Welcome back for the conclusion of the guest post by Janelle of At Home with My Monkeys! Previously, she talked about making recipes with the ingredients that you already have and buying items on sale. Today, she’ll talk about the benefits of doing these things. Take a read:
Chances are that you will have to start out slowly – possibly with only $5 or $10 to start your advance
purchases, but that will eventually balloon because now you are able to buy a lot of your food items at the lowest possible price by taking advantage of sales and stockpiling. And you don’t have to start with meat – just look at the deals that your store offers and start from there. Maybe boxed mac and cheese is on sale for half the usual price and you know your kids eat that at least once a week. If you can get enough on hand for the next few weeks at half the price you usually pay, you’ve saved 50% on that purchase several times over.
Eventually you will reach the point where I am – I don’t shop by the week. I buy what’s on sale for the best possible price from a couple of different grocery stores. I purchase most of my basics at my local Aldi when they aren’t on sale anywhere (milk, eggs, produce, etc.) I always have plenty of food on hand, and I still feed my family of 5 for $280-$300 a month. I look forward to the grocery ads every week, because I can’t wait to see what deals I can get. My freezers are always full of meats and other goodies, and the pantry has lots of snacks and side dishes. I enjoy calculating the cost of our meals just to see how I’m doing. Most of them feed all 5 of us, with leftovers for lunch the next day, and cost me $4-$6.
It takes time to get this system in place, but it really does work well and save you money. And once you have a good stockpile, if you have an unexpected expense, you will find it easy to cut back on your grocery spending for a time and still have plenty to eat. That is a wonderful feeling!
To read this guest post from the beginning, please check out Part I.
Filed under: Frugal Tips, Guest Posts
