Price Book

I’ve read or skimmed several low budget cooking books and the two books I liked the best discussed developing a price book.  A price book is a small notebook you keep in your purse to help you find the best deals on the items you purchase the most.  This has been really helpful to me in determining where I am going to do my grocery shopping.

How to get started:

1) Get a small spiral notebook.  Something I wish I had done differently is found something with tabs so that the items would be in alphabetical order or by food category.  I am thinking about rewriting everything in a new more organized notebook.

2) collect grocery recipets you have around the house and/or sales fliers. 

3)Make the headers. On the top of the page write the food item (example: Strawberries).  Then the headers for your columns: date of purchase, store, brand,  total price, unit (the size), and finally unit price.

4) Determine price per unit.  Take the total price you paid and divide by the size of the product.  Most food items I buy are in ounces, but diapers I do by # of diapers in the box.  Many products are sold in different sizes depending on the brand.  Determining the price per unit allows you to see what the price really is.

 Here is an excerpt from my page for strawberries:

Strawberrries

9/18 PNS   $2.50   16 oz   .16/0z

9/6  Aldis   $2.29   16 oz   .14/0z

9/30 Target  $1.97   16oz  .12/0z

9/24  Woodman’s  $2.99  16 oz   .19/oz

 I was suprised to see Target had the lowest price.  I had never bought groceries there before.  Using sale fliers can help you track prices at stores you don’t usually shop at.

5) Dedicate time to update your book.  One book I read suggested keeping one day a week as your “quiet day” to plan meals, cut coupons, and look through fliers.  She’s a stay at home with a detailed weekly schedule to maintain her home.  On this day she doesn’t do any cleaning beyond daily dishes, etc.  Family Feasts on$75 suggests a goal of 15 minutes a day to updating the price book.  That’s what I have been trying to do but 1 hour a week can provide you the information you need.

It may sound daunting or tedious, but this tip has helped me see in writing changes I have made and how they are adding up.  Give it a try, it will only cost you the price of one small notebook.

How I’m cutting foods costs

Helping write out the weekly menu

Many of these tips are things I had been doing already but many new ones are from thrifty mom friends and some new reads (see previous post for one of these books).

1) Plan a weekly menu and stick to the grocery list, include weekend breakfast and lunch options.
2) Keep a running list of items as you run out and don’t run to the store for one ingredient.
3) Buy in season, it’s cheaper and tastes better. So what if you eat nectarines for 2 weeks straight.
4) Shop the farmer’s market before the grocery store. Our farmer’s market is across the street from the big chain store. I purchased 2 grocery size bages of produce for $5.
5) Check different areas of the store. Black beans are often cheaper in the Mexican food isle than in the canned vegetable aisle.
6) Check the stores website for unadvertised coupons and sales.
7) Use meat as a condiment or not at all. I’ve been using half the meat in my recipes for weeks and my husband hasn’t noticed. Shhhh.

I have 4 new books from the library so I’m hoping for more tips to come.

Family Feasts for $75 a week

I love to read.  A mom friend of mine always says she doesn’t have time to read.  I might not have time to do the dishes but I always have time to read.  When a book really makes an impression on me I have to tell everyone I know.  I recently picked up Family Feasts for $75 a week by Mary Ostyn from the library and was so inspired I bought it off amazon.com for $10 that night (side note Amazon is almost always cheaper than going to the book store, check prices before heading to the big name book stores).  Some reviews I read criticized the book because the author has a large vegetable garden, an orchard and a lot of freezer space.  The beauty of her book is that it is not asking you to do everything that she does, I have read books like that and returned them to the library before ever finishing.

My grocery spending one month this summer was $800.  outrageous for a family of 2.5 but we love food and convenence.  As two full-time working adults sometimes it’s easier to pay $7 for a rotisserie chicken than $4.00 for a roasting chicken you cook yourself.  When I saw that number I knew we had to change.  Here’s what helped me from Mary’s book:

1) List your goals.  Why do you want to cut costs?  Do you want to save some money for a vacation, stay home with your kids, pay off your car?  These are our 3 big goals.  Thinking about why we need to watch our food budget has helped keep us in line.  We slashed hundreds of dollars from our food budget last month just by paying better attention to what we were paying.

2) If you haven’t been tracking your spending I urge you to start.  We have been doing this since we got engaged years ago but didn’t do anything about it.  Just watched the numbers tick by.  I could kick myself for all the money we have squandered away.  Make yourself responsible for what you are doing.

3) The suggestion that helped me the most last month was to go to the store less.  I often went to the grocery store 3-4 days a week to pick up one item, and like anyone who walks into a Target, I never bought just one item.  Mary suggests keeping a running list on your fridge of items you are out of for the next big trip and do not go to the store until your planned trip.  Because I am creative in the kitchen this has worked well for us.  If you are working on becoming an organized cook make sure you stock your pantry well before committing to this technique (she also has a list of pantry items to get you started).

4) Develop a price book.  Gather any receipts or sale fliers you have and buy a small notebook that would fit in a purse.  On each page you will write at the top a food item such as milk, under that make a grid with the categories: date, store, brand name, total price, size, and unit cost/size.  As you get going you will start to see trends in what stores have the lowest prices for items you regularly buy and the rotation of items that are on sale.  Pick N Sav in our area will have the light yogurt on sale one week and then low-fat the next week.  

This book lists dozens of other tips on coupon clipping, meal planning, freezing and storing foods, and best of all recipes.  I’ve only tried one recipe so far but it was low-fat and delicious.  I strongly encourage you to check this book out from your local library and start some savvy saving of your own.