The month of March is wrapping up and my family did really well on our budget. We still have a couple of months before the income reduction takes place, but we do want to see what is possible for us, in order to judge if this is doable or if we need greater income. Here's a really good sign -- we had a super-low credit card bill this month, perhaps the lowest that it's been in a couple of years.
The Groceries
One of the issues with working with basic ingredients is the need to regularly prepare foods from scratch. With this idea in mind, I've spent some time each day preparing individual food items for ease of use, such as peeling and trimming a dozen carrots at a time, shredding a head of cabbage and making a bottle of cole slaw dressing, toasting some raw almonds for snacking, and making scratch pudding and putting into small jars for homemade snack-pack pudding cups. I estimate that I spend 1 hour per day (in addition to regular meal prep) making these easy to grab foods that are appreciated by myself and my family. So, for 7 extra hours per week, or 31 extra hours this month, I've been able to strip away about $125.00 from our grocery budget. $4.03 is not a great hourly wage, but I've been able to do these little kitchen jobs anytime that it works out for me.
Besides the money savings, I feel that we are eating more real foods and less processed junk. It seems "cleaner," more like how we're supposed to eat. I think this is a fantastic bonus!
While I sit here and make out next month's shopping list, I have $1.87 leftover from March's grocery budget to roll over to April's. I don't feel the need to go out and buy anything else in these last couple of days with that $1.87. So, going into April, I have $126.87 for food items. In making out my list, again I had to whittle it away a bit to fit the budget. I primarily made my choices based on nutrition for the dollar spent, allowing for a couple of non-nutritive items, too, such as coffee and sugar.
This past month, my two big stock-up items were a 25-lb bag of yellow onions and 21 pounds of ground beef. I still have a lot of both of those items in stock. My two big stock-up items for April will be a 25-lb sack of dried pinto beans and a 50-lb sack of all-purpose flour. Both of those items are in amounts which should last our family several months, providing an inexpensive protein source and a basic baking ingredient for our meals and snacks. Pinto beans tend to be the least expensive dried bean in my area, with versatility to use them in several different preparations.
In addition to the beans and flour, I'll also be buying smaller amounts of dried white beans (for sandwich spread), butter, orange juice, apple juice, raisins, bananas, carrots, potatoes, frozen spinach, chicken leg quarters, hot dogs, whole wheat flour, canned tomato paste, shredded cheese, sugar, coffee, and enough milk and eggs to last the month. (One of my promises to our family at the beginning of this month was that there would always be plenty of eggs, milk, and bread. I kept that promise, ensuring family members that there would always be something from which to make a meal or snack.) I'll be shopping at Walmart, WinCo, Fred Meyer (Senior Discount Day on April 2 -- just have to be 55+ -- no special card, just tell the cashier you're over 55), and Smart Foods/Cash & Carry.
Easter is in April, but I do have a budgeted amount to spend for this holiday that is separate from the grocery budget. I've reduced this budget considerably from last year, but there is still enough to cover the cost of a ham and next years' Easter egg hunt candy. (You may recall that I buy the next year's Easter candy on clearance after the holiday and store until the following year.) So, at least there is no need to use the grocery budget for the Easter ham. We also have 2 birthdays in this month. We have a couple of gifts cards for a restaurant in our area. I offered these to our daughters for their birthday celebration, but they turned us down, wanting burgers and fries at home instead. So, we'll have a dual birthday lunch celebration in a restaurant using those gift cards. (Lunch is often less expensive than dinner, hence the lunch celebration.)
We're doing really, really well, and I'm about as surprised as anyone else! I'm still not sure if this is sustainable. Although, if there had to be an optimal time to begin this, it is now in early spring. I've begun planting the vegetable garden. I planted snow peas last week and have just this week started cool season greens from seeds, indoors. Our early spring garden has lots of watercress, sorrel, chives, kale, garlic chives, and Swiss chard to provide variety to the narrow range of veggies that I'm purchasing. Plus, our rhubarb is now up and should be ready to harvest in mid-April. And, I still have some canned and frozen vegetables in store. We're taking this just one month at a time. Life is good.
