Everyday Systems

Has anyone found that eating only 3 meals has reduced your grocery spending? By how much?

Long before we started No-S, we were making a transition away from pre-processed foods. It's amazing how much money you can save by buying actual ingredients and cooking from scratch. Plus, you actually have control over what you're eating. No more Mystery Food!

I have noticed this!

Apart from drinks and household things like cleaning stuff, I now just buy the ingredients for the meals and packed lunches for the week. Plus I buy something like a single packet of biscuits, or some hot cross buns, so that the kids can have them sometimes for snacks. (the kids obviously still have s's, but I have noticed that I now give them more scheduled snacks, sitting down, and there is less hanging around the kitchen all day looking for things to eat).

I used to buy packets of nuts and seeds (healthy snacks you know), and snack-friendly vegetables and cheeses and crackers and dark chocolate. Perhaps also mini quiches, or little pastry things or picnic eggs, etc. Now I think to myself 'exactly which meal are cashew nuts going to be part of?', and unless I'm making something with cashew nuts, there is no need to buy them.

Actually what I have noticed is that I am buying less stuff - and particularly less expensive stuff. Here in the UK food prices are going up A LOT, so I think that's why the bill is not that different.

I think my food bills are definately going down, although not by as much as I thought because some of the savings are being cancelled out by the amount I'm now spending on fresh fruit.

I am noticing that it's also cheaper when we eat out though. Except for special occasions we only have a main course - no starters, no side dishes, no desserts. Much cheaper!

My food bills won't go down till the last of my teenage sons is launched. It's football season so food bills go UP.

Blithe Morning wrote:My food bills won't go down till the last of my teenage sons is launched. It's football season so food bills go UP.

Oh I hear ya! I have 3 teens and a tween. 2 in football. How can one kid actually eat 3 sandwiches plus fruit, chips, desert, and stay thin?

Ya, I feel my food bill has gone down. No snacks, less cost. I stopped buying baked chips, tostita scoopables, boxed granola stacks, etc. etc.

My grocery bill went up, but my eating out expenditures have gone way down!

Same here, r.jean! My fridge is also fuller, while the grocery cupboards are relatively empty, bar some tinned stuff & pasta.

I am hoping to see a reduction in our bill but as I make out my list for my upcoming trip everything is adding up to be the same. Hmm.... well, I do cook all our meals. I guess I'll have to see what happens overtime.

my grocery budget is smaller when I'm doing no s as opposed to other diets. The first big thing is that I'm not buying "diet" snacks which are quite expensive. Diet frozen meals are also pricey. I'm not having to buy my families food and my own low fat versions of everything. So, really I save a lot on no s.

I find I'm spending more. Guess I'm following Pollan's directive to "Pay more; eat less." I am buying better quality food. Of course, it doesn't help that groceries are going up, up , up.

~reneew wrote:

Blithe Morning wrote:My food bills won't go down till the last of my teenage sons is launched. It's football season so food bills go UP.

Oh I hear ya! I have 3 teens and a tween. 2 in football. How can one kid actually eat 3 sandwiches plus fruit, chips, desert, and stay thin?

LOL...I have three boys too - 20, 18, & 16, plus a 6-year old girl. It's a mountain of food for boys, isn't it?

janie

Does anyone have any budgeting tips?

We mostly eat meats, veggies, fruit, dairy products. My husband eats rice and pasta, I do not. We purchase very little processed foods. My husband uses chips, juice, and cookies but they last him a few weeks (he doesn't overeat). I try to use coupons when I can but it seems very hard to get that bill down. I cook both our meals everyday. Right now we budget 130 per week but I think it could be much cheaper! I get home sometimes and wonder what on earth did I buy for $130!!

Budgeting tips:


Cook from scratch as much as possible.

Buy pasta rice and some grains in bulk. They keep awhile and they're cheaper that way.

Learn to cut up a chicken. While meat prices are on the rise, I can often get a whole chicken for less than a dollar a pound.

Learn to make Chicken Carcass Soup. It's healthy, delicious and frugal.

Learn to cut meat. Sometimes you can get a huge pork loin that you can cut into chops for dollars fewer a pound at warehouse stores.

Use the crock pot for cheap cuts of meat.

Learn to make bean dishes. Beans and rice, bean burritos, bean soups are all high in protein, low in fat (if that's your kink) and cheap.

Make your weekly menu from grocery circulars.

Buy produce in season.

Cook from scratch.

I think I'm prob spending the same, but I feel there's more food i'n the house. Diet food is expensive! I can't tell you how many times I'd go shopping for the week, get all the stuff I'll need for my diet, and my family's whining that there's no food i'n the house, cause they won't touch that stuff.

I feel like they're happier not having to deal with Mom's diet obsession.