THE EXCEPTIONS

I left you in Step 3 wondering where I spent a good part of my money each month.  I shopped at two stores and only spent about $250 out of the $400.  There are certain things that I don’t buy on my once a month shopping trips – things that I may only buy every other month or once every three or six months, depending on sales and things.

One example is whole chicken.  The regular price for whole chicken at Winco is usually around $1/lb.  I know that the store near my house will have whole chickens on sale for about $.69/lb every three months of so.  I wait and buy three months worth when they do.

Another example is cheese.  The best price on cheese is usually Costco but the closest Costco is over 45 minutes away.  For me that is just too far to go for just cheese.  I end up going to Costco every other month or so when I have another reason to be in that area.  I buy enough cheese to last for several months, until I can get back to buy it again.

I also don’t buy regular milk – I buy bulk dry milk every 5 to 6 months.  I pay about $1.70 a gallon for milk.  Last time I looked, I’m saving over a dollar a gallon.  With 5 boys that really adds up!

I also keep money to buy produce in the middle of the month because I can’t get by on just once a month shopping yet … I’m working on our garden though so eventually I hope to!

Your life is different than mine so take what works for you and ignore the rest.  It is all about finding your balance. This is what I have done to make my life better, using the resources available to me.  I hope I’ve inspired you to do the same!

In Step 1 of Once a Month Shopping we made a menu plan, put together an ingredient list, and organized our cupboards.  In Step 2 we figured out where we were going to shop.  Today, we are going to finally go shopping! If you have done Step 1 and Step 2, this last step is easy.  You just need to look in your cupboards and see what you need.  If your can organizer holds 12 cans and you only have 5 left, you need to buy 7 cans.  Go through you master list and mark what you need.  It usually only takes me a few minutes.  I try to keep a list going of unusual things that I’ve run out of too – like certain spices. The day you go shopping give yourself a couple of hours to get it all done.  Plan out your attack and GO FOR IT!  Last month I timed myself and it took me an hour and a half to go to two stores.  I ended up spending about $250. I know, I know…. I told you at the beginning of this that I spent about $400 a month.  And I do.  The rest of it goes for Step 4 – The Exceptions!

In order to shop once a month you have to prepare by making a menu plan and getting an ingredient list together and organizing your cupboards so that you can figure out what you need each month (see Step 1).  Once you do that you need to figure out where to do your shopping.  If you shop once a month for the majority of your food you can take the time to drive to the store on the other side of town if they are the ones that consistently have lower prices.  You can even go to more than one store if you need to.  I do the majority of my shopping here in Southern California at Winco.  It is a large warehouse type store that has a big bulk food selection.  Their prices are consistently lower on most things.  There are some exceptions though.  I also go to a small store called Save-a-lot that has really good prices on canned goods like mushroom soup and chopped tomatoes.  I buy enough of these each month that making a stop at this store just for canned goods is worth my time.  Next: Step 3 – Go For It!

One blog that I read at least once a day is Money Saving Mom.  Awhile ago she had a post about shopping for groceries once a month.  I thought I’d share my ideas about this as well.  A friend of mine told me about once a month shopping several months ago.  At that point I was spending about $600/month which I thought was pretty good considering that I’m feeding 7 people (4 of them teenage boys).  By switching to once a month shopping I’ve been able to save another $100-200/month!  There is some organization behind it though. But once you get it down it really doesn’t take much time to do all this shopping.

Step 1:  Figure out what you need

What are you going to cook?

In order to figure out the food you need you have to figure out what your family likes and you want to cook.  I asked my boys and husband what their favorite meals were and then figured out a menu plan for the entire month.

What ingredients do you need for all of this?

I wrote up recipes for each meal with an ingredient list and then compiled a list of things that I had to have on hand for the month in order to make everything.  This took a little bit of time but was worth it.  I figured out that I want to have 10 cans of mushroom soup on hand at all times; at least 8 cans of chopped tomatoes; and 6 cans of corn.

Organize your Pantry!

I ended up getting some organizers for my cupboards that have the cans roll back and down to the front.  This way I always use the oldest ones first.  This organizer holds about 15 cans.  I like the idea of having a little extra in case of visitors, etc. so I just always up date my cupboard to 15 cans of each of the things I use most.  It means that I just need to look and see how many cans I need and put that on my list.

 Next – Step 2: Picking your Store