“I’m spending so much money on food!!” Said everyone, at some point. You deserve to create eating habits that save you money.

Fear no more, Dr. J is here to shed light on money-saving food-gathering techniques.

We have been actively fighting our food bills for months. It is a very tricky necessity to maximise savings on. Nicole and I review our food spending on an ongoing basis. I’ll go through the major findings we have observed throughout this process and whether we find the changes we make bring us satisfaction or contempt in the frugality of it all.

Broke on convenience:

Marketing is having phenomenal success arguing that we as people should be happy and willing to pay significantly more money for the convenience of food showing up in our faces without us having to do any of the work.

Obviously, the most effective way to slice our food spending is to stop eating out. Spending $30 for one meal is ludicrous. Even if we save leftovers for a snack later. Going out for dinner one day a week can amount to over $100 in a month! Why spend $100+ on just 4 of the 90 meals we eat in one month?? (3 meals/day x 30 days).

Even if getting takeout or fast food, the costs can add up rapidly. These are not eating habits that save money. My rule of thumb for buying food prepared is that it should average around $3. So if I am getting a $7 burrito, I’ll try to make it last me two meals. We notice very easily what a tough time holding steadfast to this rule is; showcasing the markup on convenience versus preparing the food ourselves. The reason I have this $3 rule is because realistically we should be able to find something prepared that can get us by on $3, and if we apply this to every meal it still equals a whopping $270 for food in a month ($3 x 3 meals x 30 days). So it’s a great way to stay in check when we do want convenience.

I have an all-in-one mix that is very healthy and averages $2 per serving for the tub; I’ll keep it at work and if there’s ever a day I didn’t have time to pack a lunch I can have this instead of an overpriced cafeteria meal. A loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter will do as well.

OK, it’s clear buying our own groceries is the way to go. Definitively the most effective eating habit to save money. Let’s only discuss that topic from here on.

My Costco lament:

In our grocery analysis we have identified several key decisions that save us money on eating expenses.

What I noticed had the biggest impact was our Costco trips. When shopping at Costco, there is no way to get a small amount of something and they offer a lot of alluring options. So two things would happen: 1) we would end up buying surplus amounts of something new because we wanted to try it. 2) We would get more than we need of most items because everything come in such large quantities.

This could be buying two bags of an item instead of just one because we think it means we’ll run out slower. In general the quantity is too much for two people to eat. The problem is that by having a surplus of food, we ate a lot more than we would’ve with a normal amount at home! So all that food we thought would last us twice as long is still lasting a bit longer, but nowhere near twice the duration. Furthermore, we found a number of fresh items we’d be racing to finish before they’d grow mouldy! Many fresh veggies and breads would end up growing mould before we’d get through them.

I’m not totally knocking Costco. If we were buying for 4+ people, it would make a lot of sense to shop here and receive the surplus benefit. As is, we use it now for only our bulk items that won’t expire and should not need replacing more than every few months.

Frequent harvest habits save more money than buying bulk:

This ties into another recommendation I have which is: shopping more frequently. Most of last year we tried to only do one big harvest each month. It was nice in the fact of only shopping once a month, but the above Costco factors also apply here. Fresh food would grow old too quickly, we felt like we had an abundance of food and so would overeat, and it is more difficult to schedule how long or how many meals we can get out of the harvest with this long timeline. The benefits of shopping every two weeks, for instance, are that it is much easier to make a realistic meal plan for that period, nothing should expire before it is eaten, everything can be tracked so that there is regular turnover and we don’t get into a buildup of unused products that we bought without a plan, etc.

This method allows for much more variation and adjustment with what we buy. When we go frequently, it is like a trial run each time. We can see whether the list was well-done: lasted the right amount, only had what we needed, cost-effective, and tasty.

It is not hard to think back a week or two and remember if the meals fit all this criteria. Versus trying to remember back a month where the grocery list was huge. Additionally, if we indulge one week by accident with meals that require more ingredients/money than we expected, we can try to go longer on what we bought to compensate, or next time just get the bare essentials to even out. This is very difficult to do if we picked up a whole months worth of food; we’re kind of stuck with what happened. It is also challenging finding storage space for so much food.

The next eating habits that save money:

Well, this has been a lot to read in one sitting. For a respite, I will split the rest into another post! Please keep these first considerations in mind for your next food sourcing. We covered the potential cost difference of buying groceries instead of prepared food, and I broke down several reasons why shopping often is actually advantageous to infrequent large reaping. Next up is our meal strategy, where we decide to go, how we capitalise on sales, and evaluating our harvests.