A simple plan cuts the cost of wasted food

For the past two weeks, I’ve been staring down a small container of cherry tomatoes. They haven’t spoiled, but they are definitely past their prime. I don’t want to throw them away, but a dozen lackluster tomatoes aren’t inspiring my inner chef. Plus, I feel a twinge of guilt when I think about wasting food, particularly when we devote such a large portion of our budget to feeding our family.

Having a trio of backyard chickens has made it possible to redeem almost all of our kitchen scraps, and I work hard to use up the food we have. Still, I know I could do better with things like the aforementioned languishing cherry tomatoes. I’ve even been known to avoid opening food storage containers in my refrigerator because I’m afraid of what might be lurking inside.

What’s even more frightening than unearthing furry food is the cost of wasting it. According to the USDA, Americans throw away about 14% of the food they buy; some other independent estimates put that amount closer to 25%. If my family’s experience rings true—even to the more modest estimate—we’re literally throwing away $70 every month, or $840 a year.

I could think of a lot of ways I’d like to spend $840 this year—but wasted food doesn’t make the list. Becoming more intentional with my food dollars and my cooking habits will help ensure that more food gets used, and less is discarded. There’s nothing revolutionary about the plan I’ve sketched out for my family, but it will help me make the most of what I have.

First, I will recommit to creating a weekly meal plan and writing it on the family calendar. Doing so allows me to take stock of ingredients I already have, and plan meals accordingly. (Plus, a meal plan avoids “what’s for dinner?” tension at the end of the day.) For example, I have some small pieces of ham and a bunch of boiled eggs leftover from Easter, so I’ll prepare a chef salad. I also have a large tub of ricotta cheese (and those leftover tomatoes) lingering in my fridge; I’ll put both to use in lasagna.

Second, I want to have a specific purpose in mind for everything I buy. Contrary to traditional budgeting advice, I don’t shop with a strict list. My grocery list includes staple items I need, such as spices and baking ingredients. Otherwise, I shop for what looks good at the best price. Last time I went shopping, for instance, organic beef was on sale for half price. I hadn’t planned to buy beef that day, but I scooped up the last four packages, knowing that I could freeze it or use it to make sloppy joes and taco pizza.

Designating a specific spot for leftovers in the refrigerator is another easy-to-implement strategy that I’ll employ. If I know that all leftovers are on the top, right-hand shelf, then I’ll be able to look past the tubs of homemade playdough and the cartons of eggs to see what we need to eat first.

Lastly, I want to find more uses for leftovers and food past its prime. I’ve always thrown away broccoli stalks, but I know they’re suitable for stir frying, soups, and frittatas; I just need to get in the habit of using them. Carrot and onion peels, wilted celery ribs and other vegetable miscellany will be put to use in homemade broths, rather than going to the chickens.

This plan will take effort, but I’m looking forward to less spoiled food, less cherry tomato guilt, and to stretching my food dollars further.

Feeling deprived isn’t part of our budget plan

I’m surprised by my naiveté. When I declared that we were taking a serious look at our food budget and attempting to cut it in half, I thought the decision was largely a dollars-and-cents issue. We reasoned that we’re spending more than we wanted, so we just needed to cut back.
The situation is far more complicated than I first thought. In the last few days before I went shopping again, breakfast was utter chaos. Our three oldest children were so frustrated that we had run out of our customary breakfast fare that they were all crying. Honestly, I felt out of sorts too, grumbling to myself when I was out of coffee and half and half, and feeling crabby when I had to field questions about what we were having for dinner.
I didn’t realize how much we depend on the familiarity and convenience of certain foods. When we ran out of yogurt and didn’t have the kind of cheese we like, for example, we felt deprived. Those feelings of deprivation mean that the pendulum of our food budget adjustments has swung too far the other way.
While we don’t want to spend thoughtlessly on food, we don’t want to be slaves to our budget, either. We want to be as intentional with our food dollars as we are with other parts of our budget. We still want to shop and eat in ways that leave us feeling happy and nourished.
As my husband and I discussed our budget for the coming month, we talked about the parts of our plan we need to revise. But our cost-cutting food plan also has benefits that we like. First, we both agreed that we were glad we raised our budget consciousness and learned that it’s possible to scale back what we spend. Now, we can adjust our food budget so we have more freedom to buy what we enjoy, but not so much flexibility that we return to our old ways. For now, we’re increasing our bi-weekly budget from $150 to $200.
Second, we want to continue using the cash-only approach to eating out. Having a specific parameter in place makes meals out an event we can look forward to, not just a budget-gobbling habit. Though we blew our eating out budget the first week, we stuck to our plan and spent only what we had set aside. When we went out to eat at the start of another two weeks, the opportunity excited us.
Third, we both appreciated how some upfront meal preparation paid off over the following two weeks. I bought hamburger in bulk (at a phenomenal price) and made spaghetti sauce, meatballs, sloppy joes, and taco meat all at the same time. I froze the meals in family-size portions, so we could pull out what we needed the night before and spend just a few minutes boiling noodles, grating cheese, or making a quick side dish to get dinner on the table.
Finally, we want to revisit our list of goals – such as buying a woodstove – that prompted us to trim our food budget, and we’ll create a more specific plan to accomplish them. If we’re going to continue making changes in the way we spend our food dollars, we need to see tangible benefits. Right now, we’ll take the money we’re saving and transfer it into an account we’ve earmarked for our goals.
Even with a few bumps along the way, budgeting can work. We’ll keep adjusting our budget until we find a balance that lets us save money while shopping wisely and eating well.

Determination, imagination essential for sticking to a budget

My plan to dramatically scale back my family’s food budget is in full swing. Last week, I withdrew $200 in cash from our bank account--$50 for eating out that I tucked into an envelope for later, and $150 to buy groceries for the next two weeks.
With cash in my wallet, I headed into the grocery store with four children, a calculator, and – unknown to me – a smuggled toy hammer. The scene played out like this: while I tried to concentrate on shopping, my 4-year-old used said toy hammer to pound on cereal boxes and ripe cantaloupe. Meanwhile, my 2-year-old attempted to hoist a $6 watermelon and topple pyramids of apples.
After I confiscated the hammer and contained the hoister of watermelons, I pulled out my tiny pocket calculator, so worn that half of the numbers and symbols were missing. The baby on my hip batted the calculator from my hand several times. I had to let my 5-year-old steer the cart so I could keep a running total of everything I was buying.
At the end of a stressful hour in the store, I rolled up to the register with $147.30 worth of groceries in my cart. Overwhelmed with relief to have stayed within my budget and to be leaving, I reached for my debit card and paid for my groceries. I was loading my car when I realized I’d forgotten to use the cash I pulled from my account. Nobody said this budget-conscious shopping was going to be easy or go smoothly on the first try.
When I got home, I finalized my menu and thought about lessons I’d learned already. First, I realized that if we are to stick to a new grocery plan, I’m going to have to retrain my brain and concentrate on what I’m doing. This means leaving the kids at home and making a more comprehensive list.
I’ve always paid attention to sales and compared price per ounce, but I now need to ratchet up my efforts. I weighed grapes and apples (which I’ve admittedly never done before) and thought about every item I picked up. I didn’t just toss our old standbys into the cart, but thought about more cost-effective ways to eat the foods we enjoy. Instead of pudding cups, for example, I bought prepackaged cook-and-serve pudding at a fraction of the cost. I plan to refine this even further and make homemade cooked pudding with the recipe my mother used every week when I was a child.
Second, I acknowledge I’ll face a few budget hiccups. I had to plan a meal for a group of 11 women, and for a family camping trip. These situations were both out of the ordinary, but still required me to stay within the limit I had set. A budget won’t help me if I break it every time something unusual comes up.
So, I got creative with my menus. For the camping trip, several families worked cooperatively to make meals. I agreed to make breakfast, which allowed me to use items I already had in my pantry and freezer to make two pans of pull-apart caramel rolls. They were a big hit with the crowd and kept my budget intact.
For dinner with my friends, I prepared an elegant meal of homemade miniature quiches, a garden salad with greens from my own patch, rhubarb soda, and apple crisp . I was able to pull it off by imaginatively using resources I had available to me – and that will be the key to living well on a budget.

Lower food bills can move us closer to debt-free lifestyle

I wish I could say that after all these years of writing about money, I’ve reached some sort of financial nirvana, a place where our budget effortlessly hums along. In truth, we hit budget bumps and have starts and stops every month like everyone else. Nevertheless, even if it were possible to find perfection, that isn’t the point of a budget.

A budget isn’t a static template that we lay over our lives; it’s a spending guide that flexes with our family. For us, one of the most exciting things about a budget is that it constantly offers us opportunities to see our finances with fresh eyes. When we see where we’re spending, we can shift our priorities.

It turns out that we’re getting ready for a major shift in our family budget. When we recently calculated our total monthly food expenses, we faced a sobering truth. In June, we spent over a $1,000 on food for our family of six, and in the five months prior to that, we averaged over $800 on groceries and eating out. We know we can do better. We want to do better.

We’ve challenged ourselves to cut our food budget in half, not as a way to be stingy, but because we want to stretch our money. We’re looking for creative ways to get the things we want and need with the money we have. Ultimately, our goal is to be entirely debt free, so we plan to take half of what we save on food costs and apply it to the principle balance on our mortgage. We’ll devote the other half to projects for our family. We want some fun things, including a family trip and a playhouse for our children. Some practical items, such as a new vacuum and a woodstove, also are on our list.

Cutting our food budget in half may sound like a daunting task. How will this even be possible in a family of growing children who are voracious eaters? We’ll start with what we spend on eating out, which averages over $200 a month. By packing snacks and lunches instead of heading for the nearest fast food restaurant, we’ll whittle down what we spend on eating out to $100, which we plan to take out in cash and keep in an envelope. When the cash is gone, there’s no more eating out that month.

We’ll use the same all-cash approach with grocery shopping, because I know how easy it is to spend more than I’ve planned. Case in point, when I stopped at the grocery store with four items on my list for a camping trip, I walked out with 10 and spent three times as much as I had planned. With cash, that won’t happen.

We’ll also have to carve out more time for food preparation and change the way we do some of our shopping. This means rethinking items we mindlessly put in our cart, including pudding cups and granola bars. Juice won’t be a morning mainstay, but will become an occasional treat. Even pantry staples like egg noodles (Here is the Cowgirl's Country Life blog where she has a great recipe for Chicken and (Egg) Noodles) that seem inexpensive will be foods I buy the ingredients for and prepare at home - for a fraction of the grocery store price. We’ll keep trying different strategies until we find budget-stretching ideas that truly work for us.

I’ll be sharing my journey to reduce my food bill with you in future posts. And I encourage you to share your best cost-cutting ideas with me. E-mail me at cdenman@acce-online.com or leave comments below. Adventures in frugal living are more fun when we experience them together.

Simple steps toward budgeting can empower you

When I was recently introduced to a friend’s husband, the first words out of his mouth were, “You’re that woman who writes about budgets all the time, right?”“I’ve never been good at that kind of stuff,” he volunteered. Then, as if I might ask him to get out his checkbook register for an impromptu budgeting session, he quickly left.I suppose it’s possible that I might have had spinach in my teeth, but I think talking about budgets made him uncomfortable. That brief exchange reflects two pervasive (and unfortunate) myths about budgeting: 1) Everyone just innately knows how to budget ; and 2) If you aren’t using a budget, you should feel guilty.Rest assured there is no such thing as a “budgeting gene” that skipped you. You don’t have to use complicated forms or be a math whiz to use a budget successfully. What’s more, the last thing a budget should do is create guilt. At its best, a budget is the single most powerful financial tool you have.If you’ve never used a budget, or you’ve given up on using a budget because it has never seemed to work for you, you may not know where to start. If the idea of throwing yourself wholeheartedly into the budgeting process seems overwhelming, you may want to try the baby-step approach.This type of budgeting lets you zero in on a single household expense. Start by reviewing your checkbook register, credit card receipts, or online accounts and calculate your total monthly spending in a specific area. When you’ve got the total amount in front you, you immediately become empowered to decide if you’re happy with your spending. If you aren’t, you can decide how much you want to cut back in that one area.But the purpose of budgeting isn’t simply to cut back. The real power is in reallocating your funds. A budget allows you to take money you’re saving in one area and spend it on things that can make your life better. You might take the extra money and build an emergency fund, pay off a debt, start a vacation fund, or put it towards another financial goal.Even if you already have a working budget, you can use this method to think critically about where your money is going. For example, my husband and I decided to look at what we spent on food last month. We spent $659 on groceries and a whopping (and shocking) $302.27 on eating out. These numbers were skewed because of some unusual family circumstances, so we took a three-month average, which put our total monthly food expenditure between $805.09 and $594.82 for groceries and $211.27 on eating out.Even though our monthly food costs fall within the average levels reported by the USDA (approximately $810 a month for a family of our size), my husband and I agreed we want to spend less on food so we can save for a woodstove. We estimate it will cost about $5,000 for the stove and installation. We’ve already saved roughly half of this, so we need to save an additional $2,500. If we spent half as much on eating out, we could save $105 a month, or $1,260 over the next 12 months.Additionally, if we adjust how we spend our food dollars at the grocery store (making our own baby food instead of buying jarred brands, cutting out prepackaged foods), we can cut our grocery bill by a $110 each month. Such carefully planned cutbacks could empower us to buy a woodstove in less than a year.