Where are my penny pinchers? Budget time

[Lil-Rokslider]

Since you’re self employed have you looked into increasing your margins of raising your prices? Also I agree with you on the food challenge. Healthy doesn’t last and is expensive. Cheap food can cost more in the long run due to not being healthy. Buying in bulk can cost you if you don’t use it before expiring.

Ya, I think about that a lot, especially over the last few years of inflation. I give myself a raise every year by raising my prices, and part of the idea of going through the budget this time was to work backwards to figure out how much my prices need to increase this year. Probably more than normal!

 

[MTtrout]

Junk food costs money,

I disagree with this. Junk food is cheap compared to more healthier alternatives. My kids eat snacks just like every other kid. But we pay the price for snacks that have less ingredients and additional sugar additives.

Fighting kids over food is the Achilles heel of parenting. Everyone tackles it differently. In our house we don’t expose or offer alternatives, within reason. That’s for the grandparents to do. My 5 year old the other day asked my dad at a restaurant “pops what did you order, caribou, deer, elk… pops said beef. My boy said I don’t believe I’ve ever ate that one before”. Proud dad moment. He has eaten beef before but my point is that parenting can be tough and every kid needs snacks. We just try our best to provide the healthier option

 

[eelderj823]

Something that helped me was every Sunday I grill 9 to 12 big chicken breasts. I let them cool completely and then slice. I keep a zip lock of those in the fridge along with a couple of different sauces. We all use this for salads, wraps, or just eat them plain when we need a quick meal or snack. We also buy bulk frozen fruit that we use in a quick smoothie or to make several different quick snacks that the kids love. Great mixed with Greek yogurt. We also buy flavored almonds in bulk. They are expensive but if you separate them into portion zip lock bags, they go a long ways and are a more filling, and a more healthy snack than the pre-packaged bs most parents feed their kids.

We eat out about once a month- I love to cook so do 5-6 suppers a week and my wife does the other 1 or 2. Again, having the chicken pre-done saves us on the nights we don't have time. It is so easy to make something fast if the meat is already cooked. We buy chicken breasts in bulk for about $1.75 per/pound.

On average we spend about $500 on groceries/standard household items per month and feed 4-6 per day. Of course, we have hundreds of pounds of wild game/fish to supplement. We also garden 6 months of the year.

This is the answer right here. Something my family is starting to implement and it is so helpful when the time is not there due to sports, etc.

 

[5MilesBack]

My kids are 7, 6, 4, 2, and newborn. All they ever want to do while they're awake is eat snacks.

Your home, you set the ground rules. My rules were breakfast, lunch, and dinner are our eating times, with a small snack between lunch and dinner, and nothing after dinner until morning. If they don't want to eat at mealtime, they don't eat until the next mealtime.

I'm so frugal, I don't even need a budget. But since college days I've always said "when it comes to food, money's no object". But there are prices I just won't pay these days for items, so I only buy them when I can get them on sale for under my max price.......out of principle.

I don't know how some people do it these days, especially young couples with kids.

 

[hunterjmj]

My wife and I have a white board that we've used for years that serves as our menu ideas, to do-list, to buy list, goals and the actual menu.
We usually stick to it pretty close. The menu adjusts depending what's on sale at the grocery store. We keep a good stock of burger, pork roasts, ribs, chicken wings or whatever I find on sale around $1 or so/pound. Leftovers go in my lunch and the kids eat what we eat. I haven't ate out for lunch in about 2 years. We shop Winco every 3 weeks and spend about $500. The kids eat apples, cheese, salami, quesadillas, etc for snacks. I'll pick them up some candy every once in a while if I stop by the hardware store. Groceries are so expensive now that we have no choice but to be careful on spending. It's the only expense we have a little control over.

 

[PurpleDriver]

Some great points made in here, but really it’s awesome to hear how everyone handles the grocery monster. Inflation is killing us!

 

[Cahunter805]

Not sure if you have space or a yard but planting some fruit trees can help offset the cost also. It will take a few years until they produce larger quantities but that’s not too bad.
Do you have a dehydrator? You can make your own apple chips, fruit roll ups and lots of other snacks also.

 

[McKolorado]

I don’t think you’re far off. We are a family of five (3 boys 11, 7 and 4) and our monthly grocery budget is $1400 and we are “tight wads.” To help keep things “under control” we do tend to stay to a “schedule” with food 3 meals and one snack between lunch and dinner (we aren’t militant about this). On thing that improved the snacking battle/frenzy was actually shifting to protein/fat dense snacks for our kids. Protein especially but protein and fat are much more satiating than fruits/veggies etc. think cheese sticks/slices, summer suausage, hot dogs. Yes, it sounds more expensive but we shifted from a veggie/vegan diet to a higher protein moderate fat diet and our grocery budget didn’t change much. We basically realized it took 4 lbs of apples at. $1.00 lb compared to one pound of ground beef at $4 to keep you full (and before the smart asses chime in, no not literally 4 lbs of apples at once, just illustrating the point).

 

[MattB]

Since you’re self employed have you looked into increasing your margins of raising your prices? Also I agree with you on the food challenge. Healthy doesn’t last and is expensive. Cheap food can cost more in the long run due to not being healthy. Buying in bulk can cost you if you don’t use it before expiring.

I know of a couple of taxidermists who had too much work and figured that, if they increased their prices, they would drive some business away. It didn’t change a thing for them other than their take-home pay.

 

[def90]

Give your kids rice and beans every time they want a snack and they will probably stop asking for snacks..

 

[cubguy]

No secret. Make your own food with plenty of leftovers and don't eat out. I got young kids too so I understand the snacks, but we're working on cutting it back. We will even leave a half eaten meal out and that can be snack. Teaches them to eat when they're supposed to eat pretty quick. Sometimes, they are needed and those apple sauce pouches, stick of cheese, or a banana are typically an affordable go to.

We've gone through 8 lbs of moose and 2 lbs of salmon since Monday. Tacos on Monday probably cost $10 and got 3 meals out of them, Blue Cheese Salmon and veggie Tuesday probably cost $10 and got 2 meals out of it, burgers and salad Wednesday probably cost $5 and got 3 meals out of it, Biscuits and gravy with fruit last night under $10 and that will be our lunch and breakfast next couple of days. Got 3 lbs of moose steak thawing in the fridge for tomorrow and will make a salad and baked potato with them probably coming in again around $10 and with that and leftovers, we will get back to the start of next week. I try to keep grocery bills under $150 per week and that includes diapers and household items. I can say with 100% confidence that the total cost for our salmon meat runs and shooting a couple moose this year was easily well below what it would've cost to buy equivalent from the store.

I had an old coworker who was always stressed about being poor while we were paying off massive debt. It was baffling to her since we made the same. She had a coffee every single day and ate our for lunch and supper at least 50% of the time. We sat down and added that up one day so she could see the light and it was almost sickening.

Just curious In your costs do you factor in how much it cost to get that moose home and processed?

 

[AKBC]

Just curious In your costs do you factor in how much it cost to get that moose home and processed?

Game meat is free up until it gets to my house because if I didn't hunt I would be spending my money on other expensive activities. Basically the money I spend hunting is my recreation and entertainment budget.

I butcher everything myself but have a processor do the burger and make a few sausages. The burger ends up much less expensive than beef burger and the sausages perhaps a bit less than store bought.

 

[william schmaltz]

Just curious In your costs do you factor in how much it cost to get that moose home and processed?

Yes, I grew up in our family butcher shop so we do all of the processing ourselves in the garage. The equipment has paid for itself 10x over. One moose my wife shot 10 minutes from the house on the second day of hunting so the price of that one was a half tank of fuel (she got lucky and drew a cow tag last year). My moose I flew with miles on AK airlines, paid my share of fuel, and paid a few hundred to ship home. So it pencils out.

 

[*zap*]

Go Lil or go home..

 

[bigeyedfish]

We have three kids, but our grocery bills are quite a bit lower. We value eating healthy foods too, which is a struggle while trying to control costs. We rarely buy meat at the store. Almost all of it was raised or hunted/caught at our house. That makes a huge difference.

Somebody mentioned earlier that it is often easier to earn than save. If you're going to increase prices anyway, I'd be focused on trying to figure out what your market is willing to pay rather than focusing on margin. You can further improve margins by improving efficiency, but charge as much as you can.

 

[Walmart Greeter]

My wife and I are updating our budget, which means we're also looking back at all the ways we sucked at following our budget over the last year

We try really hard to be frugal people, while still enjoying ourselves. Looking back over the last year, the areas where we tend to get a bit reckless with our spending are eating out and my wife's target addiction........
Those are easy fixes, but what's got me scratching my head is our grocery budget.

For Context, we just had our 5th kid, so we're feeding a lot of mouths. My kids are 7, 6, 4, 2, and newborn. All they ever want to do while they're awake is eat snacks.

We try to eat healthy, real food, well rounded meals. We try to have leftovers from dinner for lunch whenever possible. I've got a couple freezers full of wild game, and I have a bunch of laying chickens. Yet, we somehow still spend around $1,800 per month at the grocery store!

Anyone with experience feeding a big family and keeping it affordable? Meal planning experts? Leftover and snack hacks? Grocery deal seekers? I need all your advice!

Memorize the 4 digit code for the cheep produce and type those codes in when you purchase your more expensive produce in the self checkout. We catch people doing that all the time.

 

[rtaylor]

I haven't read through all 5 pages so maybe my advice has already been said. Walmart pick up will save a ton. When you go shopping at Walmart or Target and you have a list, very seldom does one walk out with only the items on your list. Using Walmart pickup eliminates all the unnecessary buying when going in the store. You'll save 20% by not going in. Also, snacks by the package are always way more expensive then making the snacks. Lastly, don't go out to eat. We reserve going out to eat to birthdays which means we only go out 4 times per year.

 

[MallardSX2]

Until last weekend my family hadn't eaten at a restaurant in 2023.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Also, an InstaPot or equivalent can turn the cheapest or toughest cuts of meat into magic.

 

[Pony Soldier]

Soups,stews,pot roasts. Multi-day meals that don't take prime cuts. Find every opportunity to cut costs and extend what you have.