THE PRICE IS RIGHT

When there were five mouths to feed at one time, it was time to get serious about this food budget. Like the variety of diet plans that are out and about, there are a variety of food challenges. The concept behind these food challenges is to put a face to the serious state of hunger.

Over time, there have been the “Food Stamp Challenge” and the “Can You Live on $5 a Day Challenge”. Actors, politicians and CEO’s have participated at one time or another for the cause of hunger in America.

My frugal challenge is to keep my spending low by not overpaying for what is needed on my list. The first key to the challenge is developing the grocery list.

The next key is to determine how much to spend. This requires writing down every single bill that you pay each month. No item is too trite. If you regularly spend money on something, it’s a bill.

There are the obvious ones such as rent, insurance, car payments, etc. If you’re at Starbucks five days a week for four weeks, you have a Starbucks bill. If you use electricity or gas seven days a week for four weeks, you have a bill. Monthly haircuts? Postage stamps? Gas for cars? Movies every weekend? Baby formula? The weekly mani-pedi? You get where I’m going with this.

I began this exercise 37 years ago to determine how much life was costing vs. how much salary was coming in to our home. I had to choose my “needs” and my “wants”.  At the end of the process, the leftover money was for food… for the month. At its peak in the mid-90s, it was $375/month. That was $75 per person per month if the month had four weeks or about $19 per week/per person. Less if the month had five weeks.

I had a list, I had an amount to spend and the next thing was to determine my “price points”. A price point is the most that I will pay for any one item.

The goal is to find it for less but never pay more. Price points change with inflation. My price point for a dozen eggs had been .99/dozen but now $1.29 is the sale price for a dozen eggs. That is a huge jump in cost. Yet chickens which produce the eggs can still be purchased for between .69 - .99/lb. Your mileage may vary, depending where you live.

This principle can be applied to organic food shopping as well. The price points will be higher than my non-organic prices but it’s the same principle.

I have my grocery list, my monthly pool of money, my price points and lastly, the hardest part of all, the will power. Much like those diet plans, staying on task is crucial to success. And much like those diet plans, some months are harder to stick to than others.

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Shop for what you need, and not what you want. Otherwise, you may find that what you want, you really can’t afford. You run out of money and there is more month at the end of the money.

                                    Eggs at .99/dozen and turkey bacon for .45 each