We’re kicking off the year with an 8-week Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge. I’ll be sharing a weekly post here every week with a task or challenge for you to complete/focus on to help you tweak, improve, or overhaul your grocery budget.
My hope is that we can all work together to crowd-source new ideas and fresh inspiration to be more thoughtful and intentional in our grocery budgets + hopefully save some money and instill some practices and principles and habits that will continue to save us money throughout the rest of the year.
It’s February and we’re starting week 7 of the Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge. How is it going for you? Here’s what we’ve covered in this challenge so far…
In week #1, we talked about setting up a grocery budget. That’s the most important first step in cutting your grocery bill.
In week #2, we discussed why you need to recognize potential roadblocks. Be sure to read through the comments here to hear about others’ roadblocks. I think it will encourage you to know you’re not alone.
In week #3, I challenged you to commit to change one thing for three weeks. You can see the comments on the post for ideas of what others picked.
In week #4, I encouraged you to check in on your progress to see how you are doing, what you are learning, what’s working, and what’s not working.
In week #5, we talked about evaluating your options when it comes to stores in your area.
Last week, we checked in on the commitment we made three weeks ago.
Week #7: Challenge Yourself to Go Cash-Only
If you’ve made it this far, I’m so proud of you! And I think you’re ready for a big challenge — trying the going cash only for a few weeks.
What do I mean by this? Well, I mean actually only bringing real cash with you to the store for a few weeks. Leave your debit and credit cards (and checkbook, if you still have one of those!) at home. And just shop with cash!
You see, when you shop with a credit or debit card, you can have your budget in your head and you can do the best to stick with it when you check out, but it’s so much easier to go just a little bit over here and there when you’re swiping. You can justify that $2 you went over your budget to buy something which was a “great deal” when paying with your card.
$2 might not seem like much, but if you spend $2 to $3 more on groceries every week, that’s adds up to around $130 in extra spending over a year’s time!
Paying with cash forces you to stick to your budget.
When you know all you have to pay at the store is your grocery budget envelope, you better believe you carefully evaluate every impulse purchase or great deal you come across: “Do I really need this?” “Is this in the budget?”
If you find yourself struggling financially and wishing you could figure out why your grocery budget is so high, can I challenge you to take a Cash-Only Challenge for 3 weeks and see if it impacts your grocery spending over the course of a three-week period?
Take the Cash-Only Challenge!
Here’s how the Cash-Only Challenge works:
1) Commit to only spend what is in your grocery envelope for the next 3 weeks.
2) Go to the bank and withdraw cash in the amount of your pre-determined Grocery Budget. Put this cash in an envelope and keep it in a safe place. For more on cash-only shopping, read The Envelope System Experiment.
3) Leave your credit/debit cards/checkbook at home and only bring your cash envelope and a calculator with you to the grocery store.
4) Calculate your purchases as you add them to your cart. I mentally add up how much I’ve spent as I add things to my cart, rounding up for tax. You can also keep a running total on your phone’s calculator. This will motivate you to carefully evaluate all purchases, will make you aware of how much items actually cost, encourage you to look for the best deal, and force you to get creative if your list is longer than you have room for in the budget.
5) Pay with cash when you checkout. This three-week experiment will likely teach you some things and challenge you in good ways… and you may end up decided to go cash-only for a few months, or even longer!
Are joining us for the Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge? If so, I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell us if you’ve ever tried using cash only. If so, how did it work for you? If not, would you be willing to try it for 3-6 weeks and see what you learn from the experience?
I had planned to go to Kroger and Aldi on Thursday, but then there was a severe storm warning, so I stayed hope and then planned to go on Friday and a bunch of unexpected things came up. I finally just did a small Kroger pickup order this weekend to tide us over (I’m traveling Sunday and Monday for book launch media stuff.)
I hope to finally make it in-person to Kroger on Tuesday, but we’ll see what this coming week brings! At any rate, we spent $29 on the above items at Kroger.
Need some practical ideas for ways to cut your grocery bill? Be sure to sign up for my free cheatsheet with 10 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill by $50 This Week!
Another perspective, not saying I disagree with the cash system but we have another system that works better for us(what works for one may not work for all though). We never use cash. We use our credit card for everything. It helps us accumulate cash back rewards points. At the end of every month we pay the credit card off in full on time. We carry no credit card debt plus every month can get $50-$300 off our bill from the rewards we have accumulated. It’s free money. We are however very disciplined about tracking every charge we make. We use a computer software program (Quicken) at home and put every single charge into it. We check the reports by category weekly to make sure we haven’t gone over our budget or if we did, why (because sometimes life happens). I am happy the cash only envelope system works well for some but if you are disciplined it might be worth considering something similar to how we do it because we do get so mucb “free money” from our credit card rewards.
I think it’s so important to try the cash envelope system if you are struggling with sticking with a budget. I know so many people who have ended up with lots of credit card debt in the name of “getting points back”. So if you struggle to stick with a budget, going cash-only for awhile like I encourage here can be so insightful and really help you become more disciplined. I personally don’t recommend using credit cards if you are not already incredibly disciplined. (I don’t use them period… but that’s a whole nother post!)
In my younger years, this is definitely how I operated. It is an excellent way to keep within your means. It is also how I was able to save a “little something-something” from my already budgeted money for something special or needed later on. We didn’t have a credit card because we had no credit! We definitely earned our right to have a credit card which we now use exclusively for the rewards. But not something I’d recommend to young indebted families. The grocery budget was and is my biggest opportunity to manipulate my financial situation for me or my family’s own good! Here is an opportunity: Lent! How about a family fast of one meal a day, or one meal every other day or fast meat or dessert or ??? You name it! It’s a perfect opportunity to save money on your grocery budget and honor God in it.
I actually love the “cash only” system! I am a huge Dave Ramsey fan and follower. We paid off all our debt last January 2022 with his plan. The only temptation I have not to use cash is that dang Sam’s Club scan and go app. LOL It is too easy to just scan everything as I shop and check out on the app and ditch the lines and talking to people when I am in a hurry. The upside is that I am limiting my shopping trips to Sam’s club to once or twice a month for bulk and refills and on medication. If I check out at the pharmacy I can focus on using cash instead of the app check out.
I’ve been going cash only. I’m not used to it. Very, very tough thing to do!! I didn’t do so hot this past week with cash only.😬
But what I find is this……when you get a really good, really good deal…..this whole cash thing becomes a game.
I came across the best deal on buttermilk at 50 cents a half gallon. The sell by date was the same day I purchased it. I bought these because I learned you can freeze buttermilk in ice cube trays then transfer to freezer bag and put in freezer.
Pleasant surprise was how well the buttermilk still worked in the recipes.
I also purchased a gallon of organic milk marked down to just 50cents while getting the marked down 1/2 gallons of buttermilk. The milk stayed fresh until day 3 but by then there was just a little bit left.
Mondays seem to be the best day to find dairy markdowns.
I was wondering if other folks were finding the same in there location about milk markdowns on Mondays.
I also wait til Monday if I’m low on milk before going to the store in hopes to snag a markdown.
Thanks for continuing the challenge! I really hope you continue this in some way or fashion past 8 weeks.
I’ve never seen milk marked down at traditional grocery stores. I have lived in Florida and NJ and have been grocery shopping for 35 years.
I live in a small town in North Carolina. Don’t ask me why but there’s three Ingles stores here.
It’s the oddest thing. I’ve been here in this town for 2 years.
Checked this week and it was marked down again on Monday. This time at 75 cents. The sell by date was Feb 21. I bought the milk marked down on Monday, Feb. 20th.
I think it’s because of the strange 3 Ingles in this town.
I also bought the milk early afternoon at 1 pm. There were only 6 marked down. I bought 2 of them, leaving 4. I suspect the others gallons were bought up fairly soon after that. So the milk markdowns probably disappear fairly soon after that.
I can’t think of any other reason as to why I keep finding this milk marked down other than what I wrote.
Anyone else finding milk markdowns prior to sell by date??
Thanks for asking Csandst1!!