work out your costs from there.
-Dishwashing liquid... again, you need to test how long a bottle lasts you to figure this one out. We were using one skin friendly one (you can't get such a thing from a supermarket btw) and were going through it too fast. All this year I've been using a new one and have been dating my bottles. One bottle at $23 dollars lasts me 14 weeks, so $1.65 a week. I'm pretty happy with that, especially as it had been up around $3-$4 a week. I've used cheaper ones but they're loaded with chemicals I don't want on my dishes. We do a LOT of dishes here as we cook from scratch and I'm really happy with how this one is going. Again - you need to do your own testing/assessment based on how many chemicals you're happy to have on your plates and what you're willing to spend.
-Don't throw out food. Buy a capsicum at $6 a kilo? Half of it doesn't get used and goes in the bin? The capsicum you did use, just became $12 a kilo, which you'd have never paid in the first place! Dish small serves and allow for seconds instead of uneaten portions going in the bin. Cover a meal and make sure it DOES get eaten later.
-Home made 'takeaways' can save a fortune... Pizza from the shop is $17 for our family or about $10 with frozen slightly topped bases and our goodies added... Fish n chips about $25-30 from the shop or about $13 oven baked. Choose to adjust your taste buds accordingly. One takeaway a week turned into a home done one can save over $500 a year! What would you do with that $500? Work out your own 'no time to cook' meals that will help you save on takeaway, like frozen spaghetti sauce and shepherd's pies, and your own 'we want a treat for dinner' options like spring rolls, oven baked fish, dim sims, pizza etc. Put the thinking cap on, then remove these items from the regular menu plan so they become the treat or time saver you want them to be.
Just doing these things saves us $700 a year which means I can either a) buy higher quality foods like smoked salmon etc OR b) I can use the cash for other things... and that's not all the savings that are available either!
There's a whole lot more buzzing around in my brain but this is it for starters... remind me if I forget to come back to it!
.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
No Spend Month... and a road trip (unrelated!)
We need to buy a new car! We don't all fit in our current car and have been on the lookout for a while. We almost found what we needed but our mechanic said that repair work hadn't been done well after an accident and so not to touch it... sad, because it was mechanically sound!
Pete's off to look at another this afternoon... priced beyond what we can afford, even at a streeeetch but if it's a good car we'll make an offer but are prepared to walk away. We can't bargain with more than we have!!!
Either way... it's now a NO SPEND month. The grocery budget has been cut from $650 for the month, down to $250, I've dropped the home ed allowance altogether, entertainment which sits at a low $40 has been scrapped and so on.
Thankfully we have a reasonably well stocked pantry and freezer, along with many pumpkins from our summer harvest. The well stocked pantry includes about 13kg of basmati rice LOL... so we could be seeing a bit of that!
The hardest bit for me was choosing to ditch my home ed allowance... I know it will be made up down the track and there's nothing I need urgently (that's next month LOL) but I'm so used to having it there. And tonight there is our monthly home ed gathering where I often see some great books I'd like us to own. Aah well, onto the list they will go.
So, for the road trip... which is only related to the no spend month in that the car I'll be driving for said road trip is why we're having a no spend month.
I'm thinking October - probably just myself and the children - up to 2 weeks away, but WHERE? Where to go? What to do and see? I've driven loads... like 1/3+ of a non stop trip to Queensland, to Sydney multiple times just sharing the drive with hubby and so on. I'd probably want to go no further than 10-12 hours from Melbourne and with a couple of overnight's on the way. It'd be cool to do the trip with someone else but I don't like my chances of anyone in my immediate circle of friends joining us; till we leave though, I'll keep hoping. Also, the thing that scares me most is accommodation costs so if you've some cheap (and safe!!) ideas, throw them my way. If my dad were still alive, he'd know enough people all over that we could borrow plenty of lounge room floors or church halls.. in fact, he'd probably come along for the trip!
.
Pete's off to look at another this afternoon... priced beyond what we can afford, even at a streeeetch but if it's a good car we'll make an offer but are prepared to walk away. We can't bargain with more than we have!!!
Either way... it's now a NO SPEND month. The grocery budget has been cut from $650 for the month, down to $250, I've dropped the home ed allowance altogether, entertainment which sits at a low $40 has been scrapped and so on.
Thankfully we have a reasonably well stocked pantry and freezer, along with many pumpkins from our summer harvest. The well stocked pantry includes about 13kg of basmati rice LOL... so we could be seeing a bit of that!
The hardest bit for me was choosing to ditch my home ed allowance... I know it will be made up down the track and there's nothing I need urgently (that's next month LOL) but I'm so used to having it there. And tonight there is our monthly home ed gathering where I often see some great books I'd like us to own. Aah well, onto the list they will go.
So, for the road trip... which is only related to the no spend month in that the car I'll be driving for said road trip is why we're having a no spend month.
I'm thinking October - probably just myself and the children - up to 2 weeks away, but WHERE? Where to go? What to do and see? I've driven loads... like 1/3+ of a non stop trip to Queensland, to Sydney multiple times just sharing the drive with hubby and so on. I'd probably want to go no further than 10-12 hours from Melbourne and with a couple of overnight's on the way. It'd be cool to do the trip with someone else but I don't like my chances of anyone in my immediate circle of friends joining us; till we leave though, I'll keep hoping. Also, the thing that scares me most is accommodation costs so if you've some cheap (and safe!!) ideas, throw them my way. If my dad were still alive, he'd know enough people all over that we could borrow plenty of lounge room floors or church halls.. in fact, he'd probably come along for the trip!
.
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