Good to Know in the New Year
(and how to save on groceries)
Hi friends and Happy New Year! I’m glad you are here and welcome to all the new subscribers.
And FYI, this article has an audio version posted at the top if you would rather listen than read it.
Welcome to this series, Good to Know.
For the next eight weeks, we will be discussing good things to know about food shopping, storage, and preparation. I’ve chosen topics that have been constant pain points for me over the years and most likely have been for you, too.
I will share what I’ve learned so far about:
lowering grocery bills
meal planning
utilizing in-season produce
enjoying plant proteins
stocking a pantry
growing herbs
plus other helpful things!
Also, if you have a topic you’d like me to discuss, please leave me a message below and I will do my best to include it.
This week we talk about how to save money on groceries.
New Year, New Grocery Budget
January is the perfect time to revisit budgets, especially regarding food. We’ve all felt the pinch in grocery prices recently. Let’s talk about making the most of our grocery budget. The average monthly cost of groceries for a family of four (two adults, two children) is $975. Your budget will look different depending on income, specific dietary needs, and where you live (fellow Californians, I feel your pain).
But, regardless of your family size or monthly dollar figure, can we all agree that we’d like to save money on groceries?
A few things to keep in mind before we get into the practical app portion.
Let’s define for whom we are cooking. Empty nesters, or nearly empty nesters like me and my husband, will have different grocery needs than a family with children still at home. Our dinner plans now are very loose and might involve cocktails. However, our adult children and their significant others come over for dinner from time to time, so I have to figure that into the grocery budget. The takeaway here is to determine who it is you are buying and cooking for this week.
Let’s also define dinner. What do you consider dinner? My kids know that I love a sit-down family meal every night of the week. Always meat + vegetables + starchy carbohydrates. However, now that it is usually just me and my husband when six o’clock rolls around, we have redefined dinner. Many times it is still a meat, veg, and carb combo. But, it can also be soup and salad, assemble-your-own nachos, and if we are really feeling middle-aged wild, French toast and bacon. Determine what constitutes dinner for you.
This Week’s Goal: Save Money on Groceries
Before Shopping
Check the pantry, fridge, and freezer. If you are like me, you probably currently have enough food sitting on your shelves to make a meal or two. Take a quick look to see what you have and what needs to be eaten soon, especially in the fridge and freezer. Over the Christmas break, I went through my freezer and found five bags of frozen peas. Three half-used bags and two unopened bags. No one is scheduled to have a vasectomy any time soon, so what was I doing with that many bags of frozen veg? We’ll talk more about that in a few weeks. That is, stocking your pantry, not vasectomies.
Stick to in-season fruits and vegetables. Fresh strawberries in January are terrible. They are out of season, more expensive, and just don’t taste good. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere like I do, winter is a great time for purchasing and eating citrus fruits and cruciferous veggies like broccoli and cauliflower. Fresh produce that is in season is cheaper and tastes so much better. If you’ve eaten a tomato at the height of summer you know what I mean. Learn what is in season. I find seasonal produce guides very helpful!
Plan the weekly menu. This can be a trigger, I know. People are at a loss sometimes on how to plan food for the coming days. I get it. This has been one of the hardest things for me to learn. Next week on January 12, there will be an entire article devoted to menu planning so I won’t go into here. It’s not enough to come back from the grocery store with food. You need ingredients to make meals like the one below.
Write a list. I see it every week: people shopping without a list, wandering the aisles like I used to do. Trying to remember what’s at home or what’s needed for a recipe has never worked for me. I can’t hold a list in my head. No one taught me how to make an effective grocery list (and there really is such a thing), but I will share with you how to draft one later this month.
Choose your store wisely. For many years, I shopped at one of the largest grocery chains in my area until I realized it was more expensive than others. Once WinCo opened its doors near me, it became the only place I go for weekly shopping because of the low prices and good selection. I will still hit the other grocery chain if I need just one or two things but never for a cartload. Identify the best option in your area. It makes a difference.
Ok, whew. That was all before stepping foot into the grocery store! Now the groundwork has been laid, so this next part is easier in many ways.
While Shopping
Stick to your list. Trust the list that you have written and don’t veer from it. I like sale items so I have to look away or will blow my budget right there at the clearance aisle getting things that are not on my list. I am guilty of impulse buying, just like everyone else. Remember those bags of frozen peas in my freezer? Half of them were hidden under an 8x11-inch package of frozen pandan leaves, an impulse purchase that I never used but seemed like a good deal at the time.
Be flexible. I know, I just said to stick to your list. But I will tell you what I mean by flexibility. Let’s say chicken breasts are on your list, but at the store, you find that chicken thighs are on sale this week. If it doesn’t matter to you if you are eating white or dark meat, get the thighs to save some money. Or maybe there is a great deal on ground beef. Is there something on your list that you can put off until next week so you can stock up on a few pounds of the on-sale ground beef?
Keep a running total. I find I can better stick to my list if I keep a running cost estimate of what I have in my shopping cart. Yes, it’s kind of a pain. Using the calculator on my phone, I add to the total each time I place something in my cart. Round up to whole dollars if you don’t like keeping track of cents. If you are paying in cash (which I did for many years), it saves the embarrassment of having to take things off at the register. But it also helps to recalibrate while shopping. For instance, non-essential-but-nice-to-have potato chips may be on the list, but if I’m getting close to my dollar cap, I will put them off until next week. Plus, a real-time, in-store estimate helps to avoid that “dang!” moment when the cashier reads you your total out loud.
Choose generic labels. This is nothing new. But boy is it effective. My kids used to give me a hard time for buying generic label canned and dried goods. That is, until they had to shop and pay for their own food. Now, apparently, I’m a genius. I’ll take it. But even my husband was reminded of this recently when he swung by the grocery store to get cornflakes. He couldn’t believe Kellogg’s was $5.99 a box. Did you ever think the time would come when one would pay $6 for a box of cereal? The generic brand of cornflakes: $2.96 for the same size box. Less than half the price.
Buy what will get eaten. Sometimes we purchase food based on good intentions. That is especially true this time of year when everyone is trying to clean up their diet. So they buy a five-pound bag of carrots, a package of celery, and three heads of romaine, only to have it languish at the back of the veggie drawer for weeks and eventually become liquid brown. Buy what you and your peeps will eat, not what you hope they eat. It’s unlikely that your family will suddenly start liking butternut squash.
Tell Me
What is your best tip for saving money at the grocery store? I’d love to know. And if you find this article helpful, please share it with friends, relatives, and frenemies.
Next week, we’ll be talking about menu planning. See you next Friday!
I had a very extensive list of groceries printed out and kids/hubby/me were to circle what was needed each week. But now that it's just two and hubby cooks, he goes to the store with a simple hand-written list. But we do try to "empty" the freezer once in a while and eat what is in there. Good reminder to plan ahead for the week. Great article and I laughed out loud a couple of times...
These are definitely some great reminders. In the past few years, especially as empty-nesters, I have been trying to buy only food we will eat. With our busy schedules we don't have consistency in our dinner times, cooking, and eating at home per sé, however, I buy less at the grocery store than I used to. Sometimes I make the mistake of buying for good intentions and have to remind myself to only buy what we will actually use. Thanks for the awesome reminders.