One of the ways to save money on groceries that I am a firm believer of is that when you find an item that is on sale, that you use all the time, then you should stock up on it.

Of course, this is only when you are at the point that you can afford to do so and whatnot, but taking extra advantage of these things has quite a few benefits.  There is the obvious financial savings, and there is also the benefit of having a “stocked” pantry with your favorite items.

A person that I know that takes full advantage of this technique is my mother.  Man, a trip to her house and one look inside the pantry or even the freezer, and you’d think she has an army to feed.  She has canned foods to no end, frozen chicken and so forth falling out of the freezer and lots of other items as well.

She really almost takes it to an extreme.  It is close to the point to where I think she is buying stuff just because it’s on sale, not because of any necessary need for it.  But hey, she is the source of a great deal of my money-saving mindsets and outlooks, so who am I to judge?

So, I had been practicing this “stocking up” thing for quite some time until it seemed that my house (actually, my pantry, freezer and cupboards) was simply getting too full.  After a few looks around in these areas, I thought to myself “Geez, I wonder for how long my grocery bills would be cheaper if I quit this stocking up thing temporality and start emptying out?”

So that’s what I did.  For about three weeks now, I have not done any “stocking up” and have simply focused on emptying out.  The items that I use all the time, I haven’t purchased in a few weeks.  The items that I bought for a great price because of some recipe I told myself I would make….well, I’m now making that recipe.

The results?  You really wouldn’t believe it.  I’ve had several weeks now with a cheaper weekly grocery bill.  The savings really are fairly significant, and I’m now seeing the back walls in of my cupboards for the first time in a long time.

Pretty soon, I’ll go back to stocking up again.  I think that the whole concept of “stocking up” is a great idea.

But I also think that “emptying out” from time to time is a good one too.  Otherwise, it doesn’t seem as though you realize the full benefit of the “stocking up” part.

If you have comments or feedback, feel free to join the conversation below.

I would like to let you all know of my gratitude and appreciation for your support and readership over the last several months. I know that we are all very busy with our lives and I appreciate you taking the time out of yours to read my words.

I am finally took a major step towards reaching some of my longer term goals. My first book was recently published and is now available for sale at Amazon.com

It is called “Don’t Be A Mule: A Common-sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.” It s based purely on my personal experiences. Namely, the journey that I took from the depths of financial debt to the modest successes that I am experiencing now.

This journey was not a very long one and it was not as hard as I thought it would be. Once I got my mind straight on how I needed to deal with the money that was coming in and going out of my life, it all became pretty basic. Sure, there was some hard work and some sacrifice along the way, but for anyone who thinks that getting out of debt involves years of suffering and foregoing the basic pleasures of life is simply wrong.

The basics that I learned are that it is mostly in your mind. You don’t need huge raises at work to get out of debt; you don’t need to hit the lottery. Honestly, you don’t even need an organized long-term plan. I certainly didn’t have one. If you are deep in debt now, there is a very good reason for it. For most, I would imagine that it is nothing more than living beyond your means. Well, guess what you need to do to solve this? Stop living beyond your means until you are out of debt. Then, you need to live AT your means. Then, you need to work on increasing your means.

If you are in the UK  www.ThinkMoney.com is a useful resource for help and advice on debt.

All of this and more is outlined in my book, and I hope you decide to at least check it out. I think it can provide value to the life of anyone who decides to read it. This journey was the best learning experience I’ve ever had in life, and I think that you can benefit from it too.

Thanks again for your support.

Don’t Be A Mule

Similar to my Five Minute Money manager series, I would know like to unveil what I like to call my ever-expanding list of “frugalicious” recipes. These are recipes that “taste” good on two levels. They taste good to my palate, and they are tasty to my wallet as well. In a nutshell, these are recipes that taste good and are also cheap.

But first, a few introductory notes. These recipes begin at the grocery store. And most of them are very basic recipes. As a matter of fact, you will find that most of them involve chicken and vegetables. Kind of goes without saying, because there’s not really a cheap recipe out there that has filet mignon or a piece of Red Snapper in it.

Most of these recipes will also involve “staples”. Things like rice and pasta. So, when it comes to purchasing these things, unless you have a need for organic food in your life, there is no reason to go up the price chain when purchasing these items. The store brand of spaghetti will do just as well as the most expensive one. I worked in the restaurant business for close to twenty years, and it is beyond me when people can tell you that one brand of spaghetti tastes better than another. Sure, if you only tasted the spaghetti, and it was in a side-by-side comparison, you may be able to notice some minor differences, but mixed in with a recipe I really don’ think anyone can tell.

I also think this goes for chicken as well. I have actually had people tell me that one brand of chicken tastes better than another. And honestly, I just don’t get it. What, does one company kill chickens from a better neighborhood than another company? Of course, with your veggies, be discerning and find the best quality. As I’ve mentioned before, a local farmer’s market should be your best bet.

These recipes that I will give you usually have no “amounts” to them, so you’ll probably need at least the smallest bit of cooking ability to put them together. One of the main reasons why is that a lot of time, the recipe I come up with is called a “refrigerator-cleaner-outer”. Now when I was single, this process involved nothing more than dumping all the leftovers in my fridge into a pot, heating it up and eating it (I also had a flashy name for this recipe-I called it “Dave”. My roommates loved it!!). Now that I am married with a son, I do have to get a little more creative.

Let me tell you about what I prepared for dinner last nite. My family doesn’t really like to eat the same dish more than 1-2 days in a row, so our fridge has a tendency of filling up with small amounts of various leftovers. This is probably true of most fridges. So, yesterday this I what I had in my fridge:

–about 5 oz. cooked carrots.
–about 3 cups cooked brown rice.
–1 boiled chicken breast.
–about 1 ½ scrambled eggs
–very small amounts of fresh, uncooked asparagus, mushrooms and zucchini.

This I what I did with it. Sautéed off a little yellow onion, threw in the mushrooms. Thawed out one pack of frozen chicken, cubed it and threw that in. When it was almost cooked, I added the cooked carrots, the leftover cooked chicken, the diced asparagus, and the cubed zucchini. I also chopped up some snow peas and threw those in.

I then found some teriyaki/stir fry type sauce or marinade and added that. Let it all simmer for an extra 5-10 minutes, served it over the leftover rice and topped it with the scrambled eggs.

What did I end up with? Well, it was probably a little bit of chicken stir fry, and a little bit of some kind of Chinese chicken dish. It was fantastic, and it cleaned out my fridge. Now, you might think that I contrived this list of stuff in my fridge and made the whole thing up, but this is exactly what we had for dinner last nite.

So, there you have it-the first of my “frugalicious” recipes. Soon, I’ll get into more traditional recipes where you’re not trying to clean out your refrigerator, but these types of things come in handy when the leftovers start to pile up

To learn other ways to impact your personal economy, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book “Don’t Be A Mule: a Common-sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

I have been focused on lowering our household expenses for several years now. One would think that I have already come up with most of the ways that you can save a buck.

Over the years, I have made significant progress in our monthly grocery bill-a place I think most of us have yet to discover, and one that can yield some healthy savings. I have done things like doing my shopping at 3-4 different stores, couponing to a limited extent, actually paying attention when I’m going down the aisles, and so on.

Recently, my wife and I decided to actually shift our diet as well. Originally, the motives were not financial but we have seen the financial benefits. We never really ate too much red meat to begin with-it was mostly fish, chicken and fresh veggies. But, we took the plunge recently and went vegetarian. Not strict vegetarian as we didn’t eliminate dairy or eggs, but no more chicken, fish or red meat.

Let me tell you-the savings were almost immediately evident. I didn’t track it closely, but I would venture to say it was easily a 15% drop in our monthly bill.
Now, I ‘m sure the first thing most of you are saying is that it can’t be done, we don’t like that many veggies, we’d run out of things to eat and so on.

Let me address some of these concerns:

First-if you start off most of your meals (besides breakfast, of course) with a large mixed salad, you are well on your way to filling your tummy. Mix it with your favorite veggies, and add some other fillers if you must to make it tasty. Bleu cheese crumbles go good with just about any veggie, raisins are a nice complement, and you can always throw some nuts in there. Topped with your favorite dressing, it is a tasty starter.

Second– there are a variety of vegetables out there that you may like that you don’t even know about. Eggplant, for one. I never thought in a million years that I’d like eggplant until I tried it. It’s a very sweet vegetable and one of our favorites now. Asparagus, although usually a little pricey, is another one. I buy it every time I see it on special. Step out of your comfort zone and you might be surprised at what you’ll find.

Third-there really are a TON of things that you can do with veggies. Get yourself a vegetarian cookbook if you need to, but consider just subbing veggies where you’d normally have chicken or fish or meat. Vegetarian lasagna is awesome, and you can make a nice veggie burger if you tie it in with some Tofu (don’t freak out-it tastes good, too). And, you can still have the fries with your burgers if you want!

So, if you’re out there trying to save a buck, consider going vegetarian or at least adopting more vegetables into your family’s diet. It is obviously healthier for your body and surprisingly healthy for your family’s budget as well.

To learn more about these and other personal finance topics, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book, “Don’t Be A Mule: A Common-sense Approach to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

OK, hopefully this five minute money manager thing may actually get some legs and start making some headway in your lives. I hope so, because it did mine. The beauty of these types of things is that most of them literally should take you no more than about five minutes out of your life, and you should be able to benefit from the savings forever after.

Let’s move on to groceries. And there are actually two different things that I will suggest. I am only doing that because I feel that there might be some resistance to the first one.

It is on a topic I know and love, and that is generics. I switched over to generics on most of the things I buy on a regular basis quite some time ago and never switched back. Let me give you my ten second spiel on generics. First, obviously, they are cheaper. Second, there is really not much of a taste difference. Third, believe it or not, a lot of them are processed and packed at the same place that the name brands are (get it? There is no difference).

Anyways, here is what I would like you to do. And you may have to do a little “tracking” if you want to get a real dollar amount of your savings. Without getting too deep into it, decide/track how much you spend on an average week at the grocery store. Then, on your next trip, I want you to buy generics for all of the things that don’t matter to you. If you have a favorite deodorant, then forget about that one. Some good examples though. Pasta-c’mon now, how can there be a significant difference in the taste of pasta? Plain rice, same thing. Oil, same thing. And so on. So, buy these generics and try to get an estimate of how much you saved by doing this for the week. For me, the first time around was $7-$9 when I had to buy just about everything that I buy. Multiply that times the 52 trips you make to the grocery store, and that’s an annual savings of $360-$470. All for about five minutes of your time.

If the thought of generics repulse you and you just can’t bring yourself to do it, I want you to try Plan B. On your next grocery trip, rather than going for the generics, just see if there is a cheaper brand than what you normally buy. Not generic, just cheaper. Track your weekly savings, multiply by 52, and tell me if this isn’t a great investment of about five minutes of your time.

To learn more about this topic and other ways to improve your personal economy, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book, “Don’ be A Mule: A Common-sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less, and Generating Extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

Several years ago when I was in the middle of my journey out of financial hell, one day I finally decided that I was going to lose the extra 10-12 pounds that I had been carrying around with me for the past few years.  It wasn’t like I was incredibly overweight or anything, I just got tired of it and decided to lose the last few pounds that I needed to lose.

Well, at the time, my eating habits were something like this.  I probably ate fast food 3-4 times a week and most of the other food in my fridge was processed, out-of-the-box kind of stuff.  Frozen dinners and other pre-made stuff of that sort.  And I probably had just a little too much of a sweet tooth for my own good.

So, this is what I decided to do, and again, it was purely for weight-loss purposes.  I was going to give up the fast food; at least until I lost all the weight I wanted to lose.  In addition, I was going to go as “all-fresh” as I could.  What I mean is that I was going to start cooking as much food from scratch as I could.  At the time I was working in a restaurant, so it wasn’t like I was too motivated to go home and cook or anything.

But this is what I decided to do.  So I went to my local grocer, and stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies, and a bunch of chicken and fish and rice and pasta and so on.  All the stuff I would need for doing the whole “fresh” thing.  Also, I swore off sweets till I was at my desired weight.

Well, the first and best result was that I was able to take off this 10-12 pounds in just over three months (I added a little exercise program in there, too).  I was quite proud of myself, and of course, I looked and felt much better.

But here’s the kicker.  It took a little while for me to realize, but this shift in my eating habits also had a tremendous effect on my wallet!  I could not believe how much cheaper my monthly food bill had gotten.

After I thought about it though, it made a lot of sense.   First, obviously, I was eating less.  And, obviously, if you’re eating less, then you’re buying less.  But second, I had no idea how much cheaper food was when you bought it all fresh and cooked from scratch.  Sure, it took me a little extra time to cook my meals at home, but the savings were tremendous.  It was basically impossible to track, but I’d venture to say that my monthly grocery bill went down by approximately 15-20 percent.  That’s pretty substantial.

So, in a nutshell, my original goal was to simply take off a few pounds.  What I ended up with is more money in my wallet at the end of the month, a healthier me and being able to eat food that tasted much better than the stuff I was eating before.

And the real kicker is that once I lost this weight and had told myself that it would probably be OK to eat fast food every once in awhile, or pick up some of those frozen dinners when I was feeling a little lazy, I never did.  I haven’t eaten fast food in years and to this day I still cook 95% of our food at home.

To learn more about improving your personal finances, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-published book, “Don’t Be a Mule-A Common Sense Guide to Saving More, Spending Less and Generating extra Income in Your Everyday Life.”

During my escape from my own personal financial hell that I created, I can only imagine how much faster the process would have gone had I had the ability of hindsight.

Because as I was digging myself out, I was really just making stuff up as I went along. Looking back on it now, I am starting to formalize some of the concepts that I came up with.

As I see it, your financial life is made up of two basic things: your wants and your needs. Fairly simple, right? Your needs are what you need to survive, to get through life. This would be things like food, a place to stay, a car to drive, etc.

And the second category would be everything else. Let’s face it, if there is something that you don’t “need” in life, and then by default it becomes a “want”.
Well, the beginnings of financial health come from defining and managing these two categories. How can I control or manage my needs, you ask? Well, it is possible. For example, food. You need food to survive, but if you could cut your weekly grocery bill by 25%, then wouldn’t that be limiting your needs? And I am not talking about cutting it by buying less food; I am saying to purchase the same food more economically.

And you could apply the same theory to your residence, and the car you drive. Of course, these two are a little more difficult to do, so when trying to limit your needs, let’s just focus on the ones that are easier to adjust. I would say that electricity and water are needs to, correct? Well, if you could decrease your power bill by 15% and take $100 off of your monthly water bill, then that would be limiting those needs too, right?

Regarding your wants, this is the part that takes things like willpower, willingness, and desire. And some actual sacrifice. The good thing that I realized during my journey is that not ALL of getting financially healthy is about sacrifice and giving things up. The whole first part of this post has nothing to do with sacrifice; it has to do with using your money in a wiser fashion. When I realized that, it made the sacrifices that I had to make easier to accomplish.

So, we need to control our wants. How to do that? The first way is to ask yourself that one simple question before making just about any purchase: “Do I really want this?” I usually ask this to myself for anything over $25. Certainly, a lot of purchases are “needs’ where you would ask yourself a different set of questions (Can I get it cheaper? Do I really need it?) But for purchases, you need to really decide whether you want it or not. Better yet, ask yourself if it’s not possible to get by without it for a little longer. This question usually turns me in the opposite direction. If I still feel that I want it the next time I think about it, then I usually go through with it. But most of the time this desire just fades.

I know this was quite a “theoretical” post but another important lesson that I learned during my journey was that by applying a little “theory” to the process, you can see more results in a shorter period of time. Anyone can come up with an ABC list of things to save money on, but by applying a little theory and changing your mindsets towards your money and about your money, you’ll be driving a lot faster down the road to financial freedom than you ever thought possible.

So, ready for your regular weekly trip to the grocery store? Tired of the grind of going every week? Want to make it a little more fun and challenging?

I think that it is safe to say that for most people or most households, groceries are probably the second biggest monthly expense, falling in right behind your mortgage/rent and right in front of your car payment(s) or somewhere close. Therefore, it stands to reason that this is one of the areas that if you concentrate, organize yourself, and do a little planning, that you can have a pretty big impact on your wallet. Make sense?

Before we begin, yes I am a guy and yes, I really do the majority of the grocery shopping for our household. Let’s just say I took it on as a little project and it became a challenge.

What I want to do is to go through a few basic concepts that I put to use on a weekly basis, that when all added up, probably save me a ton of money at the grocery store(s).

Expand your base…

You probably don’t need to limit yourself to doing ALL of your shopping at one outlet. Personally, I use four. This will not take your grocery shopping from an hour or so a weekday night to a six-hour marathon-I still do not spend much more time doing it on a weekly basis.
Basically, what I do is to use one outlet (I won’t name them) for the majority of my stuff and a second outlet that has items for a cheaper price. Third, I utilize a local farmer’s market as much as possible. There should probably be one close enough by you and they are definitely worth checking out. Major savings! Most of the time the quality is just as good if not better than a major grocer and it is always at substantially cheaper prices. I cannot emphasize this point enough. Currently, I probably buy 70% of my items at my farmer’s market. Typically, their prices on produce are substantially cheaper than anywhere else, but their prices on everything else are substantially higher. Therefore, just stick to buying veggies there. And finally, I do use a specialty store to treat myself every once in a while.

What I do with my second outlet is to utilize it for items I buy consistently that has them for less. This will take some time in the beginning but becomes easier as you go along. Here, you really just have to pay attention to the items that you buy the most. If you can find a store that sells something for fifteen cents cheaper, but you only buy it once every three months, then who cares? However, if you can find another store that you can save fifty or sixty cents on ten different items that you buy every week, then it becomes worth doing. I wouldn’t know if this concept applies to everyone since we all have different buying habits, but it works for me.

Couponing…

One important concept to couponing is the importance of using one main store, and using it consistently. You see, most grocery stores track your purchases a lot more closely than you might think. The one I use the most started sending me coupons a few years ago for $4 off if I purchase $40 or more. Pretty good deal, right? Several months later, they started sending me the same coupon, but for $6 off when I spend $60 or more. I actually got up to an $8 off coupon when I spend $80 or more. I finally figured out the process. I was probably averaging $25 to $30 per week when the first coupon came out. Then, they got me to the next level and so on and so on. The grocery store, obviously, is always trying to get you to spend a little bit more money. And they know that if you walk in there with that coupon for a discount if you spend more than $60, and you normally only spend $50, then you will probably pick out $10 worth of stuff that you may or may not need. The key is to NEVER buy anything just because you have one of these coupons.

Stock up…

For items that are non-perishable or can fit in your freezer-when you see that they are on sale, stock up! Canned goods, fresh chicken, etc. That way, you NEVER have to pay full price for these items. This is another golden rule of shopping-NEVER PAY FULL PRICE WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO. Some people who are much more serious about grocery shopping than I am will tell you to never ever pay full price at all. I guess if you are organized enough and sharp enough you could come to this level. What I like to do is check the sale items because sometimes the grocer will list when the sale expires; that way I know how much time I have to utilize the savings.

Check flyers …

JUST BECAUSE IT’S ON SALE DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN’T FIND IT SOMEWHERE ELSE FOR CHEAPER!

This is a good concept to begin learning. That is why I use more than one grocery store. I don’t always check their Web sites for their weekly specials, but it might be a good idea to do this. I would suggest either doing this or checking the Sunday paper or your mailbox for your grocer’s flyer. It is definitely worth your time.

Now that I use more than one grocery store, there is nothing more annoying than to walk into my second grocery store and see something on sale for a cheaper price than I just paid at my first store-all because I didn’t read their flyer.

For example: One week, when I was doing my grocery shopping, I found blueberries that were supposedly on special at all four of the stores that I use. One store had a sign that said, “Blueberries, on special, $3.99″ (this was the specialty store that I use). The second store’s sign said, “Blueberries, two for $5.” The third had them on special for two for $4, and finally, my farmer’s market-which really has no advertised specials, no flyers, or anything, didn’t even have any kind of special sign up. They just had the little price tag next to the blueberries for $1.89.

My point is, don’t fall in love with the “on sale” sign-it doesn’t necessarily mean that the price for that item is cheaper than anywhere else.

Generics…

I don’t know your thoughts on it, but I am going to mention it. If you are serious about saving money, or serious about getting out of debt, I would seriously consider buying store brands or generic brands of food, at least on a temporary basis. Most stores now offer their own version or a cheaper version of just about everything out there. I have another news flash for you-the difference in taste is minimal. Again, make it into a thirty-day trial if you want to, but I guarantee you that you can make an impact on your wallet if you switch to these brands, at least in the short term.

OK, so this post may have absolutely nothing to do with personal finance, but I do have some recipe blog posts here, and I love cooking, and its my blog, so there you go.

I have recently created what I like to call my “un-fried” Fried Chicken recipe. I thoroughly enjoy coming up with healthier versions of recipes, and this definitely falls into that category.

I won’t get into how many breasts to use or how much breading or any of that, you can figure all of that out on your own.

I will deal specifically with the technique involved. If it comes out right, you can enjoy almost all of the taste of fried chicken without all of the calories and fat and everything else.

First, preheat your oven till its hot, I would say to at least 380 degrees–400 may be a little too hot.

Then you have to stick your baking pan that you’ll be using for your chicken in there. You want to get that sucker nice and hot!

Normally, about 15 minutes should do. I don’t think its possible to get it too hot, especialy if you are around 380 degrees.

Then, you’re going to prepare your chicken. If at all possible, you want to “bread” all of your breasts and have them all ready to go into the oven at one time. I bread them with just an egg wash and bread crumbs. Change it up if you want, that’s what works for me.

So, after they are all breaded and ready to go, pull your pan out of the oven, and immdeiately place all of your breasts on the pan and return it to the oven immediately.

Now, it does not come out exactly like fried chicken, but its real close. The heat from the oven will cook the top and the heat from your heated pan will cook the bottom.

Its not as crispy as the real thing, but if you can stand to do without all of the calories and grams of fat that go along with the real thing, then this should do you just fine.

If after this, you’d like to learn some quick ways to save money in your everyday life, click here to download my free report and sign up for my weekly newsletter.

Let me give you a quick, stellar example of how to save money on groceries, and how to do it the right way.

In other posts and other places, I have told you that I do not clip too many coupons. I didn’t say that I never clip them, I just don’t clip them much.

Well, I have been looking at our pantry lately and noticed that we have been running low on the baby food that we feed to our son. It is one of the more expensive brands (but worth it), and normally sells for $1 for a 4 oz. jar.

Well, the last time I saw a sale for it, buy one get one free, I really loaded up. I probably bought about 40 of them. As that supply has been slowly dwindling, I have been checking around, hoping for a similar sale.

Well after looking for about a few weeks, we finally ran out completely yesterday. Oh well, not much I could do, except go to the grocery store and pay full price. So I walked into my grocer this morning and lo and behold, there it was–buy one get one free. Glory, glory glory.

Well, in order to maximize my savings, I went to my little coupon file and found about 5 different coupons for this exact food. The coupon read “get $1 off when you purchase 10″.

So to make a long story short, I picked up 10 this morning. Normally, I would have paid $10, but with the buy one get one deal and my other coupon, I paid $4.

I will use my other 4 coupons later in the week, which will make my total savings for this little project right at $34. Not to mention the fact that I won’t have to worry about buying this for the next few months.

That is the way you need to think and that is the way you need to act.

The moral of the story is this: If you pay attention to sales, if you stock up when you see them, and if you at least clip coupons for items that you buy often, your savings on groceries can be greater than you ever imagined.

If you would like to learn more ways to save and to spend less, click here to download my free report “10 Fast and Easy Ways to Save Money in Your Everyday Life”.