Friends, I read a lot of great suggestions in one of the married life forum threads on home management in terms of finances. I would love to work on that aspect myself. Please pour in your suggestions. Here are some suggestions I gathered from the previous posts - 1) Plan meals ahead and make a list of grocery items required after checking what's available at home 2) pay with cash and take only necessary amount of money for that stuff 3) shop only once a week for grocery 4) write down expenses and track what you can live without My issue is that I'm total unplanned when it comes to cooking and the kitchen. I cook on the fly. I just walk into the store and pick up veggies randomly. I used to not use a few but now I've cut back on this by buying just 2-3 veggies in a trip. I visit the grocery store multiple times. The Indian store is around the corner from my house and so are all the other grocery stores. I sometimes stop in at the IS on my way home from the gym because mustard got over at home and I "thought" I had a pack but can't find it. Example of my day yesterday and today - I had some channa and subzi in the fridge from the day before. I thought I'll just make rice for lunch. Then, kids and DH are home. He is out all the time. By 11 I'm feeling guilty serving leftovers. I go make two new subzis and rotis. I want him to eat good stuff while home. For dinner, I already have four subzis now. All four need to get over by today. I suddenly decide to make pepper chicken. There is no chicken at home. I run to whole foods(DH will not eat meat from elsewhere). Along with chicken, I'm out of milk and other things. I run around dumping things in the cart not even checking prices because I need to get home and cook. I buy extra chicken for Kababs for today too. I come home cook the chicken and make fresh rotis. Nobody eats the old subzis, of course. I am a vegetarian, so I eat the veggies. This entire week I've already made chicken Biriyani various fish and chicken curries and dry shrimp too. Nobody would have complained if I didn't make the chicken yesterday. Just before I served dinner I realized I forgot to make dahi. Now I had to again run to Walmart to buy yogurt. Along with that I pick up fruits that got over at home anyway. I head home exhausted, all my fault. Then today, I swore nothing goes on the stove. Everything is in the fridge including some leftover chicken and marinated ones for kababs that I will make tonight. As dd came back from dance class she said "Amma, I feel like eating sambar with chicken". I ran into the kitchen, made the proper varutharacha kerala sambar. My poor baby, she eats everything I give. No complains. Poor thing. She really wants the sambar. :bonk Now, I have sambar, chicken and four subzis(they have to be consumed today). Now, DH said he wants adai for dinner with sambar and chicken. He said make the Kababs tomorrow. Now I've soaked the dals for adai. I'll end up finishing the subzis myself. Up side is that I will have a grain free dinner. After eating four subzis I don't think I can eat rice/roti. Thankfully, I've learned to reduce the quantities. All leftovers are little not another whole serving for four like it used to be. I never plan my meals because I cook on demand. My child asks for something, I make it for her no matter what. I sometimes run into Walmart from the gym to buy two things I need to make her lunch that I drop off at school in the afternoon. I read people spending 300 bucks on grocery a month and nearly fell off the chair. Please help me manage my grocery bill. I'm open to suggestions.
From my experience, the only way to manage the grocery bill is to have a plan and to cut down the number of trips to the store. Impulse buying will wreck even the most careful list. It is fine to cook what your family asks for, but it will help to have a general plan. Since you have an idea of what they like, I would create a list for say a month. 1) Buy non-persishables and store for at least a month. 2) Vegetables, milk, juice, fruits etc: buy once a week and use up. Restock only if necessary 3) Meat: we buy and freeze in smaller portions, so that it is available for spur of the moment dishes. It gets used up within a month. 4) Leftovers: if it is only a small amount then I discard after a day. Otherwise I freeze and use it for lunches. I also restrict the number of stores I go to. It saves time and unnecessary purchases. It will take a while to get into the habit, but it is possible. Food is expensive where we live, so a $300 grocery bill is optimistic for us. But this method has helped us cut down waste. I keep the grocery lists on my phone, one page for each store. Whenever something gets over, I update the list. This has helped greatly with not forgetting items and making return trips.
MalStrom, Thanks for the tips. I'm terrible with lists. I should start maintaining one right now. I like the idea of keeping it on the phone with one page for each store. Notepads never worked for me because I'd religiously write a list and forget it at home while I left to the store. Phone has to work. I always cook meats immediately(within a day or two). I need to change that mindset and clean and freeze. That will reduce my burden. I know multiple grocery trips are a bane. It started when I moved to India and still continues even though I'm back. I'm going to pick a day and do my grocery that day. I never thought of freezing leftovers for lunches. What a time saver! I used to cook and freeze while working and then just changed my lifestyle to find time to cook while working since I hated spending hours together chopping/cooking/freezing over the weekend. I'll try this, although now I just cook enough for one day, I do have days when I cook other things and leftovers get carried over. Thanks again for the tips.
Mal has great suggestions, I don't really have much to add. I am not the best financial manager myself and DH does grocery shopping because I can't stick to list and buy stuff that we don't need. Anyway, our grocery bill is around $400 / month for a family of 3 and the 3rd one doesn't eat much . Back to the point, we've a white board in kitchen that we use to write notes, appointments and the recipes we are going to make in upcoming week. We usually cook on Sunday and once or twice during week. We don't go crazy cooking for whole week though. Just enough for dinners, lunch we usually either eat out or pack a sandwich. Indian dals, rice, flour, spices- we buy once a month or sometime it stretches for 2 months. Milk, juice, eggs, veggies, fruits, yogurts, cheese, potatoes, onion-anything with short shelf life- once a week Meat-chicken, fish, lamb- we buy twice a month, clean immideatly, cut the fat off and store in 1-2 lb freezer bags. That way we always have meat to throw in any curry. We label the bags so we know which one is the older batch. Frozen veggies- we keep peas, spinach and mixed veg in stock. Toilet paper, paper towels-we go through a lot so twice a month. Canned veggies- we always keep canned chickpeas, beans, tomato paste, chicken broth and vegetable stock for a quick meal and DH likes to make salsa and hummus often to usethese up. DH usualy cooks in bulk and we freeze most of it, we use the plastic boxes that come with lunch meat, label and save. Leftovers-if it is a dry sabzi, I mix with eggs and make an omeltte or throw in some chicken stock to make a yummy soup. We do waste veggies that ee buy for one recipe and the left over just go waste. Now I've started making soups again and hopefully won't be wasting much. Our white board is our planner. We write down the names of recipes, ingredient that need to buy and then take a pic of it. DH also makes a list just in case technology doesn't work (he can't function without lists). We buy groceries from 3 different stores and try to get all done on Saturday. I also look forward to seeing more suggestions here
Nuss, I found some apps on the App Store for grocery lists. I'm trying a few out. Still not sure how to restrict to once a week. I need 2-3 gallons of milk a week and I'm always out of milk. Some weeks I need upto 4. I can keep only 2 gallons in my fridge. I may have to get creative. Also, I use a lot of salads in bags and those things never stay fresh for more than 3-4 days for me. Maybe I'm storing it all wrong. I can definitely cut Indian store visits to once a week. I buy most of the Indian veggies from there. Toilet paper, diapers, oil, dry spices, detergents, chocolate milk, some snacks, some frozen food are all very well organised in my house since all those come from costco and I have to go only once every couple of months.
Laks- I'm so glad to hear that we are not alone in using 4 gallons of milk a week. For salads, we use baby spinach, baby carrots, apples, pear, grapes (pretty much any fruit), nuts, raisins, berries, shallots and chickpeas. We keep fruits at room temperature- apples, pear, oranges, pineapple (uncut) are fine at RT for a week and saves the fridge space. Don't was the salad greens before storing, wash before making a salad, that way extra moisture won't get in. We don't use any wholesale store, cancelled my Sam's membership because we used to waste a more by buying in bulk. And, we are quite old fashioned, we still have dumb phones
Thank God somebody else uses as much milk! I should stop buying bagged salads and do what you do. I should stop being lazy. I always wash/clean/chop and only then store greens to make cooking easy. No wonder all my greens have no keeping quality! I'll try to find ways to work around my easy options Btw, I love costco. I'll cry to give up on that. I think we don't waste anything we buy from there. I think that's one of my most efficient shopping. smart phones are fun. Try one sometime. It's addictive!
Laks, I am not sure if this will help, but here goes. I'm just like you in the "cooking fresh/good food for the family and preparing whatever they ask" part. There are 3 of us in my family and DH and I both work fulltime. I have a preschooler who has started to ask what he wants for lunch/dinner etc. Earlier, I used to cook like 10 items in the morning which at one point led to all of us clocking in late. Then DH told me to strictly minimize cooking in the morning. My heart will not let me send DH and DS just about anything for lunch and so this is what I do now. I do not prepare lists, but I set the same menu for the same day every week. For example, it's pooris on Tuesday and pasta on Wednesday for lunch. That way, I have a clear list of items to buy and also am better-prepared each week. Also on some days, I try and cook such that one item can be used for dinner. When we get bored with rice, we buy tortillas or bread or pancakes for breakfast. A pack of either of these will get us by for 3-4 days. I cook everyday and do not store cooked food for more than 1 day in the fridge. However, there are days on which I throw away old rice, sambar, subzi, veggies stashed away at the back of the fridge etc. Guess that cannot be avoided. From your post, I feel that you should stop preparing new items each time your DH asks for them. Kid, I can understand, but gradually you might want to tell her that you will definitely make what she asks for the next day, and persuade her to eat that day's dish. Try and finish the already prepared items first. That will save you more money and energy!
I buy the pre-washed salad greens sold in clamshells. Our Costco has pre-washed organic baby spinach for a good price. Trader Joe's has bagged kale and other greens. For the bunches of fresh herbs, collard greens etc I shake off the water, then store them with a paper towel in the plastic bag. I still rinse and spin them dry before use, but I find that these last longer than buying loose greens. If it is an experimental salad then I will get the ingredients from the salad bar at the store in just the right amounts, to make sure it will be eaten before getting a huge pile of ingredients!
