Like most people surviving in the current economic situation, I have decided that I am going to further tighten the belt of my budget for the sake of my investments. I have reduced a lot of my re-occurring expenses by switching from DirecTV and AT&T DSL to bundle my TV and Internet with Comcast. In addition to that, I have reduced my electricity usage and natural gas usage.
I am looking to further reduce the amount of money being spent due to the fact that I have now taken on an investment property. In my current budget, I have allocated $130/month for groceries. I am looking to reduce this amount drastically. I have given myself the goal to live for three weeks off of $50 groceries. Although I feel like this was an arduous task, this type of pressure requires one to get creative. Also, using the principles of "P.I.E", I feel that any task is quite manageable.
To proceed with accomplishing this task, I do what I usually do before going to the grocery store, checking the weekly ads. Fortunately with Kroger, they list all of their "weekly ads" on their website. After getting an idea of the items with the best value, I make a small list of my needs. This list is typically comprised of items that I have already decided on cooking for the day/week as well as some staples that I can create a meal from in the pantry.
As a side note, below are some of the "staples" that I require in my pantry:
- Rice
- Beans
- Corn
- Barbeque Sauce
- Brocolli
- Sweet Peas
- Bread
Now taking on this goal requires that I draw a very distinctive line between what I want and what I will need to accomplish this goal. It just so happened that this week at Kroger, there was a special on meat at Kroger, so I definitely had to take advantage of this by stocking up on high value items. Although meat typically has a short shelf life, you can easily extend it by freezing those items immediately and using them at a later date.
During this whole experiment, I am hoping to eat healthier as well as learn to get a bit more creative in the kitchen. I am also hopeful in learning to discipline myself in my consumption of food and find other things to do beside eat and lounge around my home.
If you have any suggestions on how to stretch your groceries a little bit further than usual, please leave them in the comment section below.
Stay Disciplined!
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3 comments:
I find that ramen noodle based meals are real money savers. It's true that ramen is not the healthiest by itself, but one can easily compliment the meal with a slew of vegetables and meats. For example, here is a spiced up ramen meal with approximate prices:
1 Pack Ramen: $.20
1/2 Chicken Breast, cubed: $.50
4Oz Chopped Carrots: $.20
4Oz Chopped Celery: $.20
4Oz Snap peas: $.30
Total: ~$1.50
Prep time: 10 min
Preperation instructions:
Cut chicken breast and vegetables in bulk to save time. Create small bowls or bags of the meats/veggies in the amounts above and put them in the freezer. When you're ready to eat, put the ramen in the microwave (or pot) and cook. While that is cooking, stir fry your frozen meats and vegetables. After everything is done, mix it in a bowl and enjoy!
It's a relatively healthy meal at a very low cost. Feel free to add different meats or load up on more veggies for a healthier meal. If you don't want the pain of having to stir-fry, just throw everything in a pot and boil for about 10-15 minutes until well cooked.
The problem is that cheaper foods like Ramen noodles are often quite unhealthy. Ramen noodles with the flavor packet in the soup have high levels of sodium, lots of carbohydrates, and little if any vitamin content. If you toss the flavor packet, you remove a large quantity of the sodium but still have all the starch from the noodles. Adding vegetables helps with the lack of nutritional content and can be really cheap if you go to a farmers market (helps keep food grown locally too but that's for another time).
Several studies have shown that low to lower middle class families have, on average, worse health and increased chances of issues like childhood obesity. This is due in part from their inclination to purchase foods that are generally unhealthy but bought for their price point. "Low-income families often turn to inexpensive food that is high in fat and high in empty calories." - http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/nov/12/low-income-kids-three-times-more-likely-be-obese/
McDonalds is an all too perfect example of cheap food that is terrible for you :)
I would suggest using rice instead of Ramen noodles. You can make basically the same meal for approximately the same price using rice. The cooking time is increased (brown rice takes about 45 minutes to cook), but it is much healthier. A large package of brown rice costs between $3 and $4 and you will get 15 or so meals from it.
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