The biggest thing we have learned by our experimental weekly fiscal fasts on Wednesdays, and going into the first full week fast, is a heightened awareness of where we spend money, and figuring out ways to trim our daily costs. Later in the week I plan to share some ways we have decided to cut some costs not only during our fiscal week, but hopefully for the good. In this episode of our fiscal fast analysis, we want to concentrate on our biggest monthly expense, food.
We spend around $400-600/month on groceries, including paper products, cleaning supplies, etc., and not including eating out. Food is a large expense for our family of four, and we are looking for ways to start trimming our costs; however, with two growing boys, we tend to go through a lot of food and supplies. Paper towels, for example, somehow seem to just flow in and out of our house like the breeze. Dirty faces, spills, and messes require a lot of paper products for cleanup when normal wash rags will not do the job.
The greatest variability in our spending comes from weeks where we stock up on supplies and freezable items. Stockpile weeks typically include piles of coupons, paired with sales, and a lot of times added discounts (Food Perks) from our local grocery chain, which can amount to up to a 20% discount. So while we do spend a lot, we also do so smartly by using as many discounts as possible without going to the Extreme Couponers. We hope to make some changes though as a result of our outlook from the fiscal fasts.
Heading into the first day of our fiscal fast, we had to do some planning for food and meals throughout the week. Mostly, we will be able to use up items in the chest freezer in the garage and the stock pantry, but there are some items that need to be purchased right before going into the fast. Therefore, we stocked up on milk, bread, juice, and several other items to complete meals throughout the week.
Luckily, we already had some backlog of baby formula, baby foods, and a large stockpile of diapers and wipes. However, want to know what could really cause a mess of a fiscal week long fast? Running out of toilet paper. The funny thing is I am not trying to be funny. We usually buy the largest packages of toilet paper as possible and have an extensive closet full of backlog. As we were walking out the door for our last minute shopping trip, we realized we were at the end of our supply. It was a lucky catch because it could have caused us to break. I am thankful we now do not need to go to the extent of one of the Extreme Cheapskates and use washable rags. It was a lucky catch, and really makes one realize all the little things you might take for granted, and need to account for over a week when spending, or no spending, matters.
So the basic summary is there were certain items we did need to stock up on prior to the fiscal fast. They are items we would have purchased normally, and yes we did have to shift our spending, but it was not extraneous spending. In the process, we also used a bunch of gift cards we acquired over the holidays, so very little actual spending was done to plan our week at the last minute.
The other great thing about stocking up for the week, is knowing exactly what the menu will be all week. There are quite a few weeks where my wife and I plan out the meals; however, there are also weeks where we wing it, and often times do not feel like cooking and might decide to go out instead on the occasional night. So it was kind of fun going through the pantry and freezer to see what we might have buried at the back or bottom, and decide what we could use up.
On the menu for the week for dinners is tacos, some type of pasta dish, fish sandwiches, chicken soup, and a full turkey meal. It should be a pretty exciting week of some hearty meals that can also be used a lunches. We will also use up lots of side dish items from the pantry and freezer.
Here lies my biggest concern though about the fiscal fast week. The goal is to use up as much stock as we have on hand over the course of the week so there is less stuff that reaches expiration and needs to be thrown away. However, what this means in that next week, we need to stock up again with another large shopping expense because the shelves may be close to bare. So while it will be great to use up some stock, it inevitably means we need to spend more to restock. We will not completely empty the shelves by the end of the week, but a lot of the larger, more relied upon items might be used up, and require new ones.
Normally, we do at least one large stock up trip per month with smaller trips each week. However, we had one of our stock up trips a couple weeks ago knowing the fiscal fast week was coming. So I am worried that while it is good to empty the shelves, we also are gearing up for a possibly abnormal big grocery spend.
My other problem is I have not come up with a big gauge of ways to keep track and monitor the impact of the fiscal fast from a pre versus post spend. I am hoping something clicks as we progress through this experiment throughout the year.
Stay tuned for the rest of the week as we discuss various other ways we have trimmed existing expenditures, while also spending no money throughout the week.
the one major difference i see from your fiscal fast and the extreme cheapskate fast is his lack of children(and you probably won’t eat goat head). i believe you will make it through the fast without spending but the stockup before and after might make it a wash. I think that guy on extreme cheapskates did no stockpiling before, because as adults we can adapt without some things where our children are used to what they usually consume. either way, if the stockpiling before and after does happen to be a wash, you will have still saved money on any little expenses(soda at work, trips to target etc.)to make it worth it.
@Alyssa: Who doesn’t love a good goat’s head? Kidding. We can eat a lot, but a goat’s anything besides their milk/cheese is beyond what we can stomach. The stocking before I am not really too concerned about because it really was almost negligible because the idea is to not stock up beyond normal means. I agree though I am concerned about the restocking afterwards, if not immediately, within a couple of weeks. I do agree that we anticipate it is more the smaller expenses that will make the differences, as well as some new lifestyle changes we plan on incorporating.
I’ve actually seen success (with regard to saving money) with doing a big once a month shopping trip and then very limited grocery trips in between for fresh food and milk and whatnot. You have to make a list of what you will need for a month and be very diligent about menu planning, but the idea is that you only have x amount of food for the month and you have to use it all. When I was shopping weekly, my kids would eat the good stuff and then wait for more good stuff to arrive after the grocery shopping. With once a month shopping, we were more likely to eat all of the things that were in the pantry. I tried to keep my weekly trips to just about $20 and carried cash so that I would have to stay in my budget and that kept me from spending money on impulse purchases. Keep at it! The benefits will be worth it.
@Jessica: More great ideas! Our splurge has always been on food, and it is time to start getting tough with the dietary budget.
Ya gotta be careful with depriving yourself because it can lead to binging. You have the right idea about keeping track of your spending to see if it actually saves money or if you over-buy afterwards. I have something different that has been working for me.
1 – Certain items such as toilet paper and soaps I NEVER buy unless they’re on sale. Then I buy in bulk for months. You can accomplish this at either a Costco/Sam’s Club/BJ’s or on Amazon’s discounted subscription program. You can wait for sales at your supermarket but be certain the “sale” is actually a good price. Most supermarkets charge a premium for non-food items.
2 – I buy store-brand whenever it tastes similar, which is very often these days.
3 – I buy no juice. It’s expensive and juice is not all that healthy for you considering it is too easy to drink those sugary calories. Have fresh fruit instead. Drink water and flavor it with something that has little or no calories.
4 – If I were to buy junk food, I would limit it to say, 3 treats per week. So maybe each family member has 1 slice of pie at home per week, 1 small package of cookies each (divide up the box), and 1 piece of cake.
If you’re like, “Heck no!”, remember, you’re also going out to eat where you probably are enjoying yourself. So really, you’re probably having 6 treats per week.
5 – Another way to save money (double-check if this works for you though) is to stock up on your supermarket’s gift cards during the quarter that your Credit Card gives you 5% back. Thank you Inacents for letting me know about the Discover More card!
6 – Not sure if this possible for you, but at the moment, I’ve been able to make 2 grocery trips per month. This saves me time and gas money. Now I’m standing in that stupid grocery line half the time as before and using half the fuel. My refrigerator is crammed full of vegetables, whole grain bread, and fruit.
Using this approach has saved me money and calories. And I also enjoy my treats A LOT more! 🙂
@Hogwild: Great suggestions!! 1) That is exactly what we do too. I can not even tell you the last time was when we bought soap. 2) Totally agree on the store brands, but occasionally we get snookered and have to buy the name brand. 3) I do not know if this house could live without juice. We can go through a whole half gallon in about a day or two. We have thought about trying out the concentrated frozen tubes, but we do not like pulp, so we do not know how well we would like it. 4) Great idea. We already buy very limits amounts of sweets as it is, but it would be a good idea to mentally limit ourselves. 5) I have always wanted to do the gift cards up to the 5% spend limit, but I somehow have not been that diligent nor do I like shelling out cash upfront, but with proper planning it is very feasible. 6) Maybe we do need to start limiting ourselves to grocery shopping only every other week. We love to grocery shop, but if we stocked up right, it could be effective. Great idea. We also want to start setting stricter spending limits too.
The meal plan for the week sounds pretty good to me, but nice catch on the toilet paper. That could have gotten ugly!
@Steve: Guess I could always barter with the neighbors if all else fails. Knock, knock. Can I borrow some tp?