In my last few blogs on this topic, we talked about how to analyze your grocery bill and I presented a plan to reduce the overall size of my bill. Our plan was to give our kids a certain amount of money that they had to budget and keep track of and use to buy their own breakfast cereal and snacks.
Did Putting Our Kids in Charge Work?
Our initial results with putting our kids in charge were rather successful. Because fruits and vegetables were free, they started eating a lot more of those for snacks rather than hitting Dunkin’ Donuts after classes. (Never a bad thing–right?) In the final analysis after doing this for nearly a month though I have to say that it was a good experiment, but it won’t cause you to slash your grocery bill in half.
I suppose we knew that though. It did get my kids into eating healthier food and we will keep doing it this way because of the budgeting and money skills they’re gaining. (We homeschoolers are all about the ‘hands-on’ learning.) But it wasn’t like we are saving all that much money. We’re saving about $20 per month. But every little bit adds up right?
A New Strategy
However, I now have a new strategy for shopping. It involves several different grocery stores, pouring over flyers, and meal planning. It is only effective if you follow rules about gas conservation though. If you don’t, then you might as well pay full price for everything you buy.
I am going to go over flyers today and making a list of loss leader items that I consider staples to my meals. Things like pasta, tomato sauce or paste, cereal, tuna. . .whatever I find on sale.
Look later today for my next blog on how to shop at several different stores to save money!
More From the Extreme Make Over: Grocery Bill Edition
What Happened When We Put Our Kids in Charge
Extreme Makeover: Grocery Bill Edition
Extreme Makeover–Grocery Bill Edition: Analysis 101