this woman’s work

My grocery bill

Mar 24, 2009 The Story of My Life

(Inspired by AmFam)

Our food bill for the week averages out to about $125 (including eating out). Sometimes more, very often less. I can feed us for a week on $75 without difficulty and have been able to do it for fifty when the budget was tight last summer. I spent $175 last Sunday and that will get us to this next Saturday and the only reason it was that high to begin with is that we had dog food ($14), laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent and toothpaste and hairbands, otherwise it’d have been closer to $150 or less. I also bought a dozen loaves of bread and snacks at the Pepperidge Farm discount store so that was an extra $30 (we also got goldfish crackers and Mint Milanos).

Here’s how I do this:

• I menu plan. I don’t understand how anyone grocery shops without a menu plan. I plan seven to eight meals, a general idea of lunch menus and one or two things I plan to bake for breakfasts or snacks.
• I am flexible but firm when planning. I look ahead to my week so I know how much time I expect to have in the kitchen. If work/homeschool is looking busy, I need to take that into account. For example, Thursdays are crazy around here. I know we’ll be leaving in the morning and that when we get back will be unpredictable. Either that will be a pizza or Chipotle night or I need to do the crockpot. If  I’m going to do the crockpot, then I need to soak my beans on Tuesday or Wednesday. I rarely buy canned beans because I can get more for less if I soak and cook my own. I freeze the leftovers and there’s another dinner ready and waiting.
• I can also meal plan on the fly at the store. If I show up and there’s something unexpected on sale, I have enough recipes memorized that I can set aside one of my planned meals and shop for a different one. (When I shop I have a list and on the side I also have a list of the meals/snacks I’m going to be making so I can keep track of what ingredients go with what.)
• I add up the cost as I go through the store so I know how much we have to splurge on, say, string cheese or granola bars. There’s always room for splurging because what would life be like without that??
• We don’t eat red meat. We do eat fish and poultry.
• I keep a supply of staples on-hand that can let me create meals or snacks quickly and without much bother. This staple includes baking supplies, lentils, rice, oatmeal, maple syrup, eggs, cheese, pasta, onions, garlic, potatoes, canned tomatoes and frozen veggies. Stuff like that. So i can pretty much always make a batch of oatmeal cookies for a playdate or a fruit crumble for the pears no one is eating and are getting too soft. Also popcorn is a cheap, high-fiber snack that’s easy to make and pretty much everyone likes it (so it’s good for playdates, too). My mom recently bought us a Whirly-Pop and man, we use that thing ALL THE TIME. We love plain old popcorn but we also love caramel corn, which is a cinch to make on your stovetop.
• We don’t eat organic (because we can’t afford it, obviously) but this budget includes some organics like when Madison wants YoBaby and the really good turkey sausage we all like. I would much rather be able to afford eating fully organic and think it’s worth the extra money but it’s not in our life right now so I wince and buy conventional.
• I have learned to make something out of nothing. Our budget is low in part because I don’t always have time to shop. I try to shop Sundays (before I had a job it used to be Tuesdays). If I miss it, I don’t always know when I’ll get back out — it depends on work and homeschooling. So I’ve learned how to pull those staples out and make a good, nutritious meal. Meals like: Roasted potatoes with onions and garlic, Scrambled eggs with some cheddar and the left-over salsa; Pasta with butter and parmesan and frozen veggies; Rice with soysauce and frozen veggies,  Lentils with sauteed onions and garlic; French toast with the stale bread in the freezer. And then you can, as Julia says, bitch these things up. Like the left-over cream cheese? Put it between slices of bread for your french toast. Add some frozen blueberries for the kids who like it. That breakfast sausage your kid refused might be good with the roasted potatoes. True frugality means you use everything so look around and see what might be tucked away and ready to use.
• I use my left-overs. I make meals in part to turn left-overs into lunches. For example, the meal I’m making tonight I’m making so that I have something to take in my lunch tomorrow. I also use the left-overs from recipes so if I’m buying chicken broth for one recipe then I make sure I’m going to have another recipe that uses the rest of the broth. I don’t let things go to waste. Heck, even left-over yogurt can be used in a muffin recipe. (It’s what I sometimes do with the kids’ half-eaten yogurts. Yes –it’s gross but then I only serve ‘em to the kids who left the half-eaten container in the ‘fridge anyway. Left-over yogurt also makes good homemade popsicles in the summer. And if the child is like Madison and prone to leaving many containers with just a few bites left, you can make them stripe-y and the child in question will happily eat the stuff she was refusing in its thawed state.)
• I am not hard core about buying stuff on sale the way the true frugal hosuewives are but there are certain things I won’t buy unless they cost X. Brett will budge from this but I won’t. (I won’t pay more than two bucks a box for cereal, for example.)
• I rely heavily on frozen veggies and frozen fruit. It doesn’t go bad, it can be used in a myriad of ways and it’s nutritious. (I especially love frozen fruit because the kids eat it alone as a snack, we can use it in smoothies if we’re running late and need a quick breakfast, I can use it baking and if I’m rushing dinner out to the table I can stir it into plain yogurt, add a little cinnamon and call it dessert.)
• I weigh my time against my budget and make allowances. There’s a lot I make homemade because it’s easy and I like to do it. There are other things I know I could make but don’t think it’s worth the bother (pasta, crackers, and lately I haven’t wanted to roast a whole chicken so I’ve been buying broth).
• The Pepperidge Farm store is my friend. I’m picky about bread (and again, here, I used to bake our bread every week but that’s not in the cards for me these days) and I buy whole wheat without high-fructose corn syrup or transfats and that stuff’s expensive. I can get stale-ish bread at Pepperidge Farm that’s just fine for PB&J and turkey sandwiches for much less than at the store. I can also buy goldfish crackers for about 1/3 of the grocery store price. I buy lots of boxes and dump ‘em out into big glass jars on our counter so the kids can scoop their own.

It takes a lot of planning but the planning has become second-nature. I keep an eye on our diet for the whole day so if the kids have, say, pancakes in the morning (just about every Wednesday I make pancakes or waffles because it’s Noah’s paper route day and it’s my way of sending him out into the wide, wide world well prepared) then I’m not going to make them pasta that night. Or if they have Mac & Cheese for lunch (as an aside, I do make boxed Mac & Cheese but I’ll buy extra macaroni pasta and add it to the box to double the pasta and make left-overs for the next day’s lunch) I’m going to fix something for dinner with more protein.

Sometimes I can stretch a  meal plan beyond it’s limit by sending Brett out for a mini grocery shopping. I’ll give him a list and a $25 budget and he’ll come back with stuff to get us to when I have time to do a major shopping. There’s a lot you can do with eggs, milk and a chunk of cheese if you have the right staples in your cupboard.

I didn’t realize how hard this was to do out of the gate until our grocery bill shot up while Brett was in charge. I grew into cooking for our family but early on in our marriage with children, I knew that one of my jobs if I was home with our kids was to make money by saving money. I took it seriously and read a lot about it. I have had to be flexible about my limits — both monetarily and time-wise. For awhile I kept blowing our budget because I wanted to pretend we would never get take-out and that I’d always make everything — even crackers — from scratch. It wasn’t realistic. (However those homemade crackers were delicious!)

Now this is all second nature to me. The routine is easy and I’m teaching it to the kids. Noah usually votes to skip out on shopping these days but I’m training Madison like I trained Noah. They help me menu plan, weigh in on what sounds good, check the cupboards for what we’re missing and they help shop. I teach them how to read shelf tags, explain when the sale isn’t really a deal and we read labels. I explain when cheaper isn’t better and when it is and they are learning to pick out decent produce. Noah’s become really good at shopping and I imagine Madison will, too.

I talk to them the whole time I’m shopping about what I’m doing. I think out loud while I’m there so they know why I’m scrapping the eggplant dish (no good eggplants) and how I’m going to replace it. They also help scan at the self checkout and then unload the groceries. My kids? They have a lot of ownership about feeding the family because they participate in it. They don’t always want to eat what I cook (the big one is the picky one) but the saving money part is a game they want to win.

Further, they know how to wrap up their sandwiches for a snack later and Madison has learned how to scrape her left-0ver yogurt into a popsicle mold. Madison — like Noah before her — helps make the pancakes, waffles, muffins, etc. (As an aside? Left-over waffles on Wednesdays are Noah’s favorite afternoon snack.)

Probably they will grow up and want to eat out every single night and never, ever enter a grocery store or making any darn thing from scratch but at least they’ll be able to feed their families decently and within budget if they have to.

Tags: baking, budget, Erica, homeschool, Homeschooling, Julia, Madison, money, my mom, Noah, Recipes

Are you reading Julia?

Feb 4, 2009 Adoption, Parenting

Every Tuesday she’s writing about the book Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes and blogging about the insight it gives her into her son’s behavior. (For those who haven’t had Julia on their blogrolls, her son had a kidney transplant over a year ago and her daughter is facing one in upcoming months.) She picked up the book after AmFam blogged about it in the context of her daughter L’s adoption.

If you have a child who has experienced trauma, it sounds like this book is a difficult read but an important one.  Julia’s blog posts are heart wrenching but I also see them as hopeful because behind them is a mother who will do anything to help her children no matter how hard it is for her. 

That Julia — she’s a good egg. And an inspiration.

Tags: Julia, trauma

Officially one year from 40

Jan 11, 2009 Writing, work work work

I had a lovely birthday that included lunch out with my family, a movie with my husband and I believe there’s to be cake after dinner. I like a low-key birthday so this was just my speed. But next year? When I turn forty? I’m throwing myself a big old party, you betcha!

I decided to answer some of the freelance questions to give me a break from the adoption ones and also because my birthday is yet another reason to assess my world.

Spring (and if you’re interested in fabulous writing or in adoption particularly older child adoption you should be reading her) asked:

Since you asked…what’s your number one tip for making more money as a freelance writer? I seem stuck in the low-to-mid level magazines and would like to move up to higher paying magazines in order to be more profitable. Perhaps there’s a flaw in my logic, because so far, this has not been successful.

Spring, what magazines? I’m just curious — no need to answer if you don’t want to! I’m no big magazine writer (truly) but from friends who have bylines in lots of ‘em and from what little experience I have, I’d say the answer is the same as getting into the low-to-mid level ones: Pitch ‘em, pitch ‘em, pitch ‘em. If you have what it takes to be where you are now then you have what it takes to publishe bigger (and I think you’re writing is lovely so there’s no doubt in my mind that this is true)!

Then Spring said:

Actually, if you wanted to do 10 Top Tips for improving your freelance career in 2009, I’d be very interested.

I’m game.

1. Get focused. Decide what you really want be it money or better bylines or a combination of the two or whatever else you want. But really figure out what you want in your dream of dreams.
2. Get specific. Figure out a path to get from where you are now to where you want to be. If you need to study the industry to understand what success looks like, do that. It’s important to understand the minds of the folks you’re trying to get to hire you/buy your work.
3. Get general. Don’t be hemmed in thinking there’s only one way to do it — there’s not. There’s usually a general direction but the specific steps are different for different people. Understand that industry but bring what you know to it.
4. Resist distraction. I don’t know about you but I struggle sometimes when an opportunity presents itself and I feel like I need to take it even if it’s not something I actually want to do. But if it doesn’t fit into my larger plan, it’s going to end up taking away from my goals so I’ve learned to say no when I have to.
5. Be open to possibilities. You never know where your next great job/assignment/connection is going to come from so don’t dismiss things out of hand; give yourself the opportunity to consider them first..
6. Be flexible. Don’t stick yourself with rigid timetables or unreasonable expectations. Sometimes you don’t know how things are going to work out until they work out.
7. Trust your greater plan. I know that there were lots of times this past year when I felt like I was spinning my wheels but if you’re focused on your goals and saying yes to what fits and no to what doesn’t, you will see forward movement. I promise. Just put your head down and keep doing the work. (I’m still seeing pay-offs from things I did last year — momentum is a beautiful thing.)
8. Give yourself time to stop and assess. See if what you’re doing is working. Note your successes and forgive and learn from your failures.
9. Get some mentors and a sounding board. Find people who do what you wish you were doing and listen to them. Don’t take their words as gospel but appreciate their wisdom and experience. You’ll still need to make your own way but having other people around as support makes a world of difference.
10. Don’t let fear do you in. Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, hang in there. If it all seems like too much, put your head back down and ignore what might be coming and focus on what’s going on right now.

Wow, I sound so much more new age-y than I mean to but that’s my touchie-feelie guide to freelance success. The number one thing I think anyone should do? NETWORK. People can’t hire you if they don’t know you (and/or your work). Work begets work. Assignmetns beget assignments.

And because this post seems to warrant it, from my mentor Julia:

If you could choose to repeat the last year or two career wise, would you try the freelance/Brett home thing again? – knowing what you know now.

Oh hell yeah! Only I’d do it smarter so we could have kept him here longer. Now that I’m out of the emotional pit I dug for myself, I feel even more positive about it. Listen, two years ago I wasn’t doing any marcom and now I’ve got a portfolio full. I’ve honed my talents and my interests, met a zillion new terrific people, discovered a whole new career path and side to myself and I’m not done yet! Brett may not be home anymore, but I’m still working and billing out more than I have since my heady ePregnancy days. (I still am not billing as much as I did then but I have high hopes!) I couldn’t have done that part-time — I needed to jump in with both feet and start swimming.

I’m really proud of all we accomplished over the last eighteen months and I feel like we’ve set ourselves on a new course. I feel more confident, less shy about marketing myself and my work and I have a greater belief in my ability to do what I set my mind to. Yes, there are things I would do differently (mainly around our budgeting) and it would have been nice if I figured out how to make networking work for me earlier in the game but ultimately? I think I’ve been really successful so far and I think I have it in me to be more successful as I go. And Julia? There is no way in hell I could have done any of it without you and I am so so grateful for all you’ve done for me!!!!!!!!!!!!! I only hope I can pay you back in some way (more than fixing your dang blog — I mean REALLY pay you back)!!

Tags: budget, experience, freelance, Julia, marketing, mentors, money, networking, questions, success, work, writer