The Save Up & Clear Out Project

I read about a Pantry Challenge a while ago.  Parts of it sounded intriguing; I liked the idea of using up some of the random things that have been on the shelves for a while, or that we have just way too much of, or that tend to go bad before we use them.  There was a great sale on canned tuna a while back, so now we have a lot of tuna in the pantry.  I recently had to throw away a box of beer bread mix from a specialty store because it expired before I got around to using it.  I never seem to use up more than half of a carton of sour cream before it goes bad.  I liked the idea of maybe addressing issues like these.  Part of it sounded kind of annoying, though; I don’t always have the time to get super creative when it comes to meal planning.  Hubby’s work schedule is weird (to put it nicely) and some days there’s a very limited window of time to get dinner ready between when I get home from work and when he has to leave for work.  It doesn’t leave much wiggle worm for extreme creativity or made from scratch everything.  And we like food.  A lot.  Neither one of us are terribly happy when dinner isn’t great. 

One of the perks of the Pantry Challenge is that in theory you’re able to save up the money that you normally spend on groceries, or use it for another purpose.  I definitely liked the sound of that.  The bills, even with insurance, from my medical issues earlier this year are insane.  We also had some septic tank issues last month, so that was a big hit to the savings account.  It could definitely stand an infusion.

I haven’t been very diligent about keeping the grocery spending as low as I can.  We’ve switched to organic milk and organic beef.  Because I’m trying to avoid soy now we’re pretty limited as to which brands we can buy of a lot of different things.  I’ve found myself justifying a higher grocery bill because we’re trying to eat healthier and buying more organic foods.  But I need to be more conscientious of checking to see which stores offer the best deals on organic milk and beef and trimming the cost of other grocery items to help balance it out.  In an effort to do this we’ve allotted $200.00 for groceries this month.  It works out to about $44.45 per week when you factor in the half week at the beginning of the month, with about $22.20 for the short week. 

We’ve also slipped into the habit of eating out quite a bit more than we should.  It started slowly, but has built into a pretty bad habit.  It’s kind of shifted from “hey our favorite Mexican place sounds great for Friday night” to something along the lines of “I’m tired/had a bad day at work/don’t feel like cooking/didn’t defrost anything/it’s just easier/ we won’t have to clean up the kitchen”, which leads to eating out a lot more than we should.   It’s bad for the budget, and has brought the weight loss to a halt.  Fortunately we haven’t gained, but restaurant portions aren’t the way to keep that from happening. 

The eating out thing is a little tricky, because as I said before, we like food.  We like trying new foods, and going new places.  We don’t have much time off together, so we tend to eat out when we do as something that we both enjoy doing to spend time together.  We talked about it and decided that saying we’re not eating out this month is just setting ourselves up for failure, so we’ve imposed a limit.  We’re allowing ourselves three times of eating out together this month, and we each get one time of eating out on our own with friends or co-workers.  If we both don’t use our own option by the end of the month we’ll allow ourselves the fourth time together. 

We’re hoping that we’ll save some money this way, start losing weight again, use up some of the things that we have too much of right now, and eliminate a lot of food waste by actually using the bottles of salad dressing, bunches of herbs, cartons of sour cream, leftovers, and everything else that ends up languishing in the back of the refrigerator.  I’m also hoping to come up with some new recipes this way; some of the best recipes are born of desperation, so I’m hoping for some good ones. 

One of my other objections to the Pantry Challenge was the daily blogging of what you eat.  Daily blogging doesn’t seem to happen for me lately.  And I think that kind of daily blogging makes for very boring reading!  Maybe, maybe if you’re someone like Kate Middleton the world cares what you eat for breakfast on Tuesday, otherwise I don’t think so.  So, I plan to only post recipes or quick meal ideas, or how to make something cheaply.  I hope that will keep it interesting. 

Basically this all comes down to our very own Save Up & Clear Out Project; $200.00 for groceries this month and limiting eating out to four times this month to save up some money, using up things we have on hand to clear out the pantry and freezer, and sharing recipes and time savers we utilize to do this.  I’d also love to read about any of your quick go-to meal ideas.  

Saving With Store Brands

I came across this article today about saving money on groceries by purchasing store brands.  According to the article, switching from name brands to store brands can save you about 25 percent.  The article does go on to state that not all store brands taste the same as name brands, and that the nutrition content may be different.

Personally, I believe that buying store brands only saves money if the store brand is something you will actually use.  Here are some tips I’ve picked up along my quest to reduce our grocery budget:

- Store brand ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, spices, etc) seem to be more similar to name brands.  We’ve never noticed a difference in using these store brand ingredients instead of name brands in cooking and baking.

- Store brand prepared foods seem to taste very different than their name brand counterparts.  We notice the biggest difference in things like pasta sauce and canned soup.  It doesn’t save money to buy “cheaper” jars of pasta sauce we’re never going to eat.  We are better off to wait for sales on the brands we like. 

- Vegetables seem to be equally as good when purchased as a store brand instead of a name brand.  We buy a lot of frozen spinach and canned beans, usually store brands, and have never noticed a difference.  This is especially true if they’re going in a casserole, soup, or chili. 

- If you have skin allergies or sensitive skin laundry detergent is not something to try to save money on by experimenting with different brands!  I have very sensitive skin and most laundry detergents turn me into a miserably itchy walking rash, sometimes leading to a doctor’s visit for a steroid shot.  In addition to making me miserable, that costs a lot more money in the long run.  I have learned to just stick with the three brands of laundry detergent that I know won’t trigger a bad reaction.  I try to save money by stocking up on them when they’re on sale, not by buying “cheaper” alternatives. 

- Once in a while some grocery stores will run a “buy theirs try ours free” special where you receive the store brand version of certain items free when you buy the name brand.  This is an excellent, risk free, opportunity to try the store brand and determine what you like and don’t like.  You can find out about promotions like this by signing up for the store’s emails. 

- Don’t underestimate the value of shopping sales and using coupons.  We’re fortunate enough to live close to several different grocery stores, so I always check the sale ads to see who has what on sale before we go shopping and only get what is the best deal at each store.  Many times the sale price on a name brand is cheaper than the store brand.  Name brands also have coupons sometimes, which just add to the savings.  Watch for in-store promotions where buying a certain number of items from the same brand will take money off of your total bill.  I love to use this when I can match coupons to the items that are on sale.  They usually work out to be anywhere from about 75 percent off to free. 

I also try to stock up on things we use a lot when they’re on a really good sale.  Most grocery stores seem to have about a six week sale cycle, so I try to buy about six week’s worth of items we use a lot of while they’re on sale instead of paying full price for them later on. 

Shopping this way has resulted in a few amazingly cheap shopping trips.  My best to date has been $125.00 worth of groceries for $25.00.  I wish I could tell you this happens every week, but it doesn’t.  Shopping this way on an average grocery trip usually saves us between 40 and 60 percent, which is still good enough to make me really happy.