Being gluten free, making my own cookies is a great way to save money
I love food, and I love budgeting. But when we had to tighten the belt a little on grocery spending, nevertheless, I got a little worried. Over a month in now, I have to say we haven't really missed out on much. So as I said in my 'Money' post earlier this month I'd write some tips on how to eat on a budget.
Be Realistic
Like with my other money advice, make sure your budget is realistic. If you know you can't live without coffee find a way to incorporate it into your food budget. I'm a serious sweet tooth, so we buy one big block of chocolate a week (whatever's on special) and have a little each night after dinner Budgeting for these temptations is safer than just being tempted by what's on special and then getting a shock at the checkout. It all adds up. It is more cost effective to shop monthly, but for us shopping weekly works better - set your own boundaries and work within them.
Plan Your Meals
This is the best way to avoid food wastage. In the past we often accidentally wasted feta because it was left over from another meal and found it's way to a back corner of the fridge. Now I plan meals around those short-life products - a block of feta means two to three meals that feature feta over the next week. And we shop to the meal plan. I plan five meals a week and base the other two meals around what veges we have, and what else is left in our fridge.
If you're on a tight budget, pick one or two 'luxury' items a week to make your meals a bit less bland and plan around those. It's great if one of those is a luxury that goes a long way - like parmesan cheese or sundried tomatoes - these last us for a month or more and pack a lot of flavour, so for their lifespan are actually fairly inexpensive.
And it's important to plan for more than dinner. You need to also take into account breakfast, lunch and snacks. I find I need high protein foods in the mornings to kick start my day, so cheese, eggs and smoked chicken are staples in our house. Murray is always in a hurry (mornings are not his thing) so we always have vast quantities peanuts in the pantry (cheap protein, high calorie) and plenty of little snacky things like Cruskits (we have fruit too but he's less keen so that's more for me and the rabbit). If you cook enough dinner to cover lunch the next day, you'll save on time in the morning, and you won't spend unnecessary money buying lunch. I highly recommend this. If you don't need it for lunch, you can freeze the extra and that's a meal you don't have to cook one night when you're tired.
Always Use A List
Shopping without a list is a very dangerous thing. It's a great way to spend money on things you don't need, and to forget to buy the things you do, which can mean paying bigger prices picking them up from your local dairy later on. I am mega-anal, and go through grocery receipts so I have a rough idea of what most of our regular groceries cost, and cost out our list as I write it so I know (roughly) whether it's in budget.
How do you know what to put on your list? I have weekly and fortnightly staples which are always first to go on the list. These are things we consider necessary - in our house eggs and cat food are a weekly necessity, coffee is fortnightly. Then I check the pantry/fridge/freezer to see what we've run out of/are running out of and put those onto the list. Then I do a quick tally of how much it'll cost so far, and based on that, plan what meals I'll make. If we've run out of a lot of stuff, we have very inexpensive meals (using lentils, veges, stuff from the freezer). And once we've done that, if there's any extra money it goes on extra tinned food or snacky meal things for Murray (he eats much more than me, and more than I'm prepared to cook for).
Knowing (roughly) how much the items you usually buy cost makes preparing a useful shopping list much easier. If you don't know, shop with a calculator (or use the one on your phone). Get your necessities first, then if there is money left over, get the other items on your list. Once you've done this a few times, you'll have a better feel for things and can probably start shopping without it.
Buy In Season
You can save crazy money just buying stuff that's in season - and it's fresher and (usually) grown locally, so carries less food miles. You can sometimes buy strawberries in Summer at three punnets for $5, so it seems stupid to spend $6 on a punnet in Winter. Especially when you can freeze them. Yeah, it's not quite the same as you can't just eat them like in Summer, but you can use them in smoothies, salads and desserts, and they're still full of antioxidants.
When avocados were cheap I made a bunch into guacamole, froze it in little individual portions (used silicon mini-muffin pan as easy to get out later) then put into a freezer bag. When a friend dropped around a bunch of lemon I squeezed them and froze the juice in ice cubes, then moved them into freezer bags. And those apples from Maggies garden? Peeled, stewed and bagged in the freezer. My favourite is charring red capsicums (cheap over Summer) then freezing them so have sweet roast capsicum to add to meals all year around (well, almost, we just ran out). Yum! And way cheaper than paying for a capsicum in Winter. The freezer is totally your friend here - and that's great because a well-packed freezer is actually more efficient - so keeping it full also helps save on power!
Shopping Around
Shopping around isn't always going to save you money - it's important to factor petrol and time into this equation. Driving to Orewa to go to Bin Inn once a month may prove more costly than just buying those things at the supermarket. In saying this, I highly recommend not buying vegetables at the grocery store. Even Pak n Save charges crazy amounts for regular veges. Guess how much a courgette was going to cost me from there the other day? $3! That's more than a king size block of chocolate - I put it back. We do our vege shopping at an Asian grocery store just around the corner from Pak n Save and it's much cheaper. And if I happen to be in the local mall I'll check out what's on special at Countdown - again, only buying things on my list, or that are regular staples in our house.
If highly recommend checking out your local Asian grocery store - some of them are terrible, but many of them are fine and you can pick up ok quality fruit, veges and other stuff at very reasonable prices. We spend under $20 a week on fruit and veges, and that includes our eggs (free range eggs are cheaper there than at Pak n Save). Often rice and other staples (for us, rice noodles) are cheaper there than at the supermarkets. And if you're looking for bulk bin products, you'll often find them at Indian grocers - the cheapest way I've found to buy gluten free flours, beans and legumes - but again, only worth it if you aren't going out of your way to shop there.
Grow Your Own
I have never had a green finger. I was the one in the (farming) family that could not even grow radishes (and also didn't care a fig about growing radishes - farming fail). Despite this, I've learned how to grow some edible things, and that spending time setting up (soil/manure etc) makes everything a lot easier in the long run. Murray has always been the vege gardener, and I've always grown the herbs. His fingers are only slightly greener than mine, but we've still been able to cultivate chili, rhubarb, kale, silverbeet, Maori potatoes, tomatoes and the occasional strawberry, courgette or capsicum.
By far the two easiest things we've ever grown are silverbeet and kale. These are great as they are full of iron and B vitamins and are versatile and tasty. If you were to grow one thing, I'd recommend silverbeet - it seems to survive anything, and is pretty fast growing. I highly recommend growing your own herbs too. I tend to stick with the 'bushy' ones - oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary and the 'sturdy' ones - mint and parsley as they don't die as easily as things like basil. Fresh herbs add huge flavour to anything and cost next to nothing to cultivate, so are a great, cost effective way to add something special to cheap meals.
Can't put a garden in your rental property, or live in an apartment? No excuse! Many veges do well in pots, and some even indoors. Our in-laws grow basil on their kitchen windowsill and rocket and other salad greens in a long plastic trench pot thing on the deck. We've grown capsicums and chilis in pots - the chilis actually grew slightly better.
And once you've got something growing well - even just one or two things, make friends with your neighbours, or talk to your friends and swap produce! Heaps of people have fruit trees that produce more than they can eat - we almost always have oranges going free to good homes. And our neighbours (lucky us) often have an excess of eggs. And don't forget about 'weed' foods like puha and watercress - they are fantastic and full of vitamins. Free food is the BEST food!
Every Little Bit Counts
Small things add up to big things, and it's important to remember this with both money and food. If we underspend on the groceries - which we often do these days, the extra money either goes to the side to buy a foody treat (like ice creams or wine...) or gets put on our Pak n Save Christmas Club card. The club card is great as you can put as little as $5 on at a time. So once we've done our shopping, and know if there's any extra, I put that in there. Even if you only save $5 every other week, over a year that's $130 extra saved for Christmas groceries - which for us is plenty!
I hate wasting food, so find ways to use up all the little 'bits' left in our fridge. Necessity is the mother of invention, and random bits of food have helped me invent an array of random meals - some to be repeated (weird lentil and pumpkin meatball/dumplings) and some not. A little bit of left over sour cream can add lovely creaminess to soups or bolognaise, refried beans adds viscosity and flavour. And don't waste those celery leaves! They're edible! Wash and chop them and add to soups or stews. Roasted a chicken? Don't throw out that carcass, use it to make stock and pop it into the freezer. All of it adds up to more meals that cost nothing but creativity and a little extra of your time.
Make It Fun
I never used to trust Murray to do the grocery shopping. When we first went on our strict budget, I'd do the shopping (armed with a calculator) and he would hang out with Etta in the car (I don't drive). It wasn't the best way to do it, but now I have a better idea of what our regular groceries cost, I'm better at costing out our shopping list, so am happy to send him out. And he's awesome at it now, because now he COMPETES with my budget to prove his awesomeness. This is fun for him, and helps distract him from his desire/tendency to impulse shop which is great. I'm a weird, anal nerd, so shopping within a budget is just fun for me full stop. I have a Christmas fund to watch go up every time we save on groceries. That's fun for me.
It might not be fun for you, but something else might be. Like competing with your flatmates to see who can get the best deal on chicken (or whatever) each week. Or seeing how much free food you can score by whatever (legal) means. Or calculating how many food miles you've saved by shopping seasonally. Or giving Living Below The Line a go one week, and spending the extra money from that week on super exciting stuff (chocolate and wine {or charity}) the next. However you do it, it's important to focus on the positive aspects of living on a budget.
