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As my children are getting older and therefore acquiring larger appetites I am always trying to make our grocery budget go further.
I put foaming soap dispensers to work in as many areas as possible. I clip coupons. I keep a price book. I shop at warehouse stores. I keep my eye out for discounted meat. I either use the bread machine to bake our bread or buy it from a discount bread store. I try to do what I can to prevent food waste. Yet still lately my grocery budget is becoming increasing tight.
One day while I was pondering the whole situation, I decided to do something that I had read once in a book, I decided to continue planning meals for 7 days but grocery shop every 8 days.
When the 8th day lands on a Sunday (a day I try to not shop on ), I stretch our food just one day more going 9 days.
We fill our cash envelopes, including the grocery envelope once a week on the same day of the week. By following this new shop every 8 days discipline, every 6 weeks I end up with a grocery envelope with double the money in it.
This has allowed me to buy in bulk at Sam’s Club more often.
It has also allowed me to stock up when a I see a good sale on an item we use often. Before when I saw such sales I could only afford to buy 1 or 2 of that item, now I can buy what we need till I know it will be on sale again.
The unplanned 8th or 9th day, can be an interesting day of meals. Often lunch is a free for all, meaning one child might eat a sandwich, another the rest of the freezer waffles, and the third the last 2 pieces of last nights pizza.
Dinner that day is simple, perhaps pancakes or quick biscuits, scrambled eggs and whatever fruit we might have left.
An additional benefit shopping this way is that we are throwing away less food, than we once did as every morsel is needed to stretch through that last day.
How about you? Have you every tried to stretch the time between shopping days?
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Sharla @ Slacker Saver says
June 16, 2012 at 9:22 amOur schedule doesn’t work very well to move the shopping day during the week–Wednesday’s clearly the best day to get groceries in our house. Once a month or so I try to only buy fresh necessities–milk, produce, and a little bread. This has been helping me make good use of my stockpiles, since that week I have to check what we have and actually use that in my meal plan.
Victoria says
June 16, 2012 at 10:32 amYes that is also a great way of putting a different spin on this tip.
Debra @ September Acres says
June 24, 2012 at 3:13 pmI am always trying to stretch out the time between shopping days. I will do either a breakfast for dinner night or leftovers in order to stretch it out. It’s not popular (‘breakfast for dinner, again???”) but it works! I had read the ‘schedule for 7, shop for 8’ idea also and did it for a while. It really does work. Thanks for the reminder!
NancyB says
December 16, 2013 at 7:37 pmTo put a different spin on it, last year I stopped shopping the month of January. It forced me to utilize the food we had in the pantry and the freezer more than usual. I try to keep to the first in, first out rule when it comes to the pantry, but that is not so easy with the freezer. I shop for produce and milk at the end of December, then I just wait until February 1 to go to the store. It worked so well last year, I’m going to do it again this coming January.