Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

How Not to Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

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Even if you’re rational, it’s hard not to panic when you go to the grocery store and see empty shelves.  You may wonder how not to overspend when stocking up for a home quarantine.  That sense of panic can fuel you to spend more than you normally do on groceries because you feel a desperation to just.get.food.  But calm down, take a deep breath, and realize there is enough food in the supply chain.  You will have food, but perhaps not the food you want.

How Not To Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

How Not to Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

Take these steps to keep your budget in line, even during times of crisis.

Do a Pantry and Freezer Inventory

Before you go to the grocery store, take the time to do a complete pantry and freezer inventory.  You may be surprised what you find in the depths of your freezer.  I had more meat than I thought I did.  I even a found a homemade pie crust in a ball that we had made two years ago.  You bet that we’re still going to use that.

Likewise, you may have more in your pantry than you think.  Plus, taking all of the items out and inventorying them can help you feel less desperate.  You DO have food in the house.

See what recipes you can create from what you have on hand.  Likely you can come up with many meals than you thought.  Don’t forget to use sites like Supercook, a site where you can put in the ingredients you have on hand, and the site produces recipes using those ingredients.

Be Flexible with Food Choices

When you do get to the grocery store or place your order for pick up, don’t be surprised if many of the items you want to buy are unavailable or limited.  I’ve placed two orders for pick up now and both times the store couldn’t completely fulfill my order.  For instance, the first trip, there were no eggs available.  The second trip, we were allowed to buy two dozen—for our family of five.

How Not to Overspend When Preparing for a Home Quarantine
Photo by Semi O on Unsplash

Clearly we won’t be eating eggs for breakfast every day, and that’s okay.  Instead, we’ve branched into other breakfast foods that we typically don’t eat like homemade muffins, oatmeal, and even sometimes leftover soup from the previous night’s dinner.  Be willing to be as flexible as possible with what you eat and when during this time, and you will be able to keep your budget in check.

Allocate Money from Other Budget Categories

If you still have your regular income coming in and you find that you are overspending in your groceries category, one way you can resolve this is to take money from a different category.  For instance, we overspent this month on groceries.  I can’t shop many stores for the clearance items as I used to do, so our spending increased.  However, we put $140 in our gas category every two weeks, and now, being self-quarantined, we don’t need that money.  I simply funnel it to our groceries category.

Of course, if you’re currently unemployed, you’ll want to use as little money as possible for groceries so you’ll be able to meet your other financial responsibilities.

Final Thoughts

We’re living in strange times the likes of which our country hasn’t seen in over 100 years, not since the time of the Spanish Flu.  However, rest assured that you can still get the groceries you need without seriously overspending.  Just plan ahead with your purchases and be resigned to the fact that you won’t be able to eat the way you can when we’re not under quarantine.

Living on a Tight Budget: Should Groceries Be the First Place You Cut?

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If you’re like me, the last few years, you may have felt that you’re simply treading water when it comes to income and expenses.  It seems every time our income goes up, our expenses go up, and I’m not talking about lifestyle inflation but rather insurance premiums and deductibles, etc.

Like many people, I try to cut corners to make our money stretch as far as I can.  I’ve certainly had times a few years ago when I bought the cheapest groceries that I could find by using coupons and sales, even though the food was processed and not that good for my body.

I rationalized that I was being frugal, and, I’ll admit it, I was proud of myself.  Never mind that we were eating casseroles that we didn’t really like made with processed foods or that the leftovers often went to waste because we didn’t want to eat the meal again.  Never mind that both my husband and I had cholesterol well over 200 even though we were in our thirties.

Change in Eating Habits

However, over the last few years, my opinions on grocery shopping, the foods we eat, and how to save money have changed. I still like to save money (and I still need to in order to make our budget stretch), but now I do it differently, and I feed my family differently.  A few years ago, I went Paleo.  I dropped a lot of weight, and my cholesterol level settled around 155, even though I was a few years older. True, our grocery budget went up, but not by as much as I expected.  I learned ways to buy healthy food at a reasonable price.

Where Else Can You Cut Besides Groceries?

Should you Cut groceries first?
Where would you cut first?

Sometimes, especially when money is tight, groceries seem like an easy place to cut.  Convenience foods bought with coupons can be had for a steal.  Take a look around Pinterest, and you’ll find many posts of bloggers touting how little they spend for groceries.

But is this a good thing?  I know groceries are typically one of the largest monthly expenses for a family, but should this automatically be the place we look first to reduce our budget?  After all, there is great truth in the adage, “Pay your farmer now, or pay the doctor later.  In fact, “Americans spend nearly 20% of their income on healthcare costs, while on average spending 10% of their income on food. . .Considering the age-old adage, ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ may be the first step to attempt to reduce healthcare spending—and the key place to start is food consumption.  If you start to consider your diet a form of preventative health care, you might start rethinking your daily meals” (University of New Hampshire).

Take a look at your budget.  If you don’t automatically slash your grocery budget, where else can you cut expenses?

If you don’t short change your body healthy foods, you’ll save thousands on health care later on.  Meanwhile, why not consider dropping your smartphone and getting a “dumb” phone?  (Yes, I still have a flip phone for emergencies that we bought 10 years ago.)  Can you drive your current vehicle a little longer so you don’t need to have a new car loan?  Can you drop cable?  Do you have subscriptions you’re paying for but you don’t use?  Likely, there are several lifestyle choices you can make to cut your expenses without compromising the quality of food you can buy and eat.

Do you cut other expenses so you can continue to buy quality foods, or do you prefer to slash your grocery budget?

Is There a Best Way to Meal Plan?

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The price of groceries just seems to keep going up, and up, and up.  How much I’ve spent on groceries has nearly doubled in the last five years.  True, my kids are older and hungrier, but in general, the price of groceries themselves has increased.  In our household, groceries are our biggest monthly expense behind our mortgage.

If you’re like my family, you’re constantly looking for a way to cut your monthly grocery costs.

I’ve found that reducing grocery expenses largely comes down to making a plan and sticking to it.  There are several ways to do this.

Make a Monthly Meal Plan

Best Way to Meal Plan
How do you meal plan?

Some people lower their grocery costs by making a monthly meal plan and shopping once a month.  Of course, when I say shopping once a month, that doesn’t mean it’s the only time that they go to the store.  Rather, they have one large shopping trip at the beginning of the month, and then they go to the store 1 to 3 more times during the month to get fresh produce and milk as needed.

This technique can save money mainly because you keep yourself out of the stores and avoid impulse buys by doing so.  You’ve likely gone into the store to buy one or two items and found yourself walking out with a cartload of groceries.  Those impulse buys, even if there a good deal, can destroy your budget.  Those who shop once a month reduce their spending simply by reducing the number of times they allow themselves access to the grocery store and impulse buys.

Make a Menu Plan

Another technique is to make a weekly menu plan based on what you find on sale in the grocery store flyers.  Between the items that you see on sale and the items that you already have in your house, you make a menu plan and shop for the loss leaders and whatever other items you need to make your meals.

Shop First

Still others go to their favorite store first and scout out the good, unadvertised deals.  For instance, if pasta is on clearance, they may buy many bags of it and have several pasta meals that week.  If they find a great deal on beef, they may make a stroganoff using the beef and pasta for one meal, and a spaghetti bolognese for another meal.  These planners find the good sales and then make a menu plan.  Once they get home, they rely on Pinterest, the internet and sites like MyFridgeFood to help them decide what to serve based on the great sales they found.

For years I have debated about which method works best and which one saves the most money.  But, the bottom line is that you must choose the method that works best for you and your family.  In this season of our family life, method two works best for us.

However, it doesn’t matter which method works best for your family.  What really matters if you want to cut your grocery costs is that you have a plan and you utilize one of these three methods.

What is your favorite way to menu plan and save money?  Do you prefer one of these methods or a different one?