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How Often Do You Shop?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lil" data-source="post: 707310" data-attributes="member: 17309"><p>This is tough. While I'm not above the occasional impulse buy, Jabber is much worse. Because he gets off work at least an hour earlier than I do, and drives right by Wal-Mart, Gerbes Supermarket, and Walgreens, he's usually the one shopping.</p><p></p><p>But, he also recognizes the problem.</p><p></p><p>He and I just in the last couple months have started making a concerted effort to stop spending so much on groceries. We're bad at not thinking about dinner until dinner time...then nothing is thawed out and we end up with fast food or running to the store to buy special items. Having recognized that as a real problem, we've started making weekly menus. Literally, take a calendar and write down what we're cooking. (Monday, tacos and salad. Tuesday, roast chicken, stuffing and green beans. Wednesday, chicken soup. etc.) From that list we can determined what groceries we need, make a list, and buy those things. No more cucumbers going mooshy from the salads we thought we'd make but didn't. No more "stop and grab a pizza" because we didn't thaw out chicken.</p><p></p><p>Granted, it's a bit flexible. I was going to make chili Sunday, changed my mind to shepherd's pie (I did have all the ingredients) ended up shopping until way too late and was so hungry I was shaky from not eating, so grabbed that pizza for dinner (I was on my own) and saved the thawed burger until Monday and used it to make Shepherd's pie instead. Or I'll cook something and end up with more left-overs than planned...and so we'll scrounge and do soup and sandwiches the next day, rather than cook another meal that would be too much for us to eat.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The weekly menu certainly does help with both of these problems. We eat much healthier, because we're cooking more and eating out less. We save money because we're cooking more and eating out less. We do try to buy once a week...but there's always some little thing that we'll end up needing. Jabber's working much harder on curbing the impulse buys when he has to stop by the store.</p><p></p><p>Of course, one alternative that we haven't resorted to (this time...we've done it in the past to curb spending) is to set a food budget, gas budget, dining out budget...pull that out of the bank in cash, put them in envelopes, hand them out...and take away his debit card.</p><p></p><p>There is an app called Mint, which goes with a website called <a href="https://www.mint.com/" target="_blank">mint.com</a>. We've been using it the last two months to track spending. Maybe if you tried that, when he literally sees the big chunk of the pie chart that is his spending on food - he'd get the hint better. Worth a try.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lil, post: 707310, member: 17309"] This is tough. While I'm not above the occasional impulse buy, Jabber is much worse. Because he gets off work at least an hour earlier than I do, and drives right by Wal-Mart, Gerbes Supermarket, and Walgreens, he's usually the one shopping. But, he also recognizes the problem. He and I just in the last couple months have started making a concerted effort to stop spending so much on groceries. We're bad at not thinking about dinner until dinner time...then nothing is thawed out and we end up with fast food or running to the store to buy special items. Having recognized that as a real problem, we've started making weekly menus. Literally, take a calendar and write down what we're cooking. (Monday, tacos and salad. Tuesday, roast chicken, stuffing and green beans. Wednesday, chicken soup. etc.) From that list we can determined what groceries we need, make a list, and buy those things. No more cucumbers going mooshy from the salads we thought we'd make but didn't. No more "stop and grab a pizza" because we didn't thaw out chicken. Granted, it's a bit flexible. I was going to make chili Sunday, changed my mind to shepherd's pie (I did have all the ingredients) ended up shopping until way too late and was so hungry I was shaky from not eating, so grabbed that pizza for dinner (I was on my own) and saved the thawed burger until Monday and used it to make Shepherd's pie instead. Or I'll cook something and end up with more left-overs than planned...and so we'll scrounge and do soup and sandwiches the next day, rather than cook another meal that would be too much for us to eat. The weekly menu certainly does help with both of these problems. We eat much healthier, because we're cooking more and eating out less. We save money because we're cooking more and eating out less. We do try to buy once a week...but there's always some little thing that we'll end up needing. Jabber's working much harder on curbing the impulse buys when he has to stop by the store. Of course, one alternative that we haven't resorted to (this time...we've done it in the past to curb spending) is to set a food budget, gas budget, dining out budget...pull that out of the bank in cash, put them in envelopes, hand them out...and take away his debit card. There is an app called Mint, which goes with a website called [URL='https://www.mint.com/']mint.com[/URL]. We've been using it the last two months to track spending. Maybe if you tried that, when he literally sees the big chunk of the pie chart that is his spending on food - he'd get the hint better. Worth a try. [/QUOTE]
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