The key to eating frugally is to shop for real value. Just because something is expensive doesn’t make it better than a similar item that is free.

If you can afford it and buying expensive food is important to you, then by all means do it. But many of us are wondering “does the benefit of buying expensive food outweigh the cost?” There are several reasons why food is expensive. If you want to save money, don't buy these things.

1. The item is rare or hard to difficult to produce. Oranges in Michigan, for example. Oranges cost more than apples because we don’t have orange groves here. But did you know that an orange is not the only thing that contains vitamin C? Strawberries, bell peppers and summer squash are also high in vitamin C and don’t cost anything to grow here in Michigan.
2. The item is packaged nicely or is name brand. There’s Barilla spaghetti, and then there’s Walmart spaghetti. The Barilla box looks more appealing, and it’s placed on the middle shelf where it’s easy to reach. The Walmart spaghetti is in an ugly box, and you have to bend down to pick it up (I know, that’s a lot of work). What’s in both boxes? An equal amount of identical spaghetti. Depending on what you buy there may be slight differences between off-brand and name-brand, but both brands serve the same purpose, and many times you get a better deal by buying the off-brand.
3. The item is convenient. Those pre-cut and arranged platters of cheese and crackers at the deli? The cheese, meat and crackers are only half of what you pay for. The other half is what you pay for not having to cut up and arrange all those cheese cubes and crackers. The $4 TV dinner that includes $1 worth of food, or the $4 quart of yogurt that cost $1 to make; all very convenient. We pay a lot for convenience. In Pizza Night, I show you how to do most of your own food prep (in a short amount of time) to save money.

 
Are you shopping for value, or something else?

A lot of shoppers think they are paying for value- for health, their kids, or they think they are buying more time. Let’s see if this is really the case.

For Health

You do NOT have to eat spinach every week to be healthy. A fresh, local alternative to spinach is the lambsquarter weed, but who thinks about eating weeds? Nobody, but this does not change the nutritional content of lambsquarter. Likewise, organ meats are cheap and considered “gross” or “for poor people”, but they are highly nutritious.

Because We Love Our Kids

Would you believe that kids like Walmart ketchup just as much as they like Hunts? A kid, if he has not watched a lot of TV commercials, will like cheap “Fruity O’s” that come in a big plastic bag just as much as he likes real Fruit Loops. Don’t kid yourself- kids can’t tell the difference. I can hardly tell the difference. Besides, who is the boss at your house anyway? You or your 5-year-old? Do you think you can truly make your kid happy or show them real love by purchasing “kid-friendly” processed garbage?

We’re Too Busy

Is it really the case that we “don’t have time” to cook, or that we just don’t want to? I imagine many of us spend more time on Facebook and other social networks than we spend in the kitchen. You might think you are busy doing "more important things". Or maybe you really do want to cook more, but you’re not good at managing your time and setting boundaries. (Once again, my book Pizza Night will help you make time to cook.) In many cases, buying convenience food is just putting a band-aid on bigger time-management issues. Being "busy" does not make you any more important than someone who has time to cook.

What does this all boil down to?

One word: ego. I have shopped for ego myself, you know. When I "didn’t have time" to make cookies for a party (bad time management), I used to buy Oreos. Not the identical “chocolate sandwich cookies”, but real Oreos that cost twice as much, because I didn’t want to be seen as the cheapy cheap-pants that didn’t even buy real Oreos. To me it didn’t matter- they were both just as good. But in my mind I could hear everyone’s thoughts: “There’s Bethany with her cheap cookies. She knows that everyone likes oreos, but she is too cheap to spend money on the real thing. She doesn’t care about us enough to buy what we really like. Boo for her- we’re not eating fake oreos, and she can take them all back home.” So I paid twice as much.

Being frugal can be hard if it feels like everyone around you is trying to “beat the Joneses”. Even in something as small as buying groceries. Buying Walmart pop instead of Mountain Dew just looks bad, you know what I mean? Or in higher income (and spending) circles, you might feel bad because Housewife-Down-The-Street makes organic quinoa tabouli, and you make brown rice. Maybe people really will look down on you for “being cheap” or "being poor", but it could be a fear that is only in your head.

I challenge you (and myself) to shop logically. Put aside your own ego in every way, shape, or form. Shop for value, not for status, pretty packaging, or convenience. This will really help you save.

Does buying expensive food help you feel better about yourself? Why?

 Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post: Growing Savings

Don’t even bother cutting coupons if you are eating out once or more per week. Why? I will use my personal food & grocery bill to demonstrate:

September Food Costs
Groceries: $88
Dinner at Ruby Tuesday (birthday meal!)- $32.00
Dinner at Local Restaurant A: $17.30
Dinner at Local Restaurant B: $12.57
McDonalds (a meal here and there): $12.55

Total eating out: $74.42

Do you see something fishy here? My “eating out” spending is almost as much as groceries for the whole month!

Percentage wise, I could cut my food bill in half if we stopped eating out. Now my point here is not that you stop eating at restaurants. Hubs and I still eat out fairly often and still spend half of what the USDA recommends for a “thrifty” couple. BUT, please be aware of how much restaurant meals and fast food are costing you.

Ways to save at a restaurant:

1.      Pick a cheaper place to eat. Local restaurants where we live are half the price of higher-end chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesdays.

2.      Skip drinks, appetizers, and desserts. An appetizer is what fills you up before you even get started on your meal. Seven dollars for crushed ice, lemonade and a strawberry! Isn’t it weird how a $2 bottle of pop triples in value when it’s poured into a glass?? And just so you know, restaurants don’t have dibs on dessert. You can get good cheap desserts at a fast food joint, ice cream parlor, or even the grocery store. Mmmmm.

How to save at home:

               A fun alternative to eating out is to plan an “extravagant” meal at home. For us (as planned in my Pizza Night book), this meal is a Friday Night Burger Bar- sizeable homemade burgers on store-bought buns (or homemade pretzel buns!) with splendid toppings of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and whatever else goes on a burger. Bacon or French-fried onions, for example.

Though this “burger bar” might cost twice as much as a regular homemade meal (my meals run from $1-2), it is less than half of what a restaurant meal costs. You could even throw in drinks, desserts and appetizers for less than it costs to eat out.

Do you enjoy eating out? What are some tips you have for saving money in this area?

This week we'll be discussing how to save on your grocery bill.

Hubs and I spend, on average, $120 a month on groceries. This summer was a funny case because while I didn't buy a lot of groceries (we ate out of the garden a lot) we did go out to eat more than we had this spring, so it evened out. Just for fun, I thought I would Google how much other couples spend on groceries. 

For a 19-50 y/o male (that's Hubs) and a 19-50 y/o female (that's me), the USDA recommends budgeting $81.80 per week for groceries. That is according to their "thrifty" plan, which is the cheapest option. The most expensive "liberal plan" option, recommends a whopping $162.40 per week. 

How much do you spend each week (or month) on groceries? Do you think the USDA recommendations are accurate? Why or why not?

When I was working on Pizza Night, I came across a 1940's cook book at my mother-in-law's house. It was called The Day-By-Day Cook Book; Balanced Menus for every day of the year, with 1,037 tested recipes. I couldn't believe it! The authors went through an incredible amount of work to bring me a different menu for every day of the year. I was tempted to try it- eating like a 1940's woman for a whole year. It would be kind of cool.

The problem with this Julie & Julia-esque menu planning system is that my life doesn't revolve around cooking, messing up different recipes every day and scouring the ends of the grocery store to find things like apricot nectar or mock turtle soup. Even though that would be cool.

The other problem is that I've got a whole pantry of potatoes, pears, squash, and other home-canned goods. Not to mention a freezer full of chicken, venison, strawberries, corn, and other home-grown vegetables. Shouldn't my daily menus revolve around those items? Why would I buy grapefruit when I've got apples, or get a Danish coffee ring at the bakery when I'm perfectly capable of making my own (or even something less stellar, but just as sugary)? 

That being said, I commend the authors of this book for their mammoth work. Each menu is beautifully crafted with several different items (not just "pizza" like some people's menus) for every meal. Each meal is well-balanced for optimum nutrition by 1940 standards. Although- dessert almost every night of the week? Is that balanced?

Unfortunately I cannot find this cookbook for sale online, but I do know of another menu plan that is easier, simpler, a quick read, and includes exactly ONE dessert recipe for the expanding of your waistline.

YOYO: You're On Your Own

Like I referenced in yesterday's post, saltines and peanut butter is a YOYO meal. It's a find-whatever-you-can meal. Scrounging, freezer diving, picking old french fries out of the baby's car seat- all YOYO meals.

I know that last example sounded a little gross, but I'm just trying to drive home the fact that everyone-fends-for-himself meal planning is NOT the way to go. Because of three things:

1. Unbalanced nutrition. When you eat whatever you can find, you miss out on essential nutrients. And I don't mean chocolate or sugar (you'll probably get plenty of that). People should be eating meals with vitamins and minerals, fats, carbs, and protein. Not what grows in the back of the fridge or under baby's car seat.

2. Erratic eating. This goes hand in hand with unbalanced nutrition. Before my husband got married, he would skip meals, and sustain himself on things like cottage cheese, bagels and cream cheese, or yogurt. For an entire day. While this is an interesting experiment for a single bachelor dude, it's probably not the best idea for anyone else. In addition to not eating enough, his ready-to-eat bread and dairy products were expensive. Other favorites of YOYO eaters? McDonalds, frozen Hot Pockets, ice cream and huge bags of candy. You know, the kind you keep in your truck.

3. A famine mentality. This is probably the most damaging of all YOYO effects. When you get in the habit of scrounging for food and/or eating erratically, it is easy to binge. It's easy to eat food just because it's there. Who knows when you'll find something this good again? So you just eat everything. You always take seconds and sometimes thirds- especially of "good" food like cake, cookies, or chips. When I used to make cookies, I would eat five or six. Sometimes more, plus licking the bowl- just to make sure I got some. I was like a squirrel stocking up for winter... on cookies. Now this might work for a growing teenage girl... but again, not the best idea for anyone else. Had I continued with this famine mentality, scrounging and eating whatever I could find, I would have blown up like a balloon after I married, being surrounded by food and having easy access to it all the time. I'm still a little squirrel at heart, but it helps to not keep junk food or prepared food around. Pigging out on ketchup, milk, or flour is no fun.

What's the solution to YOYO meals? The answer to everything...my new book! Now out on Amazon.

Seriously, it's not the answer to everything, but a meal plan is just what you need to reverse your famine mentality and keep you from bingeing on candy, ice cream, or beef jerky sticks (the kind you keep in the truck). Having a plan- and enough groceries and food in the house- will stop the craziness of YOYO eating and give you peace about where your next meal will come from. These meals are balanced and healthy. I promise if you start eating meals off of the Pizza Night plan and stop eating that big bag of orange circus peanuts for breakfast, you will be healthier.

For the past few days, I've been on the topic of decluttering; getting rid of unneeded "stuff" in your house or on your calendar. Many times we are making things hard on ourselves because of too many choices. It's too complicated and not simple enough. Another problem? Lack of planning ahead.

For example, making supper. It gets to be 4:30 pm and the family is beginning to get hungry. You should start making dinner, but you are in the middle of a project. Bummer. Quit the project, start looking through the fridge and kitchen cupboards to see what is there. Spaghetti? That would be great, except there is no spaghetti sauce. There are some carrots in the fridge. What about a nice roast? Too late for that. What about spaghetti noodles and carrots? There's got to be something to make with spaghetti noodles and carrots.

By this time it's quarter to five and you have no idea what to make. You're starting to get hungry yourself, and snack on some saltine crackers. Now everyone is hungry and begging you for saltine crackers. There is no time to make anything. Forget it, they can all have crackers and peanut butter. Or jelly. Or cheese. Throw the carrots in there, and it should be healthy enough.

Have you ever been in this place? It could have all been prevented with a plan.

My new book (yep, a little shameless self-promotion here!) can solve all of your meal problems. It's got a complete list of meals- breakfast, lunch, and dinner- plus ideas for healthy snacks and some ideas for potlucks and other I-forgot-about-that events. My plan includes a weekly grocery list so you'll never be stuck without spaghetti sauce, and even tells you when to start cooking, so the food is done before people get hungry. No saltines here!

Imagine this: you, rolling out pizza dough. There's no hurry because everything is under control. You've got some nice music turned on. Get out some ranch and barbeque sauce to spread on the dough. This is going to be a killer supper! In a good way. Sprinkle on some cheese, bacon (that was on sale!), green peppers and toss it in the oven. Set the timer for 20 minutes. It's early enough that nobody is clawing at you for food. 

Ten minutes later the house begins to fill with a delicious aroma of baking bread, melting cheese and bacon. So warm and good. Kids wander in the kitchen, following their noses. You set out some plates and fill the cups with water. One kid wants to help, so you have him set out napkins. Finally, the timer dings and you call everyone in to eat. "Man it smells good!" "I can't wait" and "I want the biggest piece" are heard from excited diners. You bless the food, cut a few slices and dig in. So delish.

Does the pizza scenario sound good? It probably sounds great if you have experienced the saltines-and-peanut-butter meal. Do yourself (and everyone else) a favor and buy my book,
Pizza Night; a Simple Meal Plan, available on Amazon. 

I know this plan works because I use it myself. It sure makes life easier!