Here are some real food grocery budget suggestions for you. (Please note, I didn’t say they are good suggestions. They are just some suggestions.)
1. Spend time and energy making an organized grocery list. Load up the kids and go to the grocery store. Spend an hour (with a potentially screaming baby and run-away toddler) comparing prices, making wise choices, and filling your cart with food. Stand in line (with the baby who now insists on being held, bounced, and patted constantly on the bottom – and the toddler who has suddenly grown eight hands, all of which are grabbing candy bars). Watch prices get scanned incorrectly, manager overriding the purchase, another employee having to run check on the actual price and thirty-two hours later, fall exhausted into your vehicle. Drive home, unload the kids, unload the groceries, find everyone a snack, wearily survey the food that needs to be put away.
With resolve, pick up 1/3 of the food you just brought home from the store and carry it directly to the trash can. Dump it in, walk away. Your job here is done.
Why? Why would you do that? The next scenario makes much more sense:
2. Get $40 out of your wallet, walk to the trash can, throw it in, and walk away.
Ah yes. That is much easier than Option #1. Why should you actually go to the trouble to make a list and go shopping when you can just stay home and throw the money away before you spend it? Definitely, pick door number 2. Or…
3. Do everything mentioned in Option #1, only do not throw any of it away, because how silly would that be? Put all the food away in the freezer, fridge, or pantry. Shove the raw chicken all the way to the back of the fridge, and promptly forget about it for three weeks until it has turned green and smells like {don’t finish that sentence}. Ignore the lettuce and grapes in the crisper drawer until they are slimy. Open a package of rice, but don’t close it so that bugs can crawl right in.
And last but not least, Option #4:
4. Organize and shop as suggested in Option #1, putting food away like a responsible citizen in Option #3. Go so far as to plan a menu and actually go to the trouble to cook the food before it spoils. Put it on your table, filling your plates. Eat only half. Throw the rest away.
These four options are obviously absurd, until you recognize that every time we throw away food, we are throwing away hard-earned money and wasting all kinds of time and energy. We would never put cash in the garbage, so why would we think about spending that money on food and then throwing it away?
Obviously, sometimes food can occasionally go bad before we get to it. It happens. Don’t beat yourself up. This isn’t about all the hungry children in other countries, unless you need it to be.
But one of the biggest ways to save money on your grocery bill, especially if you’re trying to figure out how to eat healthy food and save money at the same time is to: buy your food with a purpose, then make a point to eat it.
It’s too easy to ignore the great food choices we spent money on and let them go to waste. Get out of the habit of putting more food on your plate or your child’s plate than you or they can eat, then throwing away what’s left. Don’t want to eat leftovers after a meal? Freeze them for another time or re-purpose them (like make soup with leftover veggies).
In summary: Buy good food. Eat it.
Or, just throw some cash into your fireplace, whichever you prefer. :)
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