4 Things...Saving $$

I couldn't sleep the other night and so I was online and come upon this article from parents.com -> thrifty, frugal mom. I love some of the ideas for saving money on your grocery bill. She is hard-core but she saves! Here are excerpts from Lydia Beiler...to get the WHOLE article, click the above link. 


1. Choose to do Without

While choosing to do without is not really popular or even always a fun, it honestly is probably one of the biggest ways we save.

Some of the ways we do without are: 

• Speaking of cheese, we hardly ever eat cheese just by itself....  But it is something we’ve decided to consider a luxury around here to help keep our spending low. 
• Orange juice is a splurge item that I get only when I can buy it for $0.99 or less....we can easily eat fruit and get our recommended serving that way much cheaper. 
• We don’t buy lots of snack foods.
• We do several different things to save money on meat. But one of the big ways that we save is simply by not buying expensive cuts. In fact I have a maximum buy price of $2.00/lb. for meats (and actually for cheese too) which means that we don’t often eat things like bacon or steaks. 

2. Don’t be Brand Snobs
When I began using coupons I started realizing that I could save a lot if I chose to be open-minded about trying brands than I didn’t typically use... I’ll be honest, there are still a couple of products that I am a brand snob about but overall I purchase whatever I can get for the least amount of money.

3. Cook from Scratch

Yes, cooking from scratch might take a bit more time but with a bit of planning ahead I’ve learned that it can be relatively fast too. 

One of the things I do that helps save time is to cook up large quantities of ground beef and chicken and then put it in the freezer in smaller portions. 

Making twice as much of something doesn’t take much longer at all and when I have an usually busy day it’s so handy to be able to just pull dinner out of my freezer.

Want to see what kinds of things I cook? Check out my recipes on my blog or on Pinterest.

4. Have a Price List

By keeping track of which stores have the lowest prices on certain items I have been able to save a lot. And it also helps me know when something is a good stock up price too. 

If you want more tips check out my post Save Money by Using a Price List!

These are some GREAT ideas! Check out her website for more ideas - Rejoicing in the Present