Saving on Groceries

I know a few people who buy $600-$700 of groceries at once and still say they have nothing to eat! My husband and I rarely spend more that $100 at at time, and we find that stocks us up. Why is it that some people get so much for so little, and others have a heart attack every time the cashier reads the total? Here are a few changes we have made to make our money stretch further:

1. Buy what is in season - This might seem really obvious but not a lot of people buy and stock up in season.  One of the things I love doing "in season" is going to pick your own farms.  It's a great way to spend the day together with  my husband and we can freeze things like berries to put in our cereal all year around.  I also love watching for deals at the farmers market.  Last year I bought 20 lbs of red peppers for a good price, sliced them, blanched them and froze them.  I add them to everything, omelettes, pasta, stirfry.

2. Meal plan. - We are working on this one! I try to meal plan from the flyers and use what's on sale. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't - meat can be frozen so I don't have to use it in the same week, but if it's veggies, then I really have to figure out how to use them!

3. Shop with coupons and, very minimum, the flyer. - I like coupons, sales and discounted products.  I find I save a fair amount of money going up and down the aisles and finding the sale items, both what is listed in the flyer and what is not.  I also love to buy meat when it's marked down and through it in the freezer.

4. Know what you can freeze and stock up when you find a good sale.  Note, 20 cents off is not a good sale (unless maybe the item is under a dollar).  When I find a really good sale I like to stock up.  For example, paper towel is really expensive and I hate paying a lot of money for something I'm going to throw out, but at that time I had two puppies and we were in need of paper towels, I bought enough for $20 to last me over a year!  It was a good investment because we needed them, and we were able to store them.  I don't care what people on Extreme Couponing do, cereal under the bed is not good storage! Only stock up on items you would use anyway, don't use sales as excuse to buy things!

What tips and strategies do you use to keep your monthly grocery bill under control?


Credit: (Photo)

Reno Update - A Series of Unfortunate Events

We started with our renovations a couple of weeks ago but last weekend was the start of the major renos.  Last weekend we took stripped down the walls and took out the old bathtub.  I bought myself We bought a nice big soaker tub!  The new bathtub was a little hard to get in, but it managed, after a lot of cuss words, to fit just right.  Then the problems came....

Our shower sprang a leak and we ran downstairs to turn off the water, turned the tap... and nothing. That's right, our main water shut off decided that would be the perfect time to break. Not a big deal right? We will just call the city and have the water turned off from the road.

While we were waiting for the city, we noticed that the leak was draining through the floor, down into the basement and over the wall with the electrical panel.  Nice..... Two hours later, city arrives and turns out the curb shut off is broken too. Luckily, we were able to shut off the hot water tank and stop the majority of the leak.  No hot water for a week meant leaving for work at 5:30am everyday to shower at work...that is an hour I'd like to never see again!

Now, almost a week later (and many many phone calls), we finally got the water shut off long enough to replace the main valve. In order to do that, they had to shut off the water to the entire street (sorry neighbours!).

So after a week of dealing with the City (which most people were pleasant, just took a long time to get anything done) and an $1100 plumber bill... we are back on track to getting our bathroom completed.

Except that $1100 was the money we had to finish the tiling in the upstairs bathroom so we could have a shower again!

But hey, we have running water again (hot and cold) and we get to have safe electricity, so I really can't complain.

Did I mention a tire on the car also blew this week? AND I managed to slice open my finger in the kitchen (something I've never done before).

All's I can say is TGIF!

On a Scale of 1-10: How Important is Money to You?

I recently started reading "Smart Couples Finish Rich" by David Bach. One of the questions he asks early in the book is "On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being "money is the root of all evil," and 10 being "money is more important to be than anything else"), ask yourself, how important is money to me?

I really had to stop and think about this one, I think money really is a bit of both.  I thought about it, and I came up with 6 at this point in my life.

I have to emphasis that I say at this point in my life for several reasons.  One of my top three priorities right now is getting out of debt and getting on the right track with money.  Obviously money being in my top three priorities shows that is it important to me.

Another one of my top three priorities is my family. Right now, our family consists of just my husband and I, but we are hoping to be able to add another soon.  One of my dreams is to be a stay at home Mom.  I would have to rely on my husbands income in order to stay at home, so his income is important.  We need money for him to take school courses, the more education he has, the more opportunities he will have in his field.  I am lucky to work at a wonderful non profit organization, but reality is, I don't make a lot of money there.  I also don't have a university degree and so I most likely don't have as high of earning potential. (There's always those exceptions out there though).

Money is important to me, but it's important in a way that I can use it to take care of my family and have a little fun too. It's not important to me to have a big house, or a brand new Mercedes.  That might be important to some people which is fine but I have chosen different goals.

David Bach continues by asking "What do you think your partner's answer is?" and "What is your partner's answer?".  I had a bit of trouble thinking what my husband might answer.  I thought he might answer a 3 or 4.  He has the same goal of me being a stay at home Mom and he wants our finances under control.

Before my husband and I started dating, he was really good with money.  Sure, he was a boy and bought his  "toys", his video games and dvd's, but he also saved a lot and paid his own education with no help and no loans!  It was very impressive to me!  I have to admit, I was the one who got him to spend a little more freely, but I think I taught him it's ok to have a little fun.  We still differ slightly on what we like to spend our "fun" money on.  He still likes games but I really enjoy food.

My Husband's answer was 5.  So a 5 and a 6, we aren't that far off.  I think that will help us work together in the long run. Now off to read more of the book!

Debt Update

Despite not being productive in much over the last month, we've managed to stick (mostly) to our budget and get some more debt paid off:

Credit Card #1: $0

Credit Card #2: $884.56

Line of Credit: $8 557.27

We've made a lot of progress with our line of credit, I am hoping to make it under $8 000 by the end of March/1st week of April - it's going to be pretty close!

The credit card has a balance because of the renovations we are doing right now.  We purchased the materials all on credit, but we already have the money in savings for this project, so it's just a matter of paying it off.  That feels so good to say!

Menu Planning Mission

I am the worst for menu planning. I always seem to have a taco kit with no ground beef or sour cream, or a hog dogs and hamburgers in the freezer with no buns.  I love to stock up and buy what's on sale, but I still often feel like I have nothing to eat!

My mission over the next month or so is to find a menu planning system that works.  I would like to be able to buy my groceries at once and not have to run back to the store for one thing that I forgot.  In fact, I'd like to really lengthen my time between trips to the store.

I've been doing some research online and hopefully I can figure out something soon that works for our family!

We're Renovating!

When we bought our house, we decided on a five year plan where we would renovate and then sell. We have lived in our house for 2 years already and we have done some smaller renovations so far but nothing big. We decided we would renovate the downstairs bathroom, turning it from a half bath into a full bath. Then once we were able to shower downstairs, we would renovate the upstairs bathroom completely. Here is what our half demolished basement bathroom looks like now:

We have a long way to go, but so far it's been a lot of fun destructing the bathroom and picking out new things for the new bathroom!

10 Pound Challenge Update

I've been trying to decide if I should bother posting am update because I haven't lost any weight. I've been hovering around the same two or three pounds, right now I'm a pound or so heavier than when I started.

I've gained a bit of weight since I started my new job in October, but if I'm honest with myself it's mostly because of the delicious food the cafeteria serves here. I do more walking now at this job then I did at my last. I've also been able to take some free fitness classes and use the gym.

Last month I bought myself a fitbit. It's like a calorie counter on steroids. I keep it in my pocket all day at work and I can go home and see a graph of how active I've been during the day. It's a great visual of how much time is spent not moving! It also motivates me to increase my activity. I'm no where near my 10 000 steps everyday, but I'm getting closer! It's been worth every penny to me!

I've made big steps towards not eating out! We have been eating at home more regularly. I think this alone will help me lose a few pounds. I haven't managed to kick the soda habit, but I'm drinking a lot less!

I think the biggest thing I've realized is being skinny isn't really a high priority. Being healthy is. I want to eat healthy and have an active lifestyle but the numbers on the scale don't matter to me anymore. I need to make sure I'm healthy and in a healthy weight range. I'm pretty close to the high end of my healthy weight range, so I need to make sure I don't gain weight.

I need to make sure that my lifestyle is based on healthy choices and happiness, no obsessive scale watching (which I tend to do very well!)

Where We Stand Now

Over the last month, my hubby and I have made some progress in coming up with a five year plan.

I'm still struggling to finish my course I'm taking now. It's not that its really hard but I'm having trouble finding the time or energy to work on it. We have so many projects going on right now! I am determined to get my course done, I don't want to waste the money I've spent on the course.

My husband decided to go a different route with his school. He will still get his degree but he can take the courses more spread out and it will end up costing us about $5000 less.

Our big goal for 2012 is to pay off our line of credit, which I'm happy to say we are on track for paying it off by December!

With our new budget, we have also been able to put away a fair amount in savings, which we have decided to use part of to do some renovations.

The most exciting part is, with my hubby not going to school full time and us having our finances under control, we can start planning for kids next year!

Oh Boy, What a Month

February ended up a pretty crazy month for me and I didn't get anything I wanted done, including my no spend challenge. The first couple of days went ok, with the only money we spent was $3 for parking to a seminar on financial management which was largely about goal setting. I will go into more detail about it later.

 We also had a car problem that ended up costing us $1000! That was very unexpected. Our car is still covered by warranty but apparently they only cover the parts and not the service/test to go with it. Rip off! After putting that $1000 back on the line of credit, I felt like giving up.

 Later in the month, my Mom had surgery and my husband and I did a lot of running around, helping out my Dad with watching the dogs, grocery shopping and visits at the hospital. It was a very busy couple of weeks where we didn't even get home before 9pm any nights. Of course we had to stop at home and let our dogs outside and give them a bit of quality time. Luckily we are home more now!

 My virus protection on my computer had expired and I managed to get a virus on my computer while I was waiting for my husband to update it (he's the tech guy in our house). He ended up wiping my whole computer just to be safe.

 Work has been super crazy too, whew! Glad February (and half of March) is over and I can get back to blogging!