Frugal in the kitchen

I've had a few people ask me recently to share some frugal tips. I thought it'd be easiest to share my frugal tips room by room, just for organization's sake. I'm starting with the kitchen, because it seems to be the easiest place to see fast results.

Food 

Here you can read my post about how to start the ball rolling on frugal grocery shopping. Stockpiling is key!

Next, you must make sure you're using everything you buy. I'm not always perfect in this respect, especially since returning to school. Here is a post about how I used up our turkey leftovers at Thanksgiving, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Dinner leftovers make great lunches the next day. Grilled chicken can become chicken salad, or be diced and thrown into a tortilla with some salsa and a bit of cheese. Even a couple of spoonfuls of veggies can be a side dish for Sam (14 months old) at lunch. I've dressed up fried potatoes with cheese to make a quick lunch for me. And remember to save the heels of bread for homemade croutons or breadcrumbs! Get creative! Try stretching your dollar by delaying your grocery trips by just one more day, if possible. An eight-day week might make your creativity blossom! My trips are usually about every 10 days, not counting a quick stop by Aldi for milk every few days.

Think ahead! I really liked the suggestion in The Tightwad Gazette, that dinner plans for the next day be made while washing dinner dishes. That way I'm still in the kitchen, thinking about dinner, thinking about what we had and what leftovers I've got - it helps me decide what I'm going to make the next night and determine if anything needs thawing. (That means I'm less likely to have a dinner emergency at 4:30 the next night and run down to the corner grocery for a pricey convenience meal!)

Cleaning

Most of the cleaning supplies I use, I make myself from non-toxic ingredients. There is no need for me to reinvent the wheel and detail all of my recipes, as so many other women have done a better job than I of putting the info out there. I recommend the book Clean House, Clean Planet for the best recipes. I've also made my own laundry soap in the past. Go Google it, I know you'll get a few 100 recipes. My tip? Use the dry recipe. It's easier to put together.

The basic of cleaning with homemade ingredients is vinegar. Don't like the smell? So what?! The smell goes away as soon as the vinegar has dried. I also use tea tree oil, castile soap (Dr. Bronner's Peppermint is my fave), and baking soda. Borax (my one toxic ingredient) is used in the toilet bowl.

Trash Talk

Don't buy paper products to clean with. Good grief! Talk about throwing your money away! Show of hands - how many people have stained t-shirts that they just throw away? Mismatched or holey socks? Start yourself a little bin in your laundry room or in your kitchen for those odds and ends, and put them to good use. Have an unmentionable mess that you NEED to throw away? Then use that old t-shirt to clean it up and THEN throw it away.

Are you reusing your food containers for storage? There are so many uses for salad containers, for coffee cans, for cereal boxes - you can pretty up so many items that most "normal" (read: in debt up to their eyeballs) people would throw away. Don't even get me started about milk jugs. Those little wonders are GOLDEN in a frugal kitchen. And don't even tell me if you're not washing out your ziploc baggies after every use - 'cause you know that those couple of bread crumbs left in that bag makes it completely unsanitary for reuse. (that was sarcasm, btw.) That kind of waste keeps me up at night. *shudder*

Are you composting? Recycling? Trash bags are expensive. Some of you have to pay for trash pickup by weight or volume. Ask yourself, every time you throw something away, "Can I reuse this?"

Are you using cloth napkins? Handkerchiefs? (Use the 100% cotton variety of both.) Handkerchiefs can often be found at Target after Christmas for a steal. I've also found some beautiful vintage ones at garage sales for a quarter. If you have children, are you cloth diapering?

Okay, that's all I've got for now. Next up? The laundry room!

Marsh Triple Coupons!

Total spent = $20.59

Total saved = $66.30

I would've done better, but I had to get milk. Still, not bad!

My Walgreens score

Here's what I got today at Walgreens: 

3 Garnier Fructis shampoos

3 Garnier Fructis conditioners

2 boxes Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil

2 Christmas potholders

3 packages gift tags

1 package ornament hooks

1 package toothbrush travel cases

1 barrette

1 bottle of Softsoap handsoap

1 bottle Palmolive dishwashing liquid

3 packages of pencil erasers

Total purchases, before coupons = $52.09

Total purchases, after coupons = $2.96

Do you really need me to convince you to start couponing? 

Grocery shopping

Is anyone getting tired of reading about my grocery store ramblings? Here is another post about my all-consuming quest to lower our grocery bill. My apologies if you're bored. ; ) 

This week, I was talking to a friend about couponing, and it dawned on me that most people don't get the idea behind the coupon/stockpile strategy, and how it saves money. So I'm going to try to do a better job explaining. This is Bargain Grocery Shopping 101. 

1. Set a budget for the month. For us, that budget is $550. 

2. In any budget, there is wiggle room, the amount between necessary and discretionary spending. Some budgets will have more wiggle room than others. If your wiggle room is only $5, so be it. But use this wiggle room to your advantage. Use it to start your stockpile, and stock up on a good deal! 

3. Use the strategies I've outlined here and here to give yourself a little more wiggle room in your budget. Then start snowballing; use your savings to generate more savings. I know that when I go to the store that I don't need 14 bottles of shampoo this month. But I do know that right now, they're at a good price, and I will eventually use those 14 bottles. If I'm only paying 25 cents per bottle, then I'm saving future grocery money. That enables me to buy 30 buddy bars, to stock up on 5 bottles of laundry detergent, to stockpile toothbrushes. 

And it gets me to my goal of lowering my grocery budget. Over time, the savings start rolling in. I am able to lower the cost per item of the items I regularly buy. By practicing stockpiling, I have managed to lower my grocery bill by $50 over the last 3 months. Not too shabby, considering how low it was to start with. 

And just to give you some inspiration, today I bought 3 bags of Hershey's Kisses for 39 cents - total. I also got some frozen pizza, our only convenience food, for $2/pizza, and 16 ounce tubs of sour cream for 25 cents each. 

Thrifty grocery shopping

SCORE! Here's a picture of my grocery receipt from a couple of weeks ago. It's not nearly as good as this week's Meijer and CVS receipts, but it still illustrates my point. (I spent $75 at Meijer during the week of the above receipt.) 

For a few months now (six? eight?) I have been very consciously trying to get our grocery bill as low as it will go. This involves shopping at several different stores, watching the grocery ads like a hawk, and couponing. For a family of six, we spend $575 per month. Not bad, but I think I can get it lower. 

My strategy so far has been to visit Hot Coupon World and view next week's ads for the grocery and drug stores in my area. The folks that post on HCW scour their coupons and post which sale items can also be paired with coupons, reaping even bigger savings. I keep a little list next to the computer, and I take copious notes. 

On Thursday nights, after I've gotten the ads in the mail and scoured them again, writing all over them (circling things I have coupons for, figuring out per-unit prices, and the like) I make out my grocery list. With my freezer inventory next to me (so I don't over-buy), I make a list each store at which I'll be stopping. For items on sale, I write the brand & per unit price next to the item, so that I can compare prices while I'm at a competitor. I put a star next to anything for which I have a coupon, and a circled star for items that have coupons, but might not be as cheap as another brand. (It's a trigger for me to pull out my calculator and do some in-aisle figuring.) And did I mention that I put my list in order according to the layout of the store? That's so I don't have to backtrack and be tempted by impulse buys. Some other things that help with my system: 

1. All of the stores at which I shop are on a circular route - I drive pretty much down one main thoroughfare to get to all my destinations. It takes less than a gallon of gas, but about 2 hours. I also do our banking and drop off recycling during grocery trips. 

2. I get most of my coupon circulars for free. My mom gives me her old coupons, and sometimes her neighbors share their (mostly uncut) circulars, too. I often have duplicates of the same coupon, which enables me to stock up on a good deal. 

3. I only take Grace with me to the grocery store. There are no husbands throwing snacks in the cart, and no children begging for things or running up & down the aisles distracting me. I am a bargain-hunting machine. 

4. I am NOT brand-loyal. I do have standards, and some things that I just won't buy (we don't eat beef, I try to eliminate as much high fructose corn syrup as I can, I don't buy chips or soda or other junk food, and I want as much whole grain as I can get my little hands on), but I really have no preference for a particular toothpaste brand, or shredded cheese brand, for example. 

Yes, it takes a long time for me to make a grocery list, and shopping takes time. I look at it this way: my husband works HARD for his paycheck. It's my job to make that paycheck stretch as far as I can.  And what else would I be spending this time doing? Mindlessly watching TV, or playing on the internet? I choose to be productive with my time! 

This week at CVS, by combining sales and coupons, I got 5 packages of deodorant and a package of 8 AA batteries for $7. That's just what I'm saving at one store. I think it's paying off! 

Now I just need to tell you about my beloved clothesline...