Time to slash the shopping budget and use up the store cupboard

threepenny_bit

This coming year I have to be more mindful of how much I spend on shopping and also want to save $1000 for an emergency fund; making this diary to keep accountable and to track progress as well as organizing myself. 

For the EF I will aim to sell what I can, mainly craft supplies, yarn etc and for the shopping I have set myself a $2500 budget to cover food, cleaning products, toiletries etc.  I hope to be able to spend less but not sure yet and may have to adjust or pivot if needed. We live in Canada so my budget shows as dollars! It is just my hubby and I at home and I cook every day, hubby takes lunches to work (usually leftovers or a sandwich, home made pizza etc), we don’t eat out much but do like to have a coffee or meal out now and then. 

My freezers are well stocked and I have done a quick inventory of main items - there are also a few premade dinners, soups, mystery items in boxes for lunches. I have set a goal of emptying the smaller freezer and getting it defrosted as this is the one with the mysery items in lol! I can then add pre prepped meals to it  and this will reduce the need for take aways. The store cupboard has lots of tinned beans, fruit, cereal, pasta, large sack of basmati rice, quinoa, oats, sauces, spices, flour etc so no excuse for not cooking from scratch.  

I am planning to do my main shop at the start of a month when our grocery stores have a 15% customer appreciation one day discount on all groceries, I will alternate this with a costco shop for fruit, veg, bread, milk. I also want to increase my no spend days and not have to pop out for milk and end up buying 3 bags full of other stuff haha!

Any suggestions and ideas are really appreciated and I am willing to try anything that will save us cash. 

ETA in Canada we pay a small deposit on bottles for drink, milk cartons etc and this is returned to us once we take the empty containers to the bottle depot. I will add any bottle depot money back into the shopping money as it was taken from there originally. 

threepenny_bit

My first shopping day this month will be Thursday after we get paid and when we travel back home from my daughters. I have added the budget to the online 'every dollar' app that I use and set it at $208 per month. I am really hoping to be able to come in under budget for the first few months whle we dig through the freezers and cupboards and I have written an inventory for both. 
I have a couple of grocery gift cards totalling just over $150; I tend to buy groceries using a visa card, collect points and get grocery gift cards. We don’t get many coupons here and stores tend to put items on sale instead, I do belong to a couple of cash back sites like checkout 51 and will look into using them again. 
I am going to be cooking from scratch more, less takeaways and think we will have a lot of casseroles, stews etc and the slow cooker may be in use a lot lol! suggestions and ideas for meals always welcome please. 

Four_Seasons

Welcome will be cheering you on x  😊

MoneyDany

I thank you for starting this thread, and I hope more people would share more tips. I always use up my cupboard stuff and plan my meals around them. I also buy what’s on sale and look for discounts and vouchers. It helps me spend less and waste less. I also stumbled upon a helpful app called “SuperCook” that lets you search by what you have at home. You can find recipes you can prepare with the ingredients you have in stock.

Spendless

Good luck on your journey. I have a 2nd fridge so I buy additional dairy items so I have 'back up stock'. In England we can buy filtered milk, it's more expensive than buying regular full fat/semi-skimmed etc but has a longer life on it, both on the side on it and then when opened. I find it more cost effective to buy a few as it stops the random trips to the shop due to milk going off/running out and buying more than milk as you describe!. Currently I have 2 x 2ltr bottles both with use by date 19th Jan and bought before Christmas. 1 was opened yesterday, the unopened one is in my 2nd fridge. I also double or even triple up on cheese and butter, so I always have these items on hand. When I'm running low they go on my grocery list and I buy a few to top up again.  

This is what I mean, it's the brand leader but some supermarkets also do their own. I buy Aldis.

 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/257265436

joedenise

Another option for milk would be UHT.  Since we started visiting France about 15 years ago we started buying UHT as fresh milk was difficult to get so now use it at home as well.  We buy a box of 12l about every 6 weeks but means we don't need to worry about running out of milk and I just add it to the shopping list when we're down to our last 3 or 4.

As regards slow cooker meals I tend to make things like casseroles, stews, curries and chilli.  I like to make them veg and bean heavy to reduce the cost and then freeze into double portions for use over the next few weeks/months.  There are plenty of ideas online.

Couldsavemore

Hi
I'm not used to Canadian dollars.
Is the 2500 for a year or a month??
Not too sure about cost difference.

I've given myself 300 a month and am going for a weekly cash amount. So am hoping to be able to cut back and save the cash.

Good luck

Spendless

£1 GBP =  $1.68 CAN at today's rates.  So 2500 woud be approx  £1486 p.a roughly £125 per month for 2.  

threepenny_bit

MoneyDany said:

I thank you for starting this thread, and I hope more people would share more tips. I always use up my cupboard stuff and plan my meals around them. I also buy what’s on sale and look for discounts and vouchers. It helps me spend less and waste less. I also stumbled upon a helpful app called “SuperCook” that lets you search by what you have at home. You can find recipes you can prepare with the ingredients you have in stock.

Thankyou so much MoneyDany - will check out that app.

threepenny_bit

Spendless said:

Good luck on your journey. I have a 2nd fridge so I buy additional dairy items so I have 'back up stock'. In England we can buy filtered milk, i

Thankyou Spendless - my mum in the uk buys filtered and i havent seen it here but will check out sone of the other supermarkets for it. It would be handy to have in as a back up too. 
Thanks also for the conversion pounds to dollars - the exchange rate isnt great for me right now for when i want to come home to visit family lol! 

threepenny_bit

Couldsavemore said:

Hi
I'm not used to Canadian dollars.
Is the 2500 for a year or a month??
Not too sure about cost difference.

I've given myself 300 a month and am going for a weekly cash amount. So am hoping to be able to cut back and save the cash.

Good luck

Thankfully Spendless did the conversion lol! It is about 130 pounds UK per month for us which seems really low compared to what I have been spending
. I have a few gift vouchers to use as well which add up to a free month and my freezers are full. Hope to just buy fruit & veg and fresh stuff for the next few weeks.
Good luck on your budget too xx