April is officially Financial Literacy Month, and Aya and Elisa are competing for the title of “most financially literate”. Follow the competition as Matt judges and awards daily points. Check in on their daily progress and encouragement is appreciated!

Step 23: Save money on groceries

Saving money on groceries doesn’t have to be hard work. Making just some small changes can net big rewards to your pocketbook. Simple changes in the way you plan and shop can help you reduce the amount you’re spending on groceries.

Preparing a weekly menu of what you would like to eat is the first step in effective grocery buying. You will want to list entrees as well as any side dishes, salads or deserts you are planning to prepare. This meal plan can be as simple as the chart here.

Good tip. We all gotta eat, but we most likely don’t need to be spending as much money as we do on them. The most common tips I hear and use:

• Buy store brand or generic brands instead of name brands. A YumYum Chocolate Cookie may not be as perfect as a Nabisco Oreo, but is still yummy and less costly because there’s less money spent on marketing and branding.
• Don’t buy things that are placed at eye-level. Markets are tricky and purposely make the expensive items more convenient to find and pick up without thinking twice about cheaper alternatives.
• Plan ahead and don’t deviate from the list. Always look at the store sales before going, so you can make choices on which sale items to buy but not be tempted to make unplanned purchases to buy sale items simply because they’re on sale.
• Don’t look at the little impulse buy trickery items near the register. Why do you think they put the gum and the candies there? It’s a trap!
• Don’t ever go hungry. You’ll want to eat everything.

I’ve seen the tip to buy in bulk, but living in NYC where there aren’t any Costcos in Manhattan, and it still wouldn’t work because you can’t really buy 100 toilet paper rolls and go on the subway. So, I consciously left that one out. Shopping for groceries needs as much planning as other expenses, considering that food costs a significant amount of money and grocery shopping is something we do more often than shoe shopping. Or at least I hope I do.

“I’ve eaten nothing but pizza and ramen for a week because I am broke!”.  It’s amazing how often people seem to think that they have to eat bad to eat cheap. And even more mind boggling is the fact that many of these meals aren’t actually very cost effective.

The cost of fast food, for example, has risen steadily, making the average Big Mac hamburger a whooping $4.  That’s without any extras, drinks or fries!  Tack on the tax and you might as well have gone out for some moderately priced sushi.

Ramen, on the other hand, is still cheap.  It’s cheap.  It’s easy.  It’s filling.  And it’s horrible for you; packed with empty calories and hydrogenated oils.

But you know what else is cheap?  Beans.  Beans are super healthy, wonderfully tasty, filling and dirt cheap.  And there is an incredible variety of beans out there to choose from; black, kidney, red, navy, pink, and garbanzo, to name just a few.  And there are many more cheap and healthy options to consider!

And yes, planning out your menu for the week is a grrreeeat idea.  But one that I rarely accomplish.  Since I am normally just cooking for myself, I usually just buy my staple foods (frozen veggies, beans, eggs, a slice of meat or fish, rice pasta, yams, yogurt…) and then pick up some in-season, on-sale produce and work from there.   But, if I was planning meals for a family, then a weekly menu list would be incredibly cost effective.  I would just peruse the coupon sheets, plan my meals around them, and then head off to the grocery store buying exactly what I needed.

And another healthy, cost-effective note; supporting your local farmers market.  Some farmer’s markets are incredibly pricey, but many are really quite frugal.  Plus, there’s this unspoken, beautiful rule, at farmer’s markets, that if you return to the same vendor on a weekly basis, they start throwing in some extra produce which saves you cash.

You could also consider growing your own food.  Eleanor Roosevelt started a vegetable garden in the White House lawn, encouraging the rest of the country to follow her lead.  And the country did!  It’s been estimated that 25% of the nations produce that year came from these “victory gardens”.  Imagine cutting back on 25% of your grocery bill?  This year, I’ll have all the basil, strawberries, tomatoes and fresh greens I could want!  And at Thrive, we’re currently hosting about 70 small vegetable seedlings in our window, that will be transplanted to a rooftop in Brooklyn as part of an urban garden initiative.

And my last tip; join a food co-op.  There’s zillions of them in just about every form.  You can find a version of a CSA (community supported agriculture)  near you here.  My roommate Page, split a CSA share with a friend and always came home with a mountain of gorgeous fresh produce and dairy products.  Because Page makes most of her meals entirely from the produce she gets weekly from the co-op, she rarely goes to the grocery store.  And her CSA share comes out to about $35 a month!  Now that’s some frugal deliciousness!

Judge’s Verdict

Majority points to Elisa. Not because Aya was bad: actually, she gave some good tips. But Elisa has clearly gone berserk on this post and there is really very little left to say. I have no other comment, other than does anyone else find the second and third sentences of the tip to be redundant?