Grocery Shrink

Families with a lot of kids don’t necessarily earn any more money than their small family neighbors. And yet, bigger cars require more gas per mile.  More showers and more laundry, means more water and electricity use.  An $8 ticket to the zoo isn’t a big deal if you’re only buying 4, but buying 8 is another story.   When it’s time to buy shoes, it’s tough to buy 6 pairs instead of 2.   Hotel fire codes require large families to get at least two rooms. Then there’s the grocery budget.  What’s a big family to do?

We are steadily working on getting our income up, but while we do that, we do fewer spendy things.  When kids aren’t used to a lavish lifestyle, they appreciate the little things a lot more.

We almost always eat at home, so when we go to McDonald’s it’s a big TREAT.  Since it’s rare, we don’t have to let them order whatever they want off the menu to give them that feeling of excitement.  Everyone gets a $1 burger, ice water, and fries to share.  When we get home, if a kid is still hungry he makes a snack.

1. We always drink water.

2. Fast food is a treat not the time to stuff ourselves.

When we go to a park or festival with food vendors, we pack a cooler from home.  Some parks won’t let you bring it inside the fence, so we plan to leave and have a picnic back at the car for lunch, then return to the park for the rest of our day.  Sometimes there’s a food there that we can’t get anywhere else.  Then we might buy some and cut it up so everyone gets a taste.  If you see the 8 of us gathered around a single funnel cake happily sharing bites.  Don’t feel sorry for us. The kids are thrilled.  Just getting to taste it was a big deal.

We went to the zoo to see cool animals, not to eat over-priced ice cream.  Replace the red words with whatever fits your situation. It helps to keep it in perspective.

3. Pack food when you can.

4. Share special treats.

The most expensive items on my grocery budget are meat and cheese.  We’ve found it’s possible to halve (or at least reduce) the amounts of meat and cheeses in most recipes and still meet everyone’s protein requirements.  This works great for casseroles, soups and stews.  I replace the bulk with another ingredient like beans, brown rice, quinoa or vegetables.

5.  When doubling recipes to feed your family, don’t double expensive ingredients like meat or cheese.  Replace the volume with low cost, high nutrition foods that are compatible with your recipe.

Growing kids are always hungry.  I have 3 teenagers, but the 12 year old is hungrier than all 3 teens combined.  I don’t ration food at our house.  There’s always something they are allowed to grab: apples, carrots, peanut butter and jelly, homemade bread or muffins, bananas, eggs, and milk.  If it’s not on the unwritten, “help yourself” list, they know they have to ask.  They are not allowed to eat all the leftover roast beef that I was saving for stew the next night, or snack on pepperoni or lunch meat.  They can’t eat all the granola bars in the lunch packing baskets.

6. Have a list of low cost, nutritious foods that your kids can have any time (except 30 minutes before dinner is served, lol.) Train them to ask for permission for other things.

7. Bake easy whole grain items like muffins, that are easy to grab and eat on the run or for after school snacks.

Breakfast should be the easiest low cost meal of the day, but food manufacturers have figured out how to make their money anyway.  A serving of Bran Flakes cereal is 10 cents.  Oatmeal is 7 cents.  A cup of milk is 18 cents. Eggs and a slice of bread are 5 cents each.  Half an orange is 15 cents….you get the idea.  While a grab and go cereal bar is $1.  Frozen waffles the same. Name brand fancy cereal is 5x’s the cost of plain.  What we’ve found is if the food is simple, homemade, and nutritious, our kid’s happily eat what they need.  But if it is pre-packaged to look fun or full of sugar, they gorge themselves.

8.  Teach the kids to be satisfied with simple, basic foods.

Big family or small, what are some ways you do fun things, feed nutritious foods and still keep the costs down?

A friend recently introduced me to the Ibotta app and I gave it a try.  Here’s what you need to know:

It’s easy to download the free app, unlock coupons and then verify them by scanning your receipt and your product upc from the packaging after you get home from shopping. Do it right away before you lose anything or eat the food and recycle the packages.

The products are mostly name brands that are trying to increase their reach or to announce a new product release…like Post Cinnamon Rice Pebbles cereal.  But there are some unbranded coupons available, like “any bread” “any milk” “eggs” or “bananas.”  There is a large amount of coupons for alcohol–which doesn’t feel very classy, but it was easy enough to scroll past them for the real food.

The same coupons work at multiple stores, but are usually limited to 1 or 2 of the same item at any 1 location.  If you use a coupon at Wal-mart, it will disappear from your options for that store for the week, but you might be able to unlock the same coupon for another store.

Not all the coupons are for food.  Jo-Ann crafts and a handful of clothing stores are participating too.  When I first started there was only 1 coupon at JoAnn, but there are a more available now.

Once you earn $20 or more in rebates, you can request the cash sent to you via paypal or though gift cards.  In a little over 3 weeks, I earned about $38. Since I have a business paypal account with fees taken out of it, I opted for an Amazon gift card.

You can earn additional money by sharing a link with friends who don’t already us the app. They’ll give you $5 credit when a new friend joins through your link and redeems their first coupon.

Most of the foods are rare treat type foods and not our every day staples, but I’ve still found several things that I could use each week.

What about you? Have you ever used Ibotta before?  Do you use any other coupon/rebate apps?

Yesterday I asked you to think about how you would spend $100 if that was all you had to feed your family for the month.  I’ve never lived on such a small budget for our family.  Even when we were getting out of debt and had 3 small children (instead of 6 big ones) our budget was $185.   That’s as low as I’ve ever gone.  There are a bunch of great ideas in the comments and several people even mentioned giving it a try for a month.  Report back if you do, but understand I’m not asking or even suggesting someone try it.  It’s just a mental exercise.

Here’s a list of the highest nutrition lowest cost foods I know.  Some of them have been smeared online as unhealthy foods (ahem…..whole wheat, cough cough….potatoes), but since the dawn of creation they have sustained healthy human life.  If God made it and called it good for food, it’s good enough for me. None of these links are affiliate links.  Links are for proof of price.  There may be lower cost options available locally. Unlinked foods are from Aldi.

1. Whole Wheat Berries:  $15.48 for 25 lbs;  274 servings at $.05 each.  I would grind them fresh for pancakes, whole wheat bread, English muffins, tortillas, pitas, cracked forhot breakfast cereal, sprout it for salads etc. It would be our main diet staple.

2.  Long Grain Brown Rice: 5 lbs for $3.38; 50 servings at $.07 each.  I would use it to make rice, pilaf, soup, pudding, hot breakfast cereal, and yes–sprouts.

3. Dry Pinto Beans: 4 lbs for $3.82; 52 servings at $.07 each. I would use these in soup, casseroles, with rice, veggie burgers, ground as flour to add protein to bread, and grow sprouts etc.

4. Rolled Oats (Aldi): 42 oz for $2.39; 30 servings $.08 each.  I would make hot breakfast cereal; add it to bread, muffins, pancakes etc.

5.  Popping Corn: 2 lb for $1.98; 27 servings at $.07 each. I would pop this for snacks and grind it for cornbread and hot cereal mush.

6. Celery: 1 stalk for $1; 16 servings for $.06 each. Soups, salads; with peanut butter. The beauty of this food is you can regrow it from the base.

7. Potatoes: 10 lbs for $2.99; 20 servings for $.15 each; baked potatoes, soups, home fries; mashed potatoes, bread.

8. Carrots: 2 lbs for $1; 8 servings for $.12 each; salads; soups; muffins, pancakes;

9. Eggs: $1.59 a dozen; 8 servings for $.20 each

10. Milk: $2.15 a gallon; 16 servings for $.13 each.  I would use it in pancakes; hot cereal; biscuits; and yogurt making

11. Peanut Butter: 40 oz for $2.99; 35 servings for $.09 each.  Sandwiches, muffins, and as a dip for veggies and fruit

12.  Apples: 3 lbs for $2.69; 9 servings for $.29 each

13. Bananas: 4 lb for $1.16; 16 servings for $.07 each

14. Onions: 3 lb for $1.99; 12 servings for $.16;  add to soups and casseroles to add flavor and nutrition

15. Whole Chickens: 5 lbs for $4.75; 16 servings for $.29 each.  I would boil chicken for bone broth soup and remove the meat to combine with beans, rice, etc…and make it stretch.

Everything on this list totals $49.36 and has 589 servings averaging $.08 each.  (Keep in mind it takes several servings of different foods to make a balanced meal.)  I still have half my budget left to do this again or find a little more variety to add to the mix.  While I was shopping and doing the research for this post, they had chicken legs on sale for $.49 a lb; oranges 4 lb for $3; broccoli for $1 a lb and avocados for $.39 each.

In March, I could add nutrition by gathering wild edibles like lamb’s quarter, clover blossom and leaves; violets; wild chives; and dandelion.  Hunting for more protein options is another possibility. There are also 30+ harvester drop off locations in driving distance from my house where we could get free food several times a week.  Area grocery stores donate product to them for a tax deduction when they get close to their sale date. Most of these drop offs do not ask for registration or proof of income, but do require some wait time to stand in line.

When I made my purchases I would also think about what could regrow into food for the future.  For example, celery and green onions can be regrown from the base. Potatoes can be cut into pieces and planted in the spring.  Right now is the time to start seeds from peppers, tomatoes, and cantaloupe.  You can grow them from seeds found inside your purchased food. Here’s more info on growing a garden from grocery store food and here.

What do you think? Did any of the cost per servings surprise you?