Well, maybe a little more than a dime.
John and I have managed to restrict our grocery budget to $300 a month, and many people have asked us how we do it - so I thought I'd share a few tips for keeping our grocery bill on the slimmer side.
Buy food when you need it
We go grocery shopping twice or three times a week. Of course, not a full grocery shop - but with our current lifestyle, we're not great at planning (and following through with) too many meals in advance. The benefit of shopping when necessary, is that we tend to use our cupboard contents to their maximum: very little goes wasted. Usually this means our cupboards have a bit of a bare look to them, but our tummies are full.
Exhaust your resources
It's nice to be a foodie, but living on a strict(ish) grocery budget doesn't always allow for that. We exhaust our food resources to their maximum: often, this means eggs with _____, or _____ in a wrap for breakfast/dinner/lunch. I'll be honest, sometimes it sucks to pair rice with black beans and spaghetti sauce (I'm not saying we're food connoisseurs over here), but then the next day we forget about it, have empty cupboards, and buy everything we need to make two or three nice meals. Repeat.
Have a few reliable staples
We have a few items which we use with nearly every single meal. Our household staples are (usually) as follows: carrots, sweet potato, milk, honey, sugar, sour cream, eggs, wraps, avocados, barbeque sauce, and (most importantly) salsa.
With the above items, we can generally whip together some kind of meal: Quesidillas, breakfast burritos, pasta, rice & veggies... and then when we add whatever additional shopping we've done for the week, we have a meal.
Make soup... and lots of it
I've discussed before about how great it is to have a perpetual chicken broth on hand at any given time. Lately I've dropped the ball on this, but having chicken broth easily available means having soup easily available.
Adding a little veggies and cream to a good broth is a simple way to make soup - combine in a blender or with the emulsion blender and you have lunch! In the summer, sub in this rule for a good salad.
Dried fruits & nuts make a world of difference
We have a variety of dried fruits and nuts always on hand, which makes for a great snack or salad. The cost to purchase the initial fruits and nuts - and to re-stock when you run out - might make your budget a little more tough to meet, but in our experience we only tend to re-stock every 2-3 months, and each month we re-stock on something different.
Get on a kick
Unless you're desperate to provide variety, and I think you're amazing if you are, getting on a kick is an excellent way to keep the budget low. We cycle through Mexican-food kicks, Curry kicks and Pasta kicks like it's our job. Although the contents of the meal might change every night or two, the general "base" is the same: rice, pasta, bread, salad, etc.
Meal share
The organic chicken I buy to make perpetual soup (and set aside the meat for The Caterpillar) costs $20 - which is quite a lot, considering I don't need it all! So, my friend decided that she'd go in on the chicken with me and share the broth (considering it makes unlimited broth) and share the meat. This considerably reduces the monthly cost for broth and chicken - a savings of $40 a month!
We've also discussed doing other meal-sharing with friends in terms of bulk meals. This would look like us cooking a huge meal (casserole?), them cooking a huge meal (mac 'n' cheese?) and dividing the two. For families who value variety, this might be a good cost-effective solution! Remember, it's always cheaper to cook in bulk.
Try freezer meals
We have a few great recipes for freezer meals to make in bulk. Check out this link for those that have not sucked!
Do your research
Here are a few other great resources for how to grocery shop on a dime (ish):
This Rookie Wife shares on how the Bell family reduced their grocery bill and a few tips on keeping the kitchen simple
TLC Weighs in on how to cut your grocery bill in half
Grocery Shrink shows you how to have a monthly grocery bill of $50/person
Showing posts with label money stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money stuff. Show all posts
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
How to Live on Budget This Christmas
Today I'm guest-posting at Our Nest in the City about...
...how to live on a Christmas budget of $500!
Including food, entertaining, gifts, gas, and cards, it IS possible to live on a full-family budget of $500. Adjust your budget to accomodate your own special needs, including children's gifts!
Check it out & enjoy!
[Another great way to stay on budget would be to enter this Etsy Scavenger Hunt contest! You could win an excellent prize pack which would make fantastic gifts for your family & friends!]
...how to live on a Christmas budget of $500!
Including food, entertaining, gifts, gas, and cards, it IS possible to live on a full-family budget of $500. Adjust your budget to accomodate your own special needs, including children's gifts!
Check it out & enjoy!
[Another great way to stay on budget would be to enter this Etsy Scavenger Hunt contest! You could win an excellent prize pack which would make fantastic gifts for your family & friends!]
Sunday, July 29, 2012
How to Plan a Baby Shower (Under $50!)
My beautiful friend Abbie is blooming with baby. There's a little one in her tummy and we get to meet him or her (him..?) this coming November - and I'm so excited! She is going to be one fantastic mother and I just can't wait to watch her rise to the occasion.
Until then.. there's a lull in babytown among my friends. Around February to April, quite a few of us popped out bundles of joy and drool, and as 3, 4, 5 month year olds are now a part of our regular, daily lives, the excitement is calming (for a little while). (I think). (Unless someone has something they would like to share / wine they would like to refuse).
So, what better time to throw a baby shower for Abbie that has all the fixin's: a midsummer's eve, tea, and - wait for it - a theme.
That's right, this past week my most recent dream-event came to fruition: an Alice in Wonderland themed Mad-Tea baby shower! There's a mouthful. Filled with spots of tea and light refreshments, formal invitations and a seating arrangement, I had a blast throwing this one together - and on a budget, too!
Check out how I pulled it off (for under $50):
The Invitations: $5
Print the invitations yourself - and if you can, design them too! I designed a 4-page booklet invitation involving as many Alice quotes I could find. Once printed, I glued the invitations onto a decorative cardstock (100 sheets for $1) and tied them together with ribbon. The invitations were 4 pages each - so altogether, the invites only cost about $5 to print including ink and paper.
The Mailing: $0
Have the Fish Footman distribute the invitations instead of mailing.
The Decor: $25
This is my favourite part.
Do your own centrepieces. I took a little inspiration from here and a little from here, spraypainted my vast collection of wine bottles (not all mine, I swear) and glued a ribbon around them. Voila. The total cost to do this was $5/spraypaint colour ($15) and $2 for ribbon. Also, tell your friends you're collecting the wine bottles... don't try to establish your own collection!
Plan ahead, so you can gather cool theme-appropriate finds in advance on the cheap. Scour Goodwill, garage sales, and your mom's house for little nicknacks which will add a touch of love. Total garagesale / decor expense (non-centrepiece): $6
Be consistent with your theme. Get creative.
Take advantage of the dollar store. Sure, these plates don't look the prettiest. I'm aware. For the actual party, we used square pink plates which were slighly sightlier, but they're still plastic plates. The upside? 20 plates for $1. The downside? Waste and un-classiness. The upside? Where am I going to find 20 washable plates that people will actually let me borrow for an outdoor party? The downside? They're plastic. The upside? Nobody notices after you put food on it.
Mix and match setting pieces. I got lucky and found a set of 12 teacups at a garage sale for $5 (which I'm not counting in the total cost because I don't consider them "just for the party"), but on the other tables I supplemented for cute teacups I have around my house.
Candle it up. If you can pull off an outdoor party in the evening, use tealight candles as low-cost decor which add a little ambiance. I dove into my already-huge candle collection.
Hang stuff from a tree. I mean, come on, you HAVE been on Pinterest lately... haven't you?
Have fun. So it's not perfect. So my tablecloths are actually twin sized sheets I stole from mom's linen closet. So we ran out of chairs. We had fun with it!
The Food: $20
Ain't nothin' like a good potluck. I put together a lemonade, a variety of teas, some finger food sandwhiches and a crostini with a balsalmic reduction.
Lemonade: $3
2 cups lemon juice
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
Mix, and 12 cups of water (or to taste)
Add 3 real lemons (in slices) to make it look like, you know, you used real lemons
Cucumber & Cream Cheese Sandwhiches: 15 Sandwhiches = Appx. $5
White bread
Cream cheese
Cucumbers (skin cut off) sliced
Tomatoes
Prepare sandwhiches, cut into quarters
Balsalmic Reduction Crostinis: 25 Crostinis = Appx. $5
1 loaf of french bread, sliced thinly
2 avocados, sliced thinly
2 tomatoes, sliced thinly in halves
2 cups of balsalmic vinaigrette, boiled down into a reduction
Slices of mozzarella cheese, to your desired thickness/ thinness
Place tomato, avocado and cheese on crostinis and bake at 275 for 40 minutes
Remove from oven, let cool, and drizzle with balsalmic vinaigrette
There's lots of variations on the Crostinis, but this recipe is the most cost-effective / pretty I've found. You can use goat cheese, strawberries, pesto... you name it, you baller you.
For dessert, I ditched the traditional cake for cake pops - the benefit of cake pops is that you can make hundreds in a few batches and freeze them, which is what I did. I've used my June batch of cake pops for one engagement party and now two baby showers.
Cake Pops: 1 Batch = Appx. $7
Bake a cake mix according to box instructions - let cool, and crumble with fingers. Add 1/2 container of icing and continue blending with hands.
Roll cake pops into balls, lay on cookie sheet, and flash freeze for 30 minutes.
Remove from freezer, place candy sticks in the cake pops, and flash freeze overnight.
Melt baking chocolate, pour over cake pops, freeze for 1 hour.
Drizzle another flavour / colour of baking chocolate over cake pops, freeze for 30 minutes.
Serve or freeze.
Potluck
For the remainder of the food, 3 other ladies brought some cake loafs - to satisfy the sweet tooth. In future, I should probably ask what flavour they're bringing, because we ended up having 3 (albeit very different) blueberry loafs!
The Games: $0
To keep costs low on the games, we kept it simple and fun. The first game involved a pack of playing cards and a little impromptu headbandz: guests had to guess whether the object / character assigned to them was Alice in Wonderland related or baby related... and then had to figure out what it was. That went very smoothly!
The second (and last) game involved a few water balloons and some brave ladies. In typical relay race fashion, we all had to get from Point A to Point B and back with a little challenge (between our legs). Putting a filled up water balloon between our legs, we had to shimmy our selves around until our water broke - "where" it broke on the course indicated when Abbie's will break when, you know, everything goes down. In everyone's case, it was at the end!
Here is a great list of other fun baby shower party games which cost little to nothing!
Until then.. there's a lull in babytown among my friends. Around February to April, quite a few of us popped out bundles of joy and drool, and as 3, 4, 5 month year olds are now a part of our regular, daily lives, the excitement is calming (for a little while). (I think). (Unless someone has something they would like to share / wine they would like to refuse).
So, what better time to throw a baby shower for Abbie that has all the fixin's: a midsummer's eve, tea, and - wait for it - a theme.
That's right, this past week my most recent dream-event came to fruition: an Alice in Wonderland themed Mad-Tea baby shower! There's a mouthful. Filled with spots of tea and light refreshments, formal invitations and a seating arrangement, I had a blast throwing this one together - and on a budget, too!
Check out how I pulled it off (for under $50):
The Invitations: $5
Print the invitations yourself - and if you can, design them too! I designed a 4-page booklet invitation involving as many Alice quotes I could find. Once printed, I glued the invitations onto a decorative cardstock (100 sheets for $1) and tied them together with ribbon. The invitations were 4 pages each - so altogether, the invites only cost about $5 to print including ink and paper.
The Mailing: $0
The Decor: $25
This is my favourite part.
 |
| Eat me, drink me. Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
Do your own centrepieces. I took a little inspiration from here and a little from here, spraypainted my vast collection of wine bottles (not all mine, I swear) and glued a ribbon around them. Voila. The total cost to do this was $5/spraypaint colour ($15) and $2 for ribbon. Also, tell your friends you're collecting the wine bottles... don't try to establish your own collection!
 |
| $1 Garage-Sale teapot. $5 teacup set. Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
Plan ahead, so you can gather cool theme-appropriate finds in advance on the cheap. Scour Goodwill, garage sales, and your mom's house for little nicknacks which will add a touch of love. Total garagesale / decor expense (non-centrepiece): $6
 |
| Nicknacks from the home. Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
Be consistent with your theme. Get creative. |
| Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
 |
| Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
 |
| A key to Wonderland, for Abbie. Wonderland is now a synonym for Motherhood. Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
 |
| Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
Hang stuff from a tree. I mean, come on, you HAVE been on Pinterest lately... haven't you?
 |
| Photos by www.newvintagemedia.ca |
Have fun. So it's not perfect. So my tablecloths are actually twin sized sheets I stole from mom's linen closet. So we ran out of chairs. We had fun with it!
The Food: $20
Ain't nothin' like a good potluck. I put together a lemonade, a variety of teas, some finger food sandwhiches and a crostini with a balsalmic reduction.
 |
| Obviously our lemonade was so delicious it danced around like this. |
Lemonade: $3
2 cups lemon juice
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
Mix, and 12 cups of water (or to taste)
Add 3 real lemons (in slices) to make it look like, you know, you used real lemons
 |
| Mine looked.. sort of like this! Thanks, All Toasty, for a prettier picture than I could take. |
Cucumber & Cream Cheese Sandwhiches: 15 Sandwhiches = Appx. $5
White bread
Cream cheese
Cucumbers (skin cut off) sliced
Tomatoes
Prepare sandwhiches, cut into quarters
 | |
| These aren't the actual ones I made (but I hope to get a photo real soon!), but they look prettymuch like this! |
Balsalmic Reduction Crostinis: 25 Crostinis = Appx. $5
1 loaf of french bread, sliced thinly
2 avocados, sliced thinly
2 tomatoes, sliced thinly in halves
2 cups of balsalmic vinaigrette, boiled down into a reduction
Slices of mozzarella cheese, to your desired thickness/ thinness
Place tomato, avocado and cheese on crostinis and bake at 275 for 40 minutes
Remove from oven, let cool, and drizzle with balsalmic vinaigrette
There's lots of variations on the Crostinis, but this recipe is the most cost-effective / pretty I've found. You can use goat cheese, strawberries, pesto... you name it, you baller you.
 |
| Thanks to my friend Alexa for making them cute as pie. |
For dessert, I ditched the traditional cake for cake pops - the benefit of cake pops is that you can make hundreds in a few batches and freeze them, which is what I did. I've used my June batch of cake pops for one engagement party and now two baby showers.
Cake Pops: 1 Batch = Appx. $7
Bake a cake mix according to box instructions - let cool, and crumble with fingers. Add 1/2 container of icing and continue blending with hands.
Roll cake pops into balls, lay on cookie sheet, and flash freeze for 30 minutes.
Remove from freezer, place candy sticks in the cake pops, and flash freeze overnight.
Melt baking chocolate, pour over cake pops, freeze for 1 hour.
Drizzle another flavour / colour of baking chocolate over cake pops, freeze for 30 minutes.
Serve or freeze.
Potluck
For the remainder of the food, 3 other ladies brought some cake loafs - to satisfy the sweet tooth. In future, I should probably ask what flavour they're bringing, because we ended up having 3 (albeit very different) blueberry loafs!
The Games: $0
To keep costs low on the games, we kept it simple and fun. The first game involved a pack of playing cards and a little impromptu headbandz: guests had to guess whether the object / character assigned to them was Alice in Wonderland related or baby related... and then had to figure out what it was. That went very smoothly!
The second (and last) game involved a few water balloons and some brave ladies. In typical relay race fashion, we all had to get from Point A to Point B and back with a little challenge (between our legs). Putting a filled up water balloon between our legs, we had to shimmy our selves around until our water broke - "where" it broke on the course indicated when Abbie's will break when, you know, everything goes down. In everyone's case, it was at the end!
Here is a great list of other fun baby shower party games which cost little to nothing!
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