Cleaning Your Freezer

(http://powermylifetx.com/whats-in-your-freezer/)

How often do we go in to our freezers and find something that we can't even recognize? By not labelling, rotating, organizing and using our food, we are just throwing our money out. I am not sure about you, but I don't want to waste my money that way.

Do you have a chest freezer, or an upright? Do you know what's all in there?

Today, I cleaned out our chest freezer in preparation for the arrival of our 1/4 side of beef arriving tomorrow. We purchased a second freezer on kijiji for such a purpose and today was the day I moved all of the fruits and veggies from our current chest freezer to our upright freezer. This is our first time getting a side of beef and I am not sure how much room I am honestly going to need.

Although while I was cleaning I did find an extra stash of butter that I had purchased on sale, I am pleased to say, that I didn't have to throw one thing out!

So this week, why not put it on your schedule to organize your freezer, defrost it, label everything and take an account of what you need to use and just what exactly is in that big ominous chest of ice.

Here are a few places to get freezer inventory lists:

My favourite: http://organizedhome.com/printable/household-notebook/freezer-inventory

http://beautyandbedlam.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/BBB-Freezer-Inventory-final.pdf

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ani0eqb0Ai4_dEpHZWtoaTZJOURBcnZhUHVYYU1LdXc&hl=en#gid=0

Rising Food Prices on Their Way (Again!)

It seems like we hear this headline frequently in the news -especially over the past year or so. Yet again it's making headlines with the drought effecting crop production.

Both McCain and Maple Leaf have warned in the past week, that food prices are going to increase. The NY Times has warned us that food prices for all types of food are going to jump starting this fall by 3-5%, depending on the type of food being purchased.

How are you going to combat food prices? We all know that our salaries aren't going to go up the same percentage per annum as food and fuel. Do you have a garden planted? It's not to late to get some fall crops in yet. There are several books on the market about gardening year round to get the most food from your own garden. One of the latest to join my library is The Year Round Gardener by Niki Jabbour. She also has a blog that you can catch up on all of her latest doings and findings as well.

Another way to lower your food bill, if you are a meat eater, is to buy a side of beef, whether it be beef or pork (you can get it a quarter, half, full animal). If you have the room in your freezer, this is a great way to buy your meat. We are getting a 1/4 cow that's been organic grass fed only. It works out to be $6.38/kg for my hamburger, steaks, roasts, stewing meat -whichever cuts I choose. Also, look at substituting meat for at least one meal a week with grains or legumes to cut down on your bill.

Looking for a few more ideas for saving money on your grocery bill? Check out our post from our achieves for ways to keep the money in your pocket instead of the grocery till.

All in all, it can be done with work and determination. What are your tips and suggestions? Comment here or come on over to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

Enjoy!

Got Milk? How About 1/2 Price?

(http://www.momtrends.com/2011/08/got-milk/)

Even though this clipping from the Globe and Mail from a few weekends ago says that milk prices are actually 8% lower in the past year, our milk costs seem to continue to rise here. We currently pay between $6.63 and $7.05 for 4 litres of milk. It depends on where you purchase it at.

Not many have our own source of milk in our own backyard, so we have to pay the pied piper whatever he decides to charge it. Right?

Wrong!

There are several ways of having cheaper milk.

A friend of mine barters for her milk. She has a lot of laying hens, too many to use the eggs from, so she takes her extra eggs to a neighbour that has too much milk from their cow. They trade the goods to each other. This is one thing I would love to do. However, I don't have laying hens and I don't have a neighbour with extra milk that they would like to trade something for.

Another way to lower the cost of milk a bit is by using powdered skim milk. My whole face just grimaced at the thought of this. The memory from growing up drinking it and seeing the rim of blue around my bowl of cereal is all too fresh. I totally get why my parents did it, I'm just glad that it doesn't really save any money on it now. The cost of this product has jumped substantially over the x amount of years.

A discussion that started over at our Facebook page, had one contributor that buys whole milk, as it's the same price as 1% or 2%, and then waters it down to 1/2 milk and 1/2 water. She states it tastes similar to 1%. I had never heard of anyone doing something like this before and was completely amazed. Since then, I heard it on Anderson Cooper's show when they talked about frugal lifestyle the other day and somewhere else. I guess my eyes were blinded about this.

One other way to reduce your milk price is by supplementing. This is what we've started to do. We were going through 8-9 four litre jugs of milk a month. That's $53.04 on the low end a month. We were introduced to Thrive Instant Milk (I don't sell this, nor am I getting paid to say this. I buy it here).

Alone, it's ok.  It's not my cup of tea. The price is $21.69 (plus $4 shipping) for a #10 size can, that's the biggest we can get in our country, for 97 servings of milk! That equates out to, if I've done my math correctly, $4.24 with shipping for 4 litres of milk! $33.89 for my entire month of milk!

(http://www.shelfreliance.com/milk-powder.html)

However, I don't use instant milk on it's own. I use just around 1/4 gallon (1 litre) of whole milk, 1.5 litre of Thrive Instant Milk and 2.5 litre of water. My $6.63 gallon of milk is now down to $3.24. Down by 1/2! And the best thing is, my children are none the wiser!

What is one item you substitute to lower your grocery bill?

Enjoy your day!

Grocery Challenge Finale

For the month of March, we followed two families to see if they were able to lower their grocery bill to their goal. Let's see how they finished up:

Contestant #1 They hoped to cut their bill down to $200 for the month. Unfortunately, they had some extra expenses that popped up during the month:

Hey Liz, 

I did horrible and am very ashamed of myself :(
Our end result was: $423.12.  Some of that was not a normal month, as it was Baby's 1st birthday on the 20th and we had two parties worth of food/snacks.
What worked for us:  Stocking up on flyer sales - we have enough of some things that we'll save money this coming month at least.
                               Coupons - I went through all my coupons that had been adding up and made sure to bring them with me, lol
                               Gas coupons - tried when possible to get gas at Superstore to get money off coupons at the grocery store.
                               Walmart price match- I brought flyers with me to walmart and got them to give me the sale price at other stores...that way I didn't have to drive from store to store for a sale.
                               Packed lunches - we've always done this.  we did cheat some times this month though and bought some frozen dinners for lunches

Sorry I sucked, lol  After seeing this though, it at least has given me more of a push to do better this month.
                             

Contestant #2 They hoped to cut their bill down from $774 to $575 for the month. They didn't make it all the way to their goal, but they made a good head start:

Hi Liz, 

Well I would say that the month of March was a success for me. I didn't drop my bill by the $200 I hoped, however, that might not be realistic for us. 

In February we spent $774.45 on groceries and in March we spent $686.88 (however, this did include a couple of events we had to pick up a fruit tray or food for, so it wasn't all "our" groceries, but I wanted to include it as it was food). That is a savings of $87.57. Which to me is enough to pay another bill so that's successful. 

I'm working on bringing that down even lower for April! I found that buying for one week, instead of two that we were doing before was a great help. We didn't have near as much waste. Simplifying the menu made a big difference in our time spent prepping meals on the busy nights and on the bill.  

I will keep in touch, but I hope that April will be an even bigger success! I'll be continuing to work on bringing this down to at least $600. 

Thanks  


Contestant #2 is the winner! Congratulations on doing so well! I'll contact you about arrangements for your prize.


It sounds as though you both had wonderful life lessons out of this experience and I'm glad to hear that it has inspired you to do better for this month. Keep it up and keep us up to date on how you are achieving your goals.


To the rest of the frugal community, how are you bringing your grocery bill down?  Do you have tips you would like to share with us?

Enjoy!

Final Week of Grocery Challenge

With this being the last week of March, I thought it would be great for us to check in with our Grocery Contestants to see how they are fairing with their goals.

Contestant #1 (family of three)

Hey Liz,
We're doing...ok.  Not as good I'd like to b doing, but still around the goal.  So far this month we've spent $199.54...our monthly goal was $200 so I'm obviously not going to be under my goal.
I have been using some coupons (having a hard time finding food ones lately) and buying by the flyers.  We were away for a few days during march break and didn't do the best and we still haven't this month put together a meal plan, so even though costs haven't been too bad our meals have been somewhat sad and unhealthy.




Contestant #2 (family of four)


Hi Liz, 

After my first email I sat down and worked out what I hoped would be a more realistic grocery list and menu than what I'd been working from in the past. Because of the elaborate menus I'd been developing I'd been wasting food and going way over budget. 

However, in March we've developed a budget of quick and easy meals that work for our schedule and our budget. 

As I mentioned our grocery bill for February was $774 (it nearly knocked my socks off the first time I looked).  Currently at this point of the month, with only a few things left to pick up before the end of the month for groceries, we're at $596. That is a considerable drop! I'm pretty excited about it. Also, we've wasted no food and that is also a huge accomplishment!

One thing I find really works for me is taking out the cash that I budgeted for groceries and only spending that. It makes a huge difference! Forces me to see exactly how much I have left so spend on groceries for that period. 

I'm glad to see you're both doing better than you expected. Here's hoping you both are able to make it to the end of the month and do well.

We will check back in with them next week to see how they ended up doing for the month and to award the prize. 

Stay tuned.

Want to be part of the challenge for next month? Drop me a line at fighting2bfrugal@yahoo.ca with information about how many are in your family, how much you spent last month on all food (that includes takeout for lunches and quick pickups for suppers), how much you hope to spend for April, and what you are going to do to cut it down. I would like to have two contestants at least. 

Enjoy!

A Là Peanut Butter Sandwiches!

Does the line bring back memories to you of Mumford the Magician from Sesame Street?

Who doesn't have memories of taking a peanut butter sandwich to school? It may not be as popular today in schools due to allergies, however, everyone loves peanut butter. It's just not as frugal of an option as it once was.

(http://sirthinks.com/?p=1229)

In the fall there was news that peanut butter prices would be going up due to some natural disasters that limited the peanut crop. Yet, it never seemed to happen. The prices stayed hovering around $6.50/2kg of peanut butter, give or take, for several months. We were warned so that we would be able to stock up, however, by the prices not suddenly rising, we were lulled into a security that the prices never would. Kraft notified the public that there were expecting peanut butter prices to rise by 35% by January 2012. That would bring the price up to $8.76/2kg.

In the past several months, I have noticed that the prices climbed and not rather slowly either. The end of January the price rose to $7.50/2kg. By the beginning of March $10.99/2kg! Shocking! That's a raise in prices of 69.4%! Thank heavens the rest of the food prices don't rise that dramatically in 4 months. We would all starve!

Lawtons Drugs had 1kg on sale a couple of weeks ago for a one day sale $1.88! I am now grateful that I bought several containers!

However, today while I was at Walmart, I noticed that they haven't increased their price yet. It's still $6.37/2kg! There were only a couple left, not on sale either, so we purchased them. I asked around and they are getting more in within the next couple of days and there hasn't been a notice that their price is increasing.

So, if you use peanut butter for anything, stock up at Walmart over the next few days while the cost is still down. Or go to Sobeys next week (March 9-15) where Skippy peanut butter 2kg will be on sale for $7.99.

And I'm guessing that the prices aren't going to go back down when the peanut stock regulates again. Flour hasn't yet.

What have you stocked up on to make sure you beat the rising cost of food?

Enjoy!

Reducing Your Grocery Bill Through Homemade Goods

Food prices seem to be increasing everyday. Besides shopping for sales, which I highly recommend, another great way to save money is by making your own meals and baked goods.

Store bread is going up in price quite a bit, but to bake your own bread, it only costs a fraction. To make your own bread check out our how to here. I figured out to buy bread in our home it would cost us over $100 a month! Just in bread! It may cost us $17 a month to make it. And, if I do say so myself, it tastes much better, is more filling and healthier.

A great item to go with bread is always jam. Do you have a lot of strawberries, or other fruit, left in your freezer from last summer? Here is a very easy recipe for making jam from frozen fruit with half the amount of sugar. We use this all the time. Last night my daughter helped me make two batches of it and we were done in about 40 mins from start to finish (not including thawing time for the berries). Jam in the store costs about $4-5 a jar. I made 7 large jars last night for about $1.46 a jar. In our family that saves big $$ as we go through 7 jars in 2 months or so. Instead of $32, it costs us around $10 and I reuse my jars so that's even more environmentally friendly and cost saving.

Our latest love is eating English Muffins. I started buying these more frequently when I have found them on sale, but found it hard to justify the cost. Tonight, I made English Muffins for the first time -without cornmeal! (Not a fan here.) It was surprisingly easy and fast. To buy 6 english muffins at the store it's around $2, it might have cost me $0.25 to make 12. That's $3.50 savings for every 12! Try out this recipe here for a first attempt. There are a lot of recipes out there, just search around until you find one that you like.

These are just a few simple things to start with to reduce your bill. They really don't take too much time - just don't try to do them all in one day!

What items do you make to reduce your bill?

Enjoy!

Day Three in the Grocery Challenge

As was mentioned in the last post, there is a grocery challenge under way here at fighting to be frugal. We have three contestants involved (Tammy, if you are reading this, please email at fighting2bfrugal at yahoo dot ca. I need to get in contact with you).

How are you doing with your challenge thus far? I know it's only three days in, but there have been some incredible deals! Did you stock up for the month, or are you prorating over the month? Have you made up a menu for the month, the week, or are you swinging it? We all would love to hear how you are doing and what you are doing this week to lower your grocery budget.

Enjoy!

Contest to Cut Down Your Grocery Bill

Everyone is trying to cut down on their expenses, and groceries seem to be the area that everyone wants to focus on the most. For the month of March, I would like to follow 2-3 families to see how their grocery spending compares to the previous month when using some, most, or all of the strategies mentioned in this post about lowering your grocery expenses.  Any volunteers?

To take part in this study, please either comment on this post, or email me at fighting2bfrugal at yahoo dot ca. I would like to know how much you spent last month on groceries, how many people in your family, how much you are hoping to cut your bill down by, and what strategies you are going to use. Then at the end of March, return and report what your spending was like. What if I enticed you more with a prize for the participant that was able to cut their grocery bill down by the greatest percentage? Are you game now? The winner will get a $10 gift card to the grocery store of your choice (Sobeys, Superstore or Coop) or $10 in movie money. You must enter by posting or emailing me by midnight on February 29th, 20112. 

Only open to Canadians this time. 

How to Lighten Your Grocery Bill

Would you like to make your dollar stretch just a little further each month? In our single-income family of seven, that dollar needs to stretch a whole lot. We are always looking for ways to be more frugal.

That doesn’t mean we are cheap.

To be frugal is to give careful thought to becoming more economical and less wasteful.

Groceries can absorb a HUGE portion of your family’s monthly budget. No two families are alike, however, the average monthly spending on food is 12-14% of monthly income. With food prices creeping up, that monthly expense may hurt a little more.

So how can you manage it?

First, you should be tracking how much you currently spend. My challenge to you is to keep track of how much money you spend on food during the month of February.

Once you’ve tracked it, you’ll be able to better understand where it was spent: restaurants, take-out, groceries, treats, frozen and prepared food, etc.

Here are some quick tips to save money on your groceries:

Read the flyers

Shop sales - don’t just stick to one store

Use coupons (not sure where to get them? There are coupon classes available on PEI)

Get raincheques, and use them!

Prepare a weekly menu

Eat leftovers

Pack your own lunch for work or school

Don’t buy foods that are on sale if you don’t eat them

Buy more no name/store brand groceries

Grow your own food in a garden

Don’t buy on credit

Don’t shop when you’re hungry

Eat one meatless meal a week

Buy in bulk and freeze in individual portions

Make as much of the food yourself. That includes breads, cookies, cakes, salads, etc.

Make a grocery list and stick to it.

It’s may feel overwhelming in the beginning, but by just incorporating one or more suggestions each month, your grocery bill will noticeably drop in just a few months.

Last week alone, our family saved over $100 on our grocery bill by shopping sales and using coupons! How much can you save next month?

Do you have other ideas on being frugal? I would love to hear from you. (fighting2bfrugal@yahoo.ca)