There’s a show on cable that I enjoy watching. It’s called Big Spender. This guy named Larry Winget, a self-professed lost-it-all-and-earned-it-back millionaire and convention speaker, ambushes people (mostly women) horribly in debt and makes them watch videos of their friends and family wringing their hands about the financial fate of the ambushee. Then he teaches them some financial skills, makes them sign a contract asking the ambushee to stop acting like an idiot with his/her (mostly her) money, and comes back after a month o see how things are going.
Some people are able to set themselves on a debt-free path, while some people blow him off and still spend almost TWICE their monthly income.
Dimitri and I have worked hard to get and remain debt free, but I still like saving a buck here and there. After all, I was the girl who made a side living renting clean socks to my mother and sister who were too disorganized, lazy, or busy (you pick) to do their own laundry regularly.
And? And I married the man who in high school ironed and starched every hundred dollar bill that passed through his wallet. We aren’t miserly, but we are frugal.
One element of the show, however, puzzles me. He has, on several episodes, completely cut out spending on eating out at restaurants. Fine. That’s money that could go to pay off credit cards. Cool. But he also cuts back the family grocery bill to $100 a week. For four people.
My grocery bill (and I meticulously track this. It’s the sock girl in me) is regularly half again or double that per week, and we also eat out a lot.
I buy things at the grocery store that are proportionately more expensive, like diapers and formula, but I almost always buy store brands, I use coupons, (although I find that most times the store brand product is cheaper than the name brand product even after the coupon) and shop at Costco for shelf-stable things like toothpaste, shampoo, diapers, and formula. (Costco doesn’t make its own toothpaste, but I buy the Kirkland brand of everything else)
The only thing that I’m brand conscious about it our toilet paper, since the FOURTH plumber in two years we called to the house told us that Quilted Northern wouldn’t clog up the works. (He was from Maine, so he told us to stop using Chaahhhmin and use Quilted Naaahhhthern instead) I’m pretty sure that the Costco toilet paper is the same stuff as the Quilted Northern, but we haven’t had a clog since we switched the good ol’ Quilted Northern, and I don’t want to tempt fate.
My question is this: what super grocery secret (other than living off Ramen, rice, and beans) am I missing out on that a family of four can not eat out at all and still manage to live off a $400 monthly grocery bill?
What are your super saver grocery tips? I’m really curious, please share!