Several months later, I can tell you that this is a tried and true method and we have saved $100's just by following our basic budget plan. This post is here to help you in your endeavor to save money with still obtaining the nutrition needed for your family.
This is set for my fiance and I, however, we do still have leftover food from these meals and could very likely be updated for at least one more person. In the post, I'll go over what worked best for the two of us and what we started out doing and what we decided to do differently. Here's HOW TO BUDGET $25/WEEK ON GROCERIES.
Making a plan and sticking to it:
We get easily distracted whenever we go shopping for food that we tend to buy too much and it ends up going to waste or we'll call up pizza hut and have the pizza delivered to us. But if you are an avid pizza lover like myself, you'll learn very quickly that pizza can be upwards of $30 including the tip. So, we decided to try out $20/week on food and we would have to actually make food. (What? No...ewwww. Just kidding, but really, who has time for that??)
The $20/week worked well and we'd spend only $80/month on groceries but we always found ourselves running short a day or two before our shopping day. So we bumped it up $5 dollars and we have done well with sticking to the budget and lasting the extra two days.
List out ahead of time:
We keep a tiny $2 white board on our refrigerator and any time we run out of something we'll write it on the board. Or if there's a new meal we want to try, we'll write down the ingredients that we need. Basics like Flour, oil, and Sugar don't count in our budget just because you can buy a large amount of it and you don't need to replace it until after a month or so. AND that's if you use it daily.
By writing all of our ingredients ahead of time, we can make decisions based on what is most important to buy and what can be saved for the next week, since we shop once a week. AND shopping once a week ensures that we don't need to blow our budget to buy everything that we need, because we can just wait a week to pick it up.
When it is grocery time, we'll snap a picture of the list or rewrite it on a sticky note and when we go shopping, we can cross each item off. It also feels to go cross each item off of the list because it feels as if we are doing something with our day and getting things done. I'll also write down each price and subtract it from the $25 dollars.
Breaking down the Budget:
Here's an example of what I mean:
As you can see, I have a list of what I'm buying and as I get each item in my basket, I write down the price and subtract from my initial $25. Once we have everything that we need, then we can decide what else we could pick up.
In this case, I started with everything except the meat because I didn't know how much meat I could buy. With pork being $1.99/lb, and having $9.68 left over, we could get a decent sized nearly 5-lb pork. Which we could cut up and store in the freezer to have later. OR we could pick up that juice we always wanted to try or grab another type of cereal, or maybe we want to have some fruit as well with our meal. Who knows? The extra amount is up to you and however you decide to spend it, ALWAYS USE THE AMOUNT YOU SET ASIDE.
Because if not, you'll remember that extra thing you wanted to buy but now the next week is around, so maybe you decide to go over the budget for this week because you didn't last week. Before you know it, you aren't even on budget anymore and you already spent an extra $50 without meaning to. TRUST ME, just stick to the budget. It's easier after you're already in routine.
Research Groceries BEFOREHAND
There was this one time when Steven and I were out shopping at Aldi's and the meat was significantly higher than the week before. We decided that we were also going to grab some water bottles but figured that the meat and the H2O would be cheaper at Walmart. However, we didn't know for certain. When we arrived to Walmart, lo and behold!!....it was the same price. So we just wasted gas driving across town rather than looking up prices beforehand or even with our smartphones.
However, it is generally better to get regular, non-special meat at Walmart when the meat is discounted because it's "old". As long as the meat looks and smells fine, I promise, it's fine. I once got a roast for half the price it would have been just because it didn't sell before "sell-by date". And, It tasted lovely!
Overall, looking up shopping tips on Pinterest, Coupon.com, and several blogging sites can help you save money and by doing at least ten minutes of research, you'll be all the wiser for looking!
Reward yourself(ves)!!
After a couple of weeks of making breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it gets tiring always making something. So, you should reward yourselves for sticking to the budget with that date night you haven't had in awhile. Or maybe going out and doing something you haven't done in a long time such as go to the movies and splurging on the popcorn! Or it could even be a rewarding night in the homestead with pizza delivered from Pizza Hut.
Whatever it may be, make it worth the while to Budgeting on $25/week because it's hard work. It definitely gets easier over time as you begin to recognize prices and can tell when you've reached your limit without any basic math at all!
But rewarding yourself helps reinforce that what you're doing, the time you are setting aside for grocery shopping and budgeting to, are in fact good things to be doing and much better to save money for bills and/or debts you're paying.
I hope you've enjoyed this YAC! Please leave comments below on what budget techniques you've used that help and which ones that don't!
Thank you!
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