Chances are that there are things on your grocery list that you really don’t need. I’ll share some ideas and ways to cut items from your grocery bill that will lower your costs without drastically changing your lifestyle.
Some items we tend to purchase for convenience or out of habit when it fact, these items really aren’t adding much to our lives. Sometimes the convenience is a matter of an extra minute to five minutes out of the day. To me, that just isn’t worth a large grocery bill.
Here are some examples.
Paper towels
Purchase reusable handiwipes, absorbent dishtowels or thin washclothes (check the dollar stores) to use in place of paper towels for everything from drying hands and wiping little faces, to cleaning spills from the counter and scrubbing the floor. To clean windows and mirrors use newspaper or the thin washcloths. Running one extra load of laundry (for the towels and cloths) every two or three weeks is worth the savings in my book.
Expensive cleaners
Baking soda, vinegar and bleach are inexpensive and clean very well. They each go a long way to keeping your home clean. In fact, as soon as I started to spray a solution of vinegar and water in my shower I noticed that I didn’t have to scrub it as often. The vinegar kept the mold away.
Convenience foods
Did you know that there are only two extra ingredients to add to flour to get a baking mix? Flour is much cheaper than those boxed mixes, and there isn’t much of a convenience to be gained. Plus you can avoid all of the extra preservatives that come with the mixes.
Likewise, anything that is in a kit or frozen can be recreated at home with fresh ingredients. Have you noticed the serving size of some of these foods lately? I could feed a family of five with double helpings on what it would cost to purchase just two or three of those frozen meals.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here or subscribe to the blog using the subscription box on the right.
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