When I started thinking last year about how I was going to significantly reduce our monthly expenses, I was a little overwhelmed. It is an overwhelming task, to be sure. But, as I began to put my plan into action over the last six weeks, I’ve realized that small steps are starting to make a big difference. So, for anyone who wants or needs to reduce the monthly cash output but doesn’t know where to start, I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been doing and learning early in this journey toward frugality.

Penny-Pinching Processes (not necessarily in order)

Process 1

As I mentioned, I started following several blogs toward  the end of last year as part of my learning process. While I wish I could, I cannot reinvent what these amazing and smart women have created. So, if you’d like to reduce what you spend on groceries, personal care products and household supplies, I highly suggest you subscribe to these blogs:

• Money Saving Mom
• Deal Seeking Mom
• The Coupon High
• The Coupon Project
• Attention Target Shoppers (even if you don’t have a Target, this blog provides lots of great tips and ideas for thriftiness)

Process 2

I started clipping coupons in January and I made my coupon binder. You can find examples of coupon-organizing systems at several of the blogs mentioned above. I like the binder system best because I “love me a three ring binder.” I made mine from one of my daughter’s old middle-school zippered binders. It’s complete with her middle school doodling on the cover. Maybe I’ll graduate to something more “grown up” eventually, but this one was free and saving money is the whole point of the exercise, so it made sense.

Process 3

I participated in the Eat from the Pantry Challenge. If you want to save some money on groceries right away, I suggest you give this a try for a week or longer. There may be lots of complaining from your kids, but it’ll be worth it on the money front! (Be sure to check out Eat from the Pantry Challenge Part 2 and Part 3). Doing this challenge also made it easier for me to get a handle on what I have in my fridge, freezer and pantry.

Process 4

This one is simple: When making dinner, I double or triple the entree (if it’s something that will freeze well). And don’t say you don’t have enough freezer room. As I learned from the book Miserly Moms, you don’t even need two freezers, but rather, a bunch of gallon-sized freezer bags that can be filled and frozen flat.

Process 5

I started buying whole chickens, cooking them and pulling the meat off the bones, then freezing the meat in freezer bags for use in chicken quesadillas, chicken tetrazinni, chicken strombolis, home-made chicken pizza, etc. It’s a lot cheaper than buying the boneless, skinless chicken breasts!

Process 5

I clip my coupons from the paper on Saturday morning, and I file them in my binder on Sunday so the task is done by the time the grocery ads arrive in the paper/mail on Monday.

Process 6

I read the blogs mentioned above and make a list for the Walgreens and CVS deals I will take advantage of that week to stock up on groceries and personal care items that are free, almost free or significantly discounted.  Doing these Walgreens and CVS deals is a learning process, and you should start small. I think Money Saving Mom has the best tutorials on how to get started doing this. I usually hit Walgreens and/or CVS on Monday or Tuesday, with my list of deals for each store written out and the coupons to make the deals even sweeter paper-clipped to the lists.

Process 7

I look through the grocery ads that arrive on Monday and make a list of the items I will buy from each store on a separate sheet of paper,  also paper-clipping to each list any coupons that coincide with the sales. Remember that the front and back pages of the ads tend to be the “loss leaders,” so these are the best deals. I no longer make a grocery list based on what I want to cook that week — I make a list based on the sales, and build our meals around those items.

Here’s an example: Last week, our local grocer, Schnucks, had pasta on sale 10/$10, pasta sauce on sale 10/$10, 4-pack baked potatoes 10/$10, etc. I went to Schnucks and bought ONLY the 10/$10 items, stocking up on pasta, sauce, etc. Then I built our meals last week around those sales. We had a baked-potato night, and a spaghetti pie night (and I doubled the spaghetti pie recipe, so there’s now one in the freezer). I had already stocked up on frozen ground turkey, shredded cheese and sour cream, all of which had been on sale the previous week, so I had the ingredients for some very inexpensive meals.

How much have I saved so far? That’s hard to answer for a couple of reasons: 1) I saved a ton of money on groceries in Janaury because of the Eat from the Pantry Challenge, but that won’t happen on a regular basis; and, 2) I’m also building quite a stock pile of food and personal care items as I find things on sale, so there are weeks when my grocery expenditures include this stockpiling effort, but I’m getting items cheaper than normal, which will save me money down the road.

I can say this: I have not had one single week since I started in which my total groceries (from the grocery store and Walgreens, Target and CVS) cost me $300, which was a number I often hit prior to my “journey toward frugality.” And, as I mentioned above, I’m stock piling quite a bit of stuff as things go on sale. Plus, I haven’t had to run out and buy diapers or juice or milk at the last minute, paying the highest price for said items because I had to have them at that moment. My shopping is more carefully planned, and therefore more thrifty in nature now. And, I’ve got a number of meals accumulating in the freezer for nights when things get “hairy,” which has cut down on last-minute take-out.

It’s a learning process, but I’m glad I’m doing it. The grocery budget is one of the few line items we can affect (there’s never a sale or coupons for the mortgage payment or the phone bill), so I’m trying to approach this as an exercise in “financial empowerment.” It sounds more fun that way, don’t you think? And I will admit to getting a little bit of a buzz when I manage to cut my “out of pocket” costs for a load of groceries by $20 or $30 at one time by using coupons!

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