Search Results for: budget

Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk Food

October 14, 2019 By MelissaB 1 Comment

Almost all kids love to eat junk food, and if they have unlimited access to it, they can plow through a surprising amount of it in very little time. This is especially true if your kids are teenagers. However, you can save on groceries by limiting junk food.

limit junk food — photo courtesy of idpinthat.com

Some people do this by simply not buying junk food. Instead, they give their kids regular meals and fruits or veggies for snacks. While this is the healthiest way to feed your kids, they may feel deprived if they don’t get some of the fun snacks that their peers get.

However, there are several strategies you can use to give your kids the snacks that they want without compromising their health or your grocery budget.

Will Work for Snacks

Recently, I learned this ingenious trick from an experienced mom. She has created a win-win situation for herself and her kids. Each time a child completes a chore, he earns a ticket. He can then use the ticket to buy snacks from mom that he enjoys such as granola bars, chips, cookies, Popsicles, etc. Once he runs out of tickets for the week, he doesn’t get these types of snacks anymore. Instead mom will give him fruit or veggies for snacks, no tickets required.

Using this technique, the kids are happy because they have some control over how many snacks they get, and mom has noticed that the snacks are lasting a lot longer in her house.

No More When They’re Gone

Another mom buys a set amount of junk food treats a week for her family to eat. When they’re gone, she doesn’t buy anymore until the next grocery shopping trip. If kids eat all the treats in one day, they have to wait six more days until the next grocery trip.

Lock Up Junk Food

Some parents have even taken the extreme route of locking up treats so that the kids don’t eat all of the stash. This is more likely to work if your kids are younger and are used to this type of system.

Hide Them Away

A similar, though less extreme, practice is when parents hide away goodies. Then, they can slowly bring them out so the kids get treats little by little. This was the technique that my mom used. She had a friend who worked at Hostess, and she could get us treats at a steep discount. My mom would buy two cases and hide them, bringing them out slowly for lunches. For many kids, out of sight means out of mind.

Make Homemade Treats

Another idea is to make homemade treats like granola bars, brownies, cookies, etc. While these taste good and are often healthier than the pre-made counterparts, kids may still feel slighted if all of their friends are eating packaged junk food. A way to avoid this is to give them some prepackaged junk food and supplement with homemade treats.

There’s nothing wrong with giving your kids a little junk food, but if they’re devouring it the minute you bring it home, you may want to save on groceries by limiting junk food consumption in your home.

Is junk food killing your grocery budget? If so, which of these strategies do you use, or do you have a different technique to keep your kids happy and your budget in line?

4 Easy Ways to Slash Your Grocery Bill

October 7, 2019 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Is it just me, or does it seem to you, too, that your grocery money doesn’t stretch as far these days? We’re on a tight grocery budget, and every week, I feel like I’m getting less and less for my money. Since my family wants to eat, especially the three growing kids that eat a lot, I’ve found 4 easy ways to slash the grocery bill despite the rising cost of food, no coupons required.

4 Ways to Slash the Grocery Bill — Photo via idpinthat.com

Find Good Recipe Resources

The first of the 4 easy ways to slash the grocery bill happens before I even set foot in the grocery store. I start by choosing my meals for the week at some of my favorite frugal recipe sites. I love Budget Bytes, Struggle Meals, and $5 Dinners. When I choose recipes from one of these sites, I know I’ll be preparing food for my family that is healthy and low cost.

4 ways to cut the grocery budget — Photo via idpinthat.com

Substitutions Are Key

Another way to save money is to freely make substitutions to a recipe based on what you have on hand. This week, we’re having navy bean soup in the slow cooker. The original recipe called for ham, but at $6 per thick slice of ham, that wasn’t in the budget. Instead, I found Polish sausage on sale for $3.50 a pound. That will be going in the soup instead of ham.

By making substitutions based on what you have on hand and what is on a sale, you can make your grocery dollars stretch further.

Shred Food Yourself

Buying food that is already shredded is convenient, but you can save a lot of money by shredding the food yourself. A head of cabbage might only cost $1, but buying a bag of shredded cabbage costs $1.50. I’d estimate that the bag contains about ½ of a head of cabbage, so I’m paying an additional $2 just for the convenience of not shredding the cabbage myself. Since I have a food processor with a shred blade, I don’t feel the need to pay the extra money when shredding the cabbage would only add about 5 minutes to my food prep time.

Likewise, cheese as well as chicken, especially when bought in bulk, is much cheaper if you shred it yourself at home.

Buy in Bulk When on Sale

Finally, make buying in bulk a habit. When an item that you use frequently goes on sale or is on clearance, stock up. This summer, salad dressing was on clearance for .99 a bottle. I bought 10 bottles, so we won’t need to buy salad dressing for the next few months.

Likewise, I only buy the crackers we like when they go on sale Buy One, Get Two free. This sale runs two to three times a year, so I buy enough to get us through until the next sale.

By buying in bulk when items are on sale, I’m able to pay the lowest grocery price possible for the items we eat.

Sometimes, saving money at the grocery store just requires a mental shift and the development of new habits. Make these small changes, and you’ll see your grocery bill drop.

Have you noticed the price of groceries increasing recently? What strategies do you use to keep your grocery bill in check?

How to Get Out and Stay Out of Debt

September 23, 2019 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

As a nation, we’re individually mired in debt. Achieving financial freedom is strange to many people because they accept that they will always have a mortgage and a car payment, but many also accept that they will always have student loans and credit card balances. They argue that life is just too expensive, and there is no way they can make it through without credit. However, there is a simple way to get out and stay out of debt.

Why Gazelle Intensity Doesn’t Always Work

If you’re deep in debt, you may want to follow the Dave Ramsey approach and become gazelle intense, funneling all of your extra money into your debt snowball, even if it means that you’re neglecting other categories of your budget like your house and car repair fund and your retirement.

How to get out of debt and stay out of debt — Photo via flickr Mhorr Gazelle (Nanger dama mhorr) © by 5of7

While gazelle intensity works great if you only have a small amount to pay off, say $10,000 to $15,000, many people are far deeper in the whole than that, and it’s very difficult to remain gazelle intense for years. Gazelle intensity is meant to be a sprint, ideally for less than a year, not several years if you’re heavily mired in debt.

In addition, while it’s easier to neglect certain categories in your budget for a year or less, doing so for longer will cause problems. Your car will need repairs over the course of several years. Your home will need repairs which may be minor, or unfortunately, major. But because you’ve been funneling everything into your debt snowball, you may not have enough money to pay for a repair in full, so your only choice may be to pay on credit and negate your progress. How discouraging is that?

A Simpler, Slower Way to Get Out of Debt

These days I’m all about moderation, even for those who have significant debt. There is a simple way to achieve financial freedom—quit accruing new debt.

The only way to do this is to make sure that you have a realistic budget and money set aside for emergencies and irregular expenses. Put away the credit cards so going further into debt isn’t an option.

Paying Down Debt

Then, pay the minimum on all of your debts and don’t reduce that number as the minimum payments go down. Let’s say between all of your debts, your minimum monthly payment total is $1,365. A year from now, since you haven’t accrued any new debt and the balances are going down, your minimum monthly payment might have dropped to $1,290. Don’t reduce your minimum monthly debt repayment. Instead, readjust your payments so that you’re paying the minimum payment on all bills except the smallest one. On the smallest one, pay the additional $75 that is the difference between your minimum monthly payment last year and your minimum monthly payments this year.

Sure, it’s hard not to want to pay more than the minimum monthly payment that you started with in the beginning, but the idea isn’t too pay all the debt down immediately. The idea is to continue to budget and fund all of the necessary categories so that you can achieve financial freedom.

Setting a Realistic Budget

So, you’ll take a realistic look at your expenses. If you have a home worth $200,000, you’ll set aside at least 1% of that price a year in a repair fund (approximately $166 a month).

If your car is old, you’ll set aside a reasonable amount monthly for repairs and maintenance—maybe $200 a month. And if your car has over 150,000 miles, it may be time to set aside a monthly amount to buy a new car in a few years—with cash.

How to Get Out of Debt — Photo via idpinthat.com

Determine an amount that you want to set aside monthly for an emergency fund, and then just keep adding to that fund whether you have an emergency or not. Some time, you will have a major emergency, and you’ll be glad that you have a full funded emergency fund so you can pay in cash, not credit.

Getting and staying out of debt requires that you stop using credit and that you have a budget that considers all of your true expenses for the year. While this process make take longer, it also assures that you will achieve financial freedom.

Which approach do you take to get out of debt? What would you advise others who are deeply in debt?