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Staving off deprivation (and scurvy) when you cut the food budget. Here’s how to spend less on food when the prices keep on rising.

In our quest to become mortgage free we had to consider spending less on our weekly grocery budget. The big question is How do we spend less on food when the prices keep rising? Are there anymore ways to cut the grocery budget?

We are a family of four and two of those four are teenagers…and one is…A BOY! Keeping a teenage boy fed is a full time job for Mr. Spend Anon.

If you’ve followed any of our story you will know that we went through major job losses, massive debt and what we’ve come to call our Personal Economic Collapse. In order to survive we had to do some drastic cost cutting so today, we have already gotten rid of the usual “ten things to cancel when you’re broke”; and taken to “ten things to stop buying and start making” alongside “How to make more money with a Side hustle“.

We knew we needed an additional $500 per month in savings to go with the extra $1500 per month I earn by going back to work 5 days (from 3) but, where was that going to come from?

Grocery Budget challenge.

Rising food prices. Whatcha gonna Do? Spendaholics anonymous

How to save on food when the prices keep rising.

Like most people we rise to a challenge. It can be quite exhilarating when you succeed.

Currently our weekly grocery budget for food is $200 and this does not include my “Fizz” allowance or Mr. Spend Anons appreciation of ALL THINGS BEER (which would probably add another $45 a week to the $200). The challenge is to bring the food PLUS Fizz budget in at $150 – $185.

We already know that entirely deleting my lovely Prosecco and his IPA’s is not feasible. We become miserable if we have no “niceties” and there’s no surer way to failure than by being unrealistic. Deprivation will derail you.

Added hurdles! What are the projected food price rises?

2019 Projected rise in the cost of food currently stands at 1.5% to 3% overall with the biggest rise to be seen in Vegetables at 4% to 6%. This is your HEADS UP to start a little garden for salad and a patio pot for tomatoes people!!

Take a look at Global News Canada Price Report for 2019.

If this lovely little snippet doesn’t make you sit up and take notice then Good luck and God bless.

Week One – challenge accepted.

Food is an emotive subject. We think about what we might “fancy” for tea or look at Pinterest pictures of delicious looking concoctions and think Bingo – that’s tonight’s dinner sorted. We give no thought as to what we have on hand and, if you can find the dish in a convenient, ready to Nuke package then, Winner winner, chicken dinner!

This approach isn’t going to work for us (or you) long term so, what’s first?

Inventory.

Whatcha Got? Do you already have basic pantry ingredients? Is the freezer stuffed with forgotten morsels of seafood or meat?

Our first step is to inventory every cupboard, freezer and the refrigerator. List your items by category and add quantities. There’s no

Expert help in Meal planning

point planning a meal for four with leftover chili when you only have a single serving portion and you don’t want to keep doubling back to the freezer during your next step.

Meal Planning and Checking the flyers.

We like to do this simultaneously. Meal planning is not difficult if you follow a routine. We have Ground beef in the freezer and pasta sauce is on offer at “insert store name here”. With spices, rice and spaghetti (already on hand in the pantry) there’s spaghetti bolognese and chili con carne. Two meals planned. Try to base your planned meals around what you already have on hand for the most part.

Make a grocery list.

Once you have your weeks meals planned and have taken stock of everything you need to purchase to make this happen: make a list.

Take the list with you!

Shop the list.

Sounds easy enough right? It is for us if Mr. SA goes alone to the stores. I, on the other hand, am a recovering Spendaholic! Despite this, off we went yesterday with our grocery list and I only added TWO things (but for good reason, as you will see).

Access the Spendaholics Anonymous free Meal plan and Grocery list printables HERE.

Week One Meal Plan in Casa De Spend Anon.

Practice what you preach

We like themes so ours looks like this:

Saturday (last night) :- Indian Night

Chicken curry (in our case Korma and Butter chicken) Sweet potato Aloo Gobi, Curried lentils, Cardamon rice and Naan bread.

Banana / choc chip bread.

Sunday :- Traditional English Roast Beef Dinner

Plus Yorkshire puds and stuffing and gravy.

Monday: – Chinese Night

Chow Mein, Veg Fried Rice, Honey Garlic Dry ribs

Tuesday :- Mexican Night

Taco’s…of course

Wednesday:- Soup n Sammitch 🙂

Tomato soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Thursday :- Italian night

Spaghetti and Meatballs, salad and Garlic Bread

Friday :- Pizza n Movie night

Home made Pizza

Breakfasts normally consist of Eggs, pancakes, toast or cereal except for Sunday when we have Brunch.

Lunches are leftovers or a Croissant stuffed with deli meat, cheese and salad and a yogurt. Snacks are pepperoni and cheese cubes.

Week One Grocery List

Beansprouts, Romaine, 1 x Yam (or sweet potato).

Croissants, tortilla wraps.

Yogurts, cheese, Milk, butter.

Broth.

Deli meat, Chicken, Bacon, Farmer sausage, Pepperoni’s, Roast (What is on offer?)

Chow Mein noodles, Pasta Sauce, Curry sauce x 2, canned veg

Dry ribs.

2L Peach cider. 2L Dry Apple Cider

What I added….from the disaster rack.

1 bag of 9 banana’s (very ripe) $1

1 bag of 12 assorted bread rolls $2

My bargains…

Bacon – 2 for $8 (two weekends brunch)

Pepperoni’s 2 for $8 (two weeks snacks)

Farmers sausage rounds – 2 packs of 9 for $9 (2 weekends brunch)

Dry Ribs 1 pack of frozen for $9

Beansprouts – marked down to $0.86c

As Chinese night is upon us I didn’t see any good reason to pass up the $0.86c beansprouts and buying the bacon and sausage using the offers I have covered two weekends with one weeks allowance.

The banana’s were used: 3 for Saturday’s banana choc chip bread and then portioned into the freezer for breakfast smoothies (or more bread next weekend).

On hand to use from Inventory

Ground Beef, Rice, Pasta, Potatoes, Carrots, corn, green beans, Spices, Eggs, Flour, choc chips, Lentils, hard taco shells, sour cream.

(Side note:- the carrots, corn and green beans are from my summer canning: grown in my garden. Sadly – we have used up all the home made and canned pasta sauce).

Week One Total cost…

Walmart (majority of items) $137.22

Superstore (Ribs and noodles) $11.28

Total $148.50 BOO YAH!

What about Fizz Anna? You said you NEEDED some of that!

I have decided to replace my beloved Prosecco (17.99 per 750ml bottle) with a placebo of sparkling peach cider at $10.30 for 2L. Adding a smaller dash of Orange juice than normal makes for a perfectly passable Brunch Mimosa. By maintaining my two flute max limit I am actually decreasing my calorific intake by 10 kcals per glass and saving $25 per week.

Mr. Spend Anon has also decided to replace his beloved beer with a refreshingly crisp Dry Apple cider in an attempt to also curb the ever expanding waistline. He has an additional 2L allowance. Calorie savings – off the chart. Cost savings $20 per week.

What was made from scratch?

Naan bread, Banana bread, curried lentils, Aloo Gobi, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, Meatballs, soup, pizza and usually bread. (Remember I picked up a marked down bag of 12 artisan dinner buns…ciabatta with olives…yum).

Any other money saving tricks to be had here in week one?

Glad you asked. Mr Spend Anon has just taken the Roast Beast (AAA Angus outside Round 1.5kgs for $21.87) and sectioned it so that today we enjoy our traditional Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puds and on the horizon for next week I see sizzling steak fajita’s for Mexican night. Write that down!

Can we accomplish this mission?

Weekly food savings of $50 and Grog savings of $45 put us at an average $411.67 in savings per month. Not quite the $500 we need but… close enough for me to call this a win.

And… just to leave you with one more image, this is today’s brunch breakfast (which I loaded onto a ciabatta bun with olives to make a gourmet breakfast sandwich!

tomatoes and mushrooms because…you know…Scurvy!