From WeHeartIt.com
How I Use to Buy Food
I use to budget $600 a month for groceries, and I always went over, so I usually spent closer to $700. I shopped mostly at Aldi and a little at Wegmans. I would go shopping for two weeks worth of groceries at a time. You can just imagine how insane that was. I had to get two grocery carts worth of food at Aldi. I would push one and pull one. And sometimes I would even do that with my kids. Yes, it was a little crazy.New And Improved Shopping Method
The stress of the shopping trip I had to take twice a month was enough to convince me that something had to change. So, here's my new shopping method. It works much better!
- $100 per week
- Weekly shopping (Thursday)
- $100 per month at Sam's Club
- Cash Only!!!! No going over!
- Total spent per month: $542 (And that's with 6 kids, a lot better than $700 we use to spend!)
We have a USAA checking account, so we can take money out of any ATM and they refund us the ATM fee. It's pretty nice. So, for each paycheck we take out $400. That's our gas, food, other money for the month. So, when I got shopping I HAVE to keep it under $100 per week. I shop at Aldi first and I'm careful not to buy things I don't really need. Then whatever of the $100 is left after Aldi, I use that money to shop at Wegmans for..."fancier" things like green onions, good potatoes, strawberries, ground beef, chicken, shampoo, deodorant, etc. While I shop I Wegmans I use my cell phone to keep track of my money so I don't go over. I'm can be a shy person, and I find it very embarrassing to have to put things back because I don't have enough money to buy something. It's not that hard to pull out my cell phone and subtract from what money I have left on the calculator feature. I'm sure people just think I'm texting a lot while I shop.
I went shopping today, so here's my practical example:
Menu
Saturday
B - Cereal
L - PB&J
Sunday
B - Pancakes
L - Bagels and Cream Cheese
D - Nachos
Monday
B - Muffins (from homemade mix)
L - (Leftovers, kids buy school lunches, same every school day)
D - Spaghetti
Tuesday
B - Eggs
D - Cheesy Potatoes
Wednesday
B - Cereal
D - Fishwiches
Thursday
B - Muffins
D - 16 Bean Soup
Friday
B - Yogurt and Fruit
D - Homemade Pizza
Shopping Trip
I take my 3 little ones to Aldi. We buy $60.08 worth of groceries. Then I go to Wegmans and I put $39 (we round up to the nearest dollar, it saves us a lot of headaches!) on my cell phone calculator and I subtract whenever I put something into my cart, until I get to almost nothing. Usually I end up with $5 at the end and then I buy my husband a treat. Today I ended up with $6 and I used it to buy candy to use for potty training my two year old on Monday (more on that later).
Why don't I use a calculator at Aldi? Well...it's easier this way. If I only have to use the calculator at one store, it makes my life easier. And with 6 kids, making things easier is a must!!!! Also, Aldi has cheaper food, and Wegmans has "fancier" food, so I'd rather be frugal on the fancier food than on the cheaper food.
At the end of the month I will go shopping at Sam's Club for big essentials. There I buy things like flour, sugar, large cans of fruit, huge blocks of cheese, etc. etc.
Why do I shop at 3 stores? I've actually cut back. I use to shop at four! The thing is, every store has it's cheaper items. Most things are cheapest at Aldi, but the Club Pack items at Wegmans are almost always cheaper than Aldi. And large 25 lb. bags of flour at Sam's are cheaper than either Wegmans or Aldi. And I have compared all prices to the Bishop's Storehouse too. I buy whatever is cheapest at each store. It saves me lots of money. How I figure that out is another story.... (see the Cheapster post)
Frugally Yours,
cin