Posts Tagged ‘ food ’

15 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill to the Bone

By Kevin M

When ever we start looking to save money, the first place we tend to look is the grocery budget. One of the reasons we do this is because, unlike a house payment or a car loan, grocery shopping is a true variable expense. It’s an expense we have a large measure of control over which makes it a natural target for reduction.

It can be a rich source of savings as well. If you normally average $200 per week on groceries, and you can cut that by 20%, or $40, you can save over $2000 per year. There aren’t many expenses you can cut to save so much money without experiencing real sacrifice either.

Grocery shopping is a multifaceted endeavor, so there are a lot of ways to save money. I’ve come up with a list of 15 that my wife and I use on a regular basis:

How Much Money Can You Save by NOT Eating Out?

By Kevin M

Redeeming Riches has been running a truly good series, 10 Money-Saving Tips to Help You Stash $10,000!, which includes tips in each post on how to accumulate such a pile of cash, one expense at a time. The initial post in the series ran back on February 22nd, and took aim at cutting back on going out to eat as the first tip in the quest.

It’s almost standard fare on the personal finance blogging circuit to take aim at eating out as a rich source of savings, either to build up a bigger bank balance, or to reign in a runaway budget. But how much money can we save by cutting back on this expense?

Running the numbers on eating out

Let’s do some quick calculations to illustrate just how much money we’re talking about.

It costs about $25 for a family of four to buy a meal at a typical fast food restaurant. Averaging just two trips per week totals $50; continuing the pattern each week over the course of a full year comes to $2600.

Is Now A Good Time To Go On A Diet?

By Kevin M

We’re taking on this weekly forum as a way of exchanging ideas to help lower the cost of living. This includes expense reduction and elimination, but goes beyond, even to include lifestyle changes that may bring savings on a number of fronts. Ideas on ways to cut personal, household or business expenses are welcome!

This weeks suggestions:

Is it time to go on a diet? It’s unfortunate that most diet plans require that we buy food that’s actually more expensive than the kind we eat when we’re not dieting. On some plans, where you have to purchase prepared foods directly from the plan sponsor, it can be dramatically higher. At a minimum, most diets require that you change your food consumption to include more lean meats, fish, fresh produce and other food types that may be good for the waistline, but a disaster for the household budget.

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Posts Tagged ‘ food ’

15 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill to the Bone

How Much Money Can You Save by NOT Eating Out?

Is Now A Good Time To Go On A Diet?

Financial Management