TEN BUCKS A WEEK!

[stayhomemom77]

I am issuing a challenge!! Do you want to play along??

First, a little backstory...

I've been tracking my grocery expenses for over a year and in the middle of August, I scanned back through that information because I wanted to see when the turkeys went on sale last fall. I wanted to stock up with a bunch this year (one of the cheapest meats available when you hit the after Thanksgiving sales) but I couldn't remember exactly when I stocked up last time.

As I was going through my excel spreadsheet, I was shocked to discover exactly how much of our grocery budget was going towards junk food. Chips, novelty ice cream, chocolate, pretzels, soda, pastries etc, etc, etc. One week, we spent 1/3 of our weekly budget on this sort of cr@p. And generally speaking, we were spending at least $10 a week on treats. Now, this is ON TOP OF an other area in the budget that includes these kinds of things. I was completely mortified! What kind of example was I setting for my kids? No wonder I can't seem to lose weight!

And then I thought...what kind of food storage would I have if I had dedicated that $10 every week to filling my shelves with healthy, wholesome items? What exactly would TEN BUCKS A WEEK look like?

So I decided to find out! Each Friday when I went shopping, my challenge was to set aside $10 for long term food storage out of my regular grocery budget. Because I was just starting to build it up, my goal was not to touch the stuff...to leave it to grow for three months, and then begin to rotate those items into our meal planning. At that point, I'd be growing AND replacing my food storage.

We had been doing a pantry challenge for most of the summer in anticipation of a three week vacation, so when we got back on September 4th and I went for my groceries, I had my plan in place and some very empty shelves. My chest freezer was completely empty, the fridge had only a few condiments and the pantry was pretty close to bare. So, I went to work to fill them!

I took pictures of my haul every week and posted them on facebook to motivate myself and keep me accountable. I even had some friends join in the challenge. Then I mentioned it here on the Budget Board and a fellow DISer suggested starting a thread about it.

So here it is...and anyone who wants to join in is heartily welcome. No real rules except that it's TEN BUCKS A WEEK set aside from the regular grocery budget for stockpiling groceries.

Is anyone out there up to the challenge??

**Full disclosure...I live in Canada so prices are likely higher than what is generally experienced in the U.S. and I am a horrible photographer. Plus, I don't know how to make the photos smaller and I don't plan on finding out. But if you can deal with that...we are going to have a lot of fun!

 

[stayhomemom77]

The first rule in stockpiling is to buy what you eat. There's no point in buying 25 boxes of shredded wheat if your kids start to dry heave the instant they clap eyes on the box. We ate a lot of puffed wheat cereal with reconstituted powdered milk when I was about 10, so I know whereof I speak!! When something your family eats regularly goes on sale for a great price, that's the time to put that TEN BUCKS to some purpose and get some of that food on your shelves.

TEN BUCKS A WEEK
WEEK #1
2 packages Lipton Noodles $1.94
Peanut Butter (1 lb) $2.88
2 jars Classico Pasta Sauce $3.94
Total Spent $8.76

This week's grocery list was planned on the fly in the car on the way home from vacation...so it's not great! I still have $1.24 left, which I will roll over into next week's budget.

 

[stayhomemom77]

If you do a google search of food storage/stockpiling you are going to find an overwhelming amount of information. It's easy to get frustrated and give up worrying about it. Some people store food and household products with the expectation that they will need them for when Armageddon comes. While I don't deny the possibility that some horrifying catastrophic calamity may occur during my lifetime, my food storage goal is just to have enough in the house to feed us for a while, should our finances suffer a devastating hit. Unemployment and under employment threatens more and more North Americans and it's safe to say, that the knowledge that we won't have to stand in line for government cheese when the purse strings need tightening, makes it worth the extra effort to get my cupboards filled with food.


**I had $1.24 left over from last week, so I had a little more than $10 for this week. I got...
(ignore the bread basket stuff in the background)

WEEK #2
450 g box of Life cereal $1.97
Vinegar $1.97
PB 1L $2.88 (grabbed it Wednesday night before the sale ended!!)
2 cans coconut milk $1.76 ($0.88 each)
900 g bag of red lentils $2.49

Total spent $11.07

 

[stayhomemom77]

If I ever got to the point where I would have to feed my family ONLY with what I have stored, I would want as balanced a diet as possible. 40 packages of pasta would be cheap to buy and easy to store, and it would also fill our bellies. It would NOT, however do much for our daily nutritional requirements. So you'll notice that I am trying to make my purchases as balanced as I can. Although I am basing a lot of my purchases on whatever is on sale, I am trying to hit a couple of different categories each week:

Beans (a complete protein when mixed with a grain and SUPER cheap compared to meat)
Meats (shelf stable as well as freezer stuff)
Grains (rice, flour, pasta, potatoes, cereal, quinoa etc)
Milk (evaporated and powdered mostly)
Fruits and Vegetables (self explanatory)
Fats (PB, oil, butter)
Sweeteners (sugar, syrup, honey)
Misc items (condiments, spices, gravy, etc)

WEEK THREE
cereal $1.97
2 lipton sidekicks $1.94
ketchup $2.00
black olives $1.09
2 cans refried beans $2.98

Total spent: $9.98

 

[stayhomemom77]

There's nothing better than FREE food. A girlfriend of mine is VERY into couponing. I've always been fairly lazy about couponing...I haven't been interested in hunting down "good" ones and most of the ones I come across are ones I can't/won't use. But my friend is part of a local coupon train and often gets multiples of coupons for products she actually buys. A coupon (as everyone knows) saves you money. A coupon paired with a really great sale price, saves you LOTS of money. She's been hooking me up with some "good" coupons and giving me tips on how to get more of the ones I'll really use. And though some coupons are for a certain dollar amount off of the price, some are buy one get one free. Those ones are REALLY great for the TEN BUCKS challenge!

WEEK FOUR
Life cereal--free with coupon
2 bottles table syrup--$3.94
2 cans diced tomatoes--$2
2 jars pasta sauce--$1.98
1 box pasta--$0.99

Total spent: $8.91

I'll roll the extra dollar over to next week.

 

[stayhomemom77]

It was at this point that I started having storage problems. Initially, I cleared the top two shelves off of a shelving unit in the basement with the purpose of using them for food storage. But by this point, those two shelves were beginning to get a little crowded. I reclaimed a third shelf (which is now ALSO nearly full) and continued the challenge. But it made me grateful to have to space to store a bunch of food. And THEN it made me think of a very creative lady I know, who has to store her excess food in her living room. Yes, that's right...she lives in an apartment where space is at a premium and the only place she can put her food storage is on some utility shelves against a partially bare wall where she entertains. Now some would find this embarrassing, after all it's not particularly decorative or aesthetically pleasing to have boxes and packages of food out for all to see...but she decided to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation and sewed (or bought maybe...I forget which) some beautiful curtains to cover the open shelves and all is right with the world. Incidentally, one could also buy a wardrobe or shelving unit that has doors to hide the food away, should you have to store it in a room where you can't otherwise keep it out of sight.

WEEK FIVE

2 packages of Sugar $2.98
1 can gravy $0.79
Hamburger helper $1.49
Case of Kraft dinner (12 boxes) $5.99

Grand Total: $11.25

 

[SafferMom]

Even though I can't really contribute, I find your threads so interesting.

 

[stayhomemom77]

I was so into this challenge, and having so much fun that I decided to double down for week five and get a few more things. (I HAD just cleared a third shelf, after all!) I should also confess that my freezer at this point is 1/2 of the way full. After five weeks....from completely empty to half way full! Woot!! I didn't include the freezer stuff in this challenge because it gets rotated more frequently and wouldn't have lasted the full three months. I also worked on my toiletries. They are stored in the upstairs linen closet and again...aren't being held for the three month period before being available for use, so they aren't included in this challenge, but I wanted to do a little bragging about them anyway. I don't have a full shelf of shampoo, deodorant, TP, toothpaste, etc but it has been filling up fast thanks to coupons, price matching and sales.

WEEK FIVE BONUS STORAGE
2 containers chicken stock $1.94
3 bags of pasta $2.91
4 cans of gravy $2.68
2 cans pizza sauce $1.46

Grand Total: $8.99

 

[stayhomemom77]

Even though I can't really contribute, I find your threads so interesting.

Even though you can't participate at this time, you are more than welcome to follow along!! And if you ever find you are able to do this challenge in the future, you'll know how to do it!!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Rules are meant to be broken, I always say! Even though I promised myself faithfully...I went back on my word and spent the whole TEN BUCKS this week on a single product. In my defense, Canadian Thanksgiving had spawned the sale price on these babies and I knew that I was going to be stocking up on turkeys at the AFTER Thanksgiving sale, so we'd need these tasties to go with them when the time came to cook the birds up. I actually got 10 boxes for my upstairs NOT off-limits-for-three-months pantry as well. Yes, I DID spend $20 this week on a side dish that's filled with preservatives, additives and other junk...but we DID get the low sodium so we can at least pretend it's healthier!! And yes, I realize that homemade stuffing is likely even cheaper than this but I have yet to come across a recipe that we like anywhere NEAR as much as we love this stuff...manna from heaven, baby!

WEEK SIX

10 boxes of Stove Top stuffing. $9.70

 

[stayhomemom77]

DD would eat pasta morning, noon and night if we'd let her. I mean, she seriously bleeds alfredo sauce. If pasta with white sauce is on the menu, that's what she gets to eat...no matter WHERE we dine when we go out for a meal. She also has a favourite brand and it only goes on sale sporadically, so when that time rolls around I have to stock up or suffer her wrath. So, I broke my rule again and got 5 jars of white sauce for the food storage this week. I got 5 for my kitchen pantry too!

One thing I can't decide though, is how to organize our bounty on the shelves. Should I group the categories together or does that really matter? At the moment, though the multiples of the same product are all lined up neatly, it's all sort of jammed onto the shelves higgledy piggledy. Annnnnd I'm almost to the point where I need to clear off a fourth shelf. Life is good.

WEEK SEVEN

This week I spent $9.85 on five jars of our favourite alfredo sauce.

 

[worm761]

I love this thread! It's funny that you started it today. I started a price list so I know where my cheapest options are. I have been spending all willy nilly at the grocery store and spending almost double what I thought I was. I need a stockpile because the government keeps threatening shut downs and DH is a federal employee.

Anyway, I have questions. What is your goal? Like how many months are you aiming for stockpile? How are you keeping track of your groceries? Do you keep track of your menus too? Can you explain the whole process to me?

The best stuffing recipe: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/11/moms-stuffing-lightened-up.html

As for storage, I would group my stuff the way they are grouped in my kitchen/pantry. So if pasta and stuffing is stored in one area and sauces in another I'd group them like that.

 

[stayhomemom77]

I need to get back on track this week...no more rule breaking!! With that rule in mind, I was pretty distressed to find that there was very little on sale that I was willing to buy with my TEN BUCKS. The milk was a sale price, the rest were the regular price for the store brand for our local discount grocery store. However, I got my first (and second, third and fourth) contribution to canned vegetables AND some canned meat! Before I bought, I looked up several recipes I thought I'd be willing to try that would use up the chicken and tuna. I dislike all fish (but I love shell fish...go figure!!) and to be honest, canned meat in general sort of skeeves me out...I always think of SPAM and *shudder* ugh....that stuff... No. Just no.

However, if I were to stick it in a casserole (chicken and tuna NOT Spam) and think of England, I think I could stomach it. Maybe. And if not, I'll be finding reasons to give freezer meals to anyone in need of them! A death in the family. I am so sorry for your loss. Can I help you feed your out of town relatives? Just had a baby? Let me take care of dinner tonight! You went back to school part time as a mature student and you graduate next month. Well, let me help you get through your exams by feeding your family! What's that, a hangnail you say? Have I got a meal for you!

WEEK EIGHT
2 can evaporated milk $1.94
2 can corn $1.38
2 cans green beans $1.38
2 cans of chicken $2.38
2 cans tuna $1.97

Grand Total $9.05

 

[stayhomemom77]

I love this thread! It's funny that you started it today. I started a price list so I know where my cheapest options are. I have been spending all willy nilly at the grocery store and spending almost double what I thought I was. I need a stockpile because the government keeps threatening shut downs and DH is a federal employee.

Anyway, I have questions. What is your goal? Like how many months are you aiming for stockpile? How are you keeping track of your groceries? Do you keep track of your menus too? Can you explain the whole process to me?

The best stuffing recipe: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/11/moms-stuffing-lightened-up.html

As for storage, I would group my stuff the way they are grouped in my kitchen/pantry. So if pasta and stuffing is stored in one area and sauces in another I'd group them like that.

Welcome to the thread! It's funny how that works sometimes isn't it? You stumble across something RIGHT when you need it most! I love the DIS boards!

My long term goal is to build up an emergency reserve of food that would feed my family of four for a year.
My short term goal is to get three months stored.

I only have a partial understanding of just how much food that is though.

For example, we have pasta once every two weeks, so I want to get 26 jars of sauce and 26 pounds of noodles. That would be one pasta meal every two weeks for a year. We use ground beef once every week for various meals (lasagna, spaghetti, beef burritos, soups, casseroles) but for most of those meals I can get away with using only half a pound of meat, so we'd need 26-35 pounds of ground beef for a whole year. I'd like to get to the point where I have 12 turkeys in my freezer (one for each month) about 30 pounds of ground beef and six hams. Any meat after that (sausages, pork chops, chicken, roasts etc) would be bonus stuff. I want to get to the point where I have 12 bottles of ketchup and table syrup and 50 pounds of sugar. I dunno about rice, oatmeal and beans though...I still need to calculate stuff like that. I think 100 pounds of the beans (in various types) and rice would be a good start, but we wouldn't need that much oatmeal. Not sure about oils and fats, although we go through a jar of PB every two weeks, so I'm going to need 26 of them!

I track my groceries in a simple spreadsheet. I shop weekly, so I make a tab for each week and then I have a couple of stores I shop from listed in different columns. I list the items I want from each store (with the prices) in the appropriate column and it's configured to tally up how much is being spent at each store and then a running total. I then know how close I am getting to my weekly budget. Anything in my special TEN BUCKS category is bolded so I know that's what it is. I kept it in it's own column at first but then I never knew where I was buying it from and it got all confusing so I switched it up. I use it first as my shopping list and then I come home and update it once I have my receipt and all my groceries actually purchased. Then it becomes official and then it's all tracked!!

I DO plan my menus. Generally I do a two week run, simply because we used to get paid biweekly and we were used to making up the schedule that way. It's easier now, because I almost never shop for what I am actually going to eat this week. I buy ahead based on sales and stock up accordingly. For example, I bought six turkeys on October 13th when they were on sale. I already had a meal plan in place, so we are cooking up the first one tonight! It didn't make it onto the menu until the next rotation.

Here is our current menu (we are into the second week):

chili and buns
burgers
chicken fingers and fries
chicken fajitas
pizza
tacos
turkey dinner
leftovers
pork chops and rice
soup and grilled cheese
pasta
bean burritos
lasagna
leftovers

We always have a leftover meal once a week. We use up any other leftovers for lunches or toss them in the freezer right away so there is no food waste.

I just started making a soup/stew/chili every week. This is a healthy and filling meal that really stretches the food budget. It's usually a dinner and then the leftovers are for lunches.

We also try and have one meatless meal per week, although sometimes they both fall in the same week of the two week period...like above, the pasta (will be meatless) and the bean burritos are both in the same week.

And my question for you is...is there anything else about the process that you are unclear on? Anything I didn't explain?

 

[Angeejoe]

I'm here & ready to learn!!! Thanks for making this

 

[worm761]

Nope. Thank you! I really need to learn to just shop sales and meal plan based on what I already have in the house. My freezer is full. We grind out own meat so I have lots of roasts and whatnot. I made a ham tonight and will freeze the leftovers. I average a turkey dinner every other month.

I did make a spreadsheet of my costs based on what I buy. I even broke it down to cost per ounce. Now I'm going to track costs, lowest sales, and determine a stock up price on everything.

 

[Angeejoe]

So I just read through all of your posts, what a great job. So I think I initially misunderstood when you talked about it on the Debt Dumpers thread, I was thinking you were devoting $10/wk to stocking up on shelf staples, but you're actually building a stockpile. Totally similar things, but you're going so much deeper!! I can't believe your detail with spread sheets! I have no idea how to do spread sheets, do you have an accounting back ground?

I grew up in a house where money was always tight & if something was on sale my mom bought one & considered it a savings, but she never stocked up. We went thru things like mustard within 1-2 wks, but she'd always just buy 1 when on sale & the other weeks pay regular price.

For me now, my shopping is based on sales & stocking up on the brands I love (I do have some brand loyalities) & use most at a great price. Like this week Prego Spaghetti Sauce (my sauce of choice) was on sale, so I bought 6@ $1.50/each, plus I had .80c in coupons (I kind of wish I bought more). Or philly cream cheese was on sale for $1.50 plus .50c coupon, so I got 6 as expiration is January (I always look at dates when I'm stocking up & will often reach towards that back of stock to get dates further out).

I do coupon, I have a big binder with baseball card slots divided out by areas of the store (dairy, can goods, dry good, frozen foods, pets, cleaning, etc), plus my store does online coupons & has ways to earn $ off for next time depending on my shopping habits. I'm by no means an extreme couponer, we actually have a local woman who has been featured on the TLC show Extreme Couponer (not sure if you have the channel in Canada). I went to her class, it was free, just asked for a can food donation for the food bank. She's very different in her approach, she coupons & donates it as a religious mission in our local area, plus her own stockpile. Very cool.

I try to base my meal plans around sales. I love making fresh soups, lately Sunday has been our soup night, tonight found a great recipe for chicken enchilada soup that used mostly canned goods, seasoning & 1 chicken breast- DH loved it!! He's not a big fan of soup night.

 

[bcwife76]

Following - this is awesome!! Especially since you are in Canada too Products and prices are quite relevant to me!

 

[bcwife76]

That is an awesome deal on Alfredo Sauce, especially that brand!

 

[Mickfarland4]

There's nothing better than FREE food. A girlfriend of mine is VERY into couponing. I've always been fairly lazy about couponing...I haven't been interested in hunting down "good" ones and most of the ones I come across are ones I can't/won't use. But my friend is part of a local coupon train and often gets multiples of coupons for products she actually buys. A coupon (as everyone knows) saves you money. A coupon paired with a really great sale price, saves you LOTS of money. She's been hooking me up with some "good" coupons and giving me tips on how to get more of the ones I'll really use. And though some coupons are for a certain dollar amount off of the price, some are buy one get one free. Those ones are REALLY great for the TEN BUCKS challenge!

WEEK FOUR
Life cereal--free with coupon
2 bottles table syrup--$3.94
2 cans diced tomatoes--$2
2 jars pasta sauce--$1.98
1 box pasta--$0.99

Total spent: $8.91

I'll roll the extra dollar over to next week.

Our local grocery store doubles coupons up to $1, so if you have a $.75 coupon, they give you $1.50 off. When I was pregnant with my 2 son and didnt move unless absolutely necessary at work, I had time to go through the coupons and sales ads and plan out my shopping. I used to get Crest or Colgate toothpaste tubes for $.25 because they often would be 2/$3 with a $.75 coupon. I wish I had this time now!