Need some real motivation to save money on groceries? Find out how to see some real results for your efforts!
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Maybe you have tried budgeting before, or coupons, or even my money saving grocery list. But, you wondered if it was making a big enough difference. I mean, you didn’t seem to have any extra money. And, ain’t nobody got time to save only a few dollars! You have a life and real problems, and you want to see some real money for your efforts. Here is some help and motivation to save money on your groceries!
It really is possible to save big bucks. But, if you are like a lot of people a few different things can happen to demotivate you.
1. You don’t know how much you are spending
When you are trying to save money, it is really important to be able to see the difference with your own eyes. Without tracking, you may not realize that your efforts really are making a difference. And tracking itself can be a huge motivator.
When you realize that you are throwing hundreds of dollars away every month (instead of saving them for something you really want), suddenly saving becomes a lot more desirable.
Get a free printable food expense tracker here.
2. You started tracking your expenses, but you didn’t know what to do next.
Trying to figure out how to spend less can become overwhelming. This is what I want to help you with. Food expenses are one of the easiest areas to save money. It is one area that is very flexible.
If you need some idea of what to buy at the grocery store, check out my Cheap Clean Eating Grocery List. If you need some ideas of what to do with all the healthy food, check out my healthy cheap meal plan , or my frugal meal printables.
If you want some of the cheapest healthy meals around, check out The Everything Beans Book.
3. You know you probably saved money, but you can’t find it!
This is actually a very common problem. If you don’t intentionally put your money in a specific place, it can seem to evaporate. To make sure that you actually get to reap the benefits of saving, you need a system.
How to Set Up a System to Find Your Extra Money
Use Cash. If you are probably spending the money in other areas (but you just don’t know where you spent it), it might help you to just use cash for groceries. Then at the end of the month you can actually see the cash left in the grocery envelope. Then you get to decide what to do with the money, instead of it getting spent and you not knowing where it went. Before you start using cash though, you will need to do step 2:
Decide how much cash you need each week and month. If you have been tracking your food expenses for a few months, you know how much you usually spend. If not, you may have to guess. If you are like most people, you are probably underestimating what you are actually spending.
If you guess to low of a number, you are going to be unpleasantly surprised when the money runs out before the end of the month. This will be demotivating, not motivating!
My advice is to track your spending first before you even try to save much on groceries. Then when you are ready to start using cash, fill your envelope with the amount of money that you were spending on average before you started trying to save money on food. That way you will be able to see money left in your envelope whenever you do start to work on saving money on your food.
Get an envelope or two to put your cash in. You can make a withdraw from your account once a week and put it in your envelope. Or you could withdraw only once a month and put it in an envelope. If you decide to keep a whole month’s worth of cash on hand, I would keep that envelope at home. I would use another one that you filled with a weekly amount so that you don’t have to carry too much extra cash around.
If you make a purchase online, take that amount of cash out of your envelope to deposit back into your account or hold onto it to help refill your envelope for the next month.
Check your envelope at at the end of the month. Whatever money is left is yours to save or spend! This is the part where you get to go to Hobby Lobby (or is that just me?!), and buy something you want. Spend your money on whatever brings you joy or makes you happy. Or use it to enable you to do something really important to you. Maybe you want to stay home with your kids. Maybe the saved money could be put in a savings account or used to pay off debt, so that you wouldn’t need a second income-enabling you to eventually stay at home with your kids.
If you find that every time you save the money, you need it for something, it might be time to work on cutting costs in another area. Maybe, you end up spending the money on birthday presents or the cable bill. It might be time to spend a little less on each person’s birthday, or find a new cable provider.
You want to be able to sometimes reward yourself for the hard work you have done saving money on your food costs. So, if you don’t feel rewarded, you may want to consider changing your spending in another area.
Using these steps will help you see some real results for your money saving efforts. Results are the best motivation to save money!
You may also be interested in:
How Much Money You Can Save on Food.
8 Tips for Clean Eating on a Budget – The Most Nutritious Foods for Cheap
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