We’ve All Been There
In the economy today, I think everyone is eager to cut down costs on our grocery bills. Prices are sky high and especially if you value clean, natural, and organic products. It can become nearly impossible to feed your family without draining your bank accounts.
Does This Sound Familiar?
If you are like me, going to the grocery store probably gives you huge anxiety. As you stare at your basket of grocery items and approach the checkout counter you realize that you suddenly feel tense and a little sick to your stomach. With every beep of the scanner, you watch as the dollar amount increases on the cashier’s screen. Your teeth start to clench as you begrudgingly pull out your credit card to pay for the ridiculously high dollar amount.
Ah yes, if this wonderful experience sounds familiar you aren’t alone. These days prices are miles high and so we must then navigate how to feed ourselves and our families without going bankrupt.
The Moment Things Changed
I remember clearly one particular day at the grocery store in line with my husband and daughter. We had bought staples, a few cleaning supplies, and enough ingredients to make a couple of nightly meals for the week. We had a handful of bags, but if you’d looked at our bill total you’d have thought we’d bought the whole store! I physically felt ill and stressed.
The Balance of Being a Homemaker
As a homemaker, it can be difficult to straddle the financial line. You aren’t earning money, so your job is to save money. But sometimes, no matter how much we save, no matter the number of coupons collected, or penny-pinching performed you can still feel like you aren’t contributing enough because you aren’t bringing IN money.
The weight of the burden of financial support begins to feel heavy on your husband’s shoulders and you feel for him and yourself and want to improve things but how?
You are a homemaker for a reason. It likely isn’t practical or maybe even feasible for you to go back to work so what are you to do?
That day at the store vividly stuck with me and in that moment I decided to find a way to cut down our grocery bill. I poured over the receipt looking carefully at each line item. I thought about the purchases we made and then thought, “I could make that… and that… and that”.
The Game Plan
I compiled a list of items that we had purchased and that I thought I could fairly easily make at home, the first being sandwich bread. I did an internet search to compare prices, did some quick math calculations, and realized I could make several loaves of sandwich bread at home from scratch for what it cost for one premade loaf at the store. Sure, I had to take the time to make it, but as a homemaker that’s part of what I’m there to do so I accepted the challenge.
I searched online until I found a bread recipe that appealed to me and wasn’t overly intimidating and boom, money saved. Later, as I became more comfortable I was even able to create my own sandwich bread recipe. You can check out the recipe here if you would like to bake your own bread too and cut some of those costs!
After my success with the bread, I began going through my list of other items I thought I could make at home with relative ease, or ones that I’d like to learn how to make from scratch thinking if nothing else it would probably be healthier, and just like that item after item came off my grocery list.
A Quick Note
I will say, that while this may work for some things be sure to do your research and crunch numbers. If you just have a hankering to make from scratch peanut butter by all means go for it, but this is a good example of where making something from scratch actually may cost you more. Premade peanut butter is pretty cheap but raw peanuts are pricey. Not all scratch-made items will save you money so be sure to do your homework before jumping into making everything from scratch (unless you just want to, of course).
Time is a consideration too. As homemakers, we are busy especially if we have children. No second isn’t precious during a mother’s day. If you find that something will take you hours of work to make and clean up then it likely isn’t worth making from scratch either.
The Cut Costs List
- Baked Goods: Bread, muffins, cakes, and cookies are all delicious and easy to buy, but they can be pricey to purchase premade. Muffins for instance, are a quick and easy breakfast but it’s less quick and easy when I have to make them; however, think outside the box and make a batch of muffins and keep four of them out like you would buy each week at the store, and freeze the rest. Next week you can simply take out your frozen muffin the night before you would have it for breakfast and voila money saved yet again. You can make a whole batch of muffins depending on size anywhere from 12 to 36 muffins for the cost of 4 large grocery-made muffins.
- Prepared Foods: Premade baked goods aren’t the only over-inflated priced items that are simple to avoid by making them yourself. The same goes for things like pre-shredded chicken or other prepped items like chopped fruits or vegetables. They may save time but you have to evaluate if that time is worth the money. Oftentimes, you can buy a whole chicken for the price of a small container of shredded chicken. The meal ready items that are full packaged lunches, dinners, appetizers, and the like are pricey. Doing a little meal prep at home or cooking larger meals like casseroles or soups that feed your family for multiple days can go a long way with the final balance of your grocery bill. If you are interested in how I make just a few dinners a week but feed my family each night, then check out this meal planning post here.
- Processed Foods: Prepackaged foods like granola bars, crackers, and cookies are not only processed but can also be costly. Sure, not all of these things can be easily replicated or be quite the same as the store-bought version, but some can be and in turn can save a lot of money (and save you and your family’s health!).
- (Some) Dairy: Even some dairy items like coffee creamer or ice cream can be quite costly but pretty easy and fun to make at home. Not only are the ingredients cleaner if you make them from scratch at home, but, again, they are far cheaper. I make my husband’s coffee creamer and it’s so much tastier (and cleaner) than store-bought. We also have a Ninja Creami and this has been a game-changer for making ice cream with ease.
- Canned/Jarred Goods: If you have a garden it can be cost-effective to learn and utilize canning techniques. While canned goods aren’t usually thought of as being overly pricey they can be and if you have the ingredients on hand to do it yourself that is money saved. You can also learn to make your own homemade pasta sauce, pizza sauce, or salsa and just from a harvest of tomatoes have cleared multiple items off of your grocery list. In fact, you can even buy basic ingredients from the store and make your own pizza or pasta sauce for instance, and it’s still cheaper than buying the expensive sugar-free organic option on the store’s shelf.
- Cleaning Products: If gardening isn’t your thing then go DIY with some of the most expensive items of all, cleaning products. Laundry detergent is pricey but easy enough to make at home and you can even use wool dryer balls so you don’t have to purchase dryer sheets or other fabric softeners. There are also a ton of DIY recipes for cleaning solutions around your home and these tend to be safer with natural ingredients and fewer chemicals for kiddos or pets. These items can usually be made in large batches and save a ton of money.
Pare Down
In addition to making foods at home to save money you should also evaluate other items in your household and pare down on what you can. For instance, I delved into researching skincare and makeup and have only a few products that I now use versus the multitude of products I used to use. After truly understanding skincare instead of trying whatever product influencers were raving about not only did my skin get better but so did my finances!
Meal Planning
Lastly, plan meals around items you have or plan to purchase for other meals. For instance, if I am making chicken and dumplings but my recipe calls for only 1 cup of carrots odds are I will have a good amount of carrots still sitting in my fridge after my meal is made, so for that week or the next I will find other meals that contain carrots in them so that I can utilize them and limit waste.
Even if I don’t have another family meal I plan to use with carrots I have a great carrot pasta recipe for my toddler that is freezer-friendly so I can make that. Because the pasta goes in the freezer it will last several months and I not only already have my meal prep done ahead of time for my daughter but I used up a relatively costly ingredient.
Enjoy Those Savings!
None of these tips is necessarily a new concept or rocket science, but it’s helpful to see them laid out and perhaps worth revisiting if you’ve thought of these things before but have yet to implement them. Now’s the time. Especially as a homemaker, it can take a burden off financially from you and your husband and can be very fulfilling to nourish your family, maybe even learn new skills in the process, and do it all while saving money.
