Mommy Goes Green

Welcome to 31 Days:The No Spend Month. If you are joining me for the first time, you may want to start on Day 1.

If you read Our Budget for No Spend Month, you’ll know that our budget for personal care items in October is just $5. This budget includes items such as tampons, toothbrushes, band aids, vitamins, soap, razors, makeup and more.

Honestly, I regularly spend about $10-15 per month on personal care items so it’s not that big of a stretch for us. In fact, I could probably do $0 spend this month because of the stash of personal care items we have on hand.

2 years ago, I was spending $35 per month on personal care items and have, over time, figured out several ways to get the products we need much cheaper. Here’s a few tips:

Go Homemade

My favorite way we save money on personal care products is to make them at home. I’ve made natural hair detangler, cleaned my face with olive oil, scrubbed my body with brown sugar and used both coconut and olive oil for different personal care purposes.  I’ve got a long way to go as recipes for homemade toothpaste, shaving cream, hand soap and others abound.

Use Less

I’ve saved money over previous years by using less product or in some cases, no products. An example? I stopped using shampoo and I honestly don’t miss it a bit. In fact, we don’t even have a bottle of shampoo in our house because we all use conditioner to scrub and condition.

I can’t believe I’m sharing this with the world but I rarely use deodorant.  Once I stopped using it regularly, my body stopped sweating much. I occasionally need it for a tight fitting shirt or ones made from specific fabrics but I only put it on about once a week.

I found that wearing socks keeps my feet softer than a slathering with lotion and my toe nails look fine with a home pedicure and clear gloss. I dry my razor and keep it in a drawer because the moisture from the shower was dulling it, shortening it’s life span. In fact Clark Howard says that he can use one razor for an entire year with this method.

Shop Daily Deals

You’ll probably see me mention daily deal sites often as a method to save money because I regularly use them to get 50% or more off items we use.  This year, I purchased two Plum District deals for Yes To – a company that makes natural and organic skin, hair and baby care products.  Together, I spent just $30 for $70 worth of products.

Today, Groupon had a deal for Alice.com for $40 worth of product for just $20.  Alice.com carries a wide variety of household and personal care products, including natural ones that I like for our house. It was another way to get the products I like at a great discount.

Look For Online Deals

When I first heard about Vitacost.com, I told all my friends.  In turn, we both got a $10 credit.  Those credits netted me many free items this year such as sunscreen, vitamins, castile soap and face lotion. (You can get your own $10 credit here and then share with your friends.)

I keep my eye on online deals.  Last weekend, Abe’s Market had a $5 off coupon code and free shipping. That scored me a bottle of natural baby shampoo for $3.99, shipped to my front door.

Clip Coupons

I admit, I’ve become a shopper with coupons – not an extreme couponer – but one that clips, cuts and prints coupons to use for substantial discounts and many freebies.  Some of the personal care freebies include: ibuprofen, toothpaste, toothbrushes, makeup, nail polish, vitamins, razors and more.

Similar to how I grocery shop, I also save money by stocking up on products when I get a good deal.  When I find a great price on conditioner, I might buy 2 or more.

I rely on several blogs to point out great deals, tell me where to get coupons and put together a list of freebies. Coupon shopping is an art of it’s own and these blogs can educate you far more than my purpose here. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Hip2Save
• Frugal Living NW
• Kohl’s Deals
• The Krazy Coupon Lady
• Money Saving Mom
• Organic Deals

What is your personal care spending like? Share your favorite tips to save!

Welcome to 31 Days:The No Spend Month. If you are  just joining me for the first time, you may want to start on Day 1.

I know this is the third day I’ve spent on saving money in our grocery budget but after talking to many moms, I believe it is one of the easiest ways we can make a dent in our family budgets.

Price List

While I worked to bring our grocery budget down over the last couple of years, I really honed my knowledge of food product pricing. I know when an apple has a great price and when to pass.

It’s valuable knowledge if you are willing to put in a little time over your next couple grocery trips. Here’s a printable Price List to get you started. On it, make a list of the most common foods you buy, the size of each and the price. Calculate the cost per ounce or pound and keep this on hand.

When you grocery shop, you can reference it to see how products compare. When you find a cheaper brand or size, a sale or coupon, you can update your Price List to reflect the lowest cost option. Once you’ve kept track of this for a few months, you’ll start to memorize the best prices.

Organic vs. Non-Organic

I buy organic meat, milk, eggs, flour, sugar and produce listed on the Dirty Dozen. I also choose the organic version for foods that are derived from these products such as chicken broth or diced tomatoes.

I choose organic bread when available (see Discount Stores), otherwise we have 100% whole wheat (no HFCS). Because I shop at Trader Joe’s, many other products I purchase are organic, although I don’t insist on it.

To save money, I buy conventional fruits and veggies for anything listed on the Clean Fifteen. Milk is the only dairy product that I buy organic as I haven’t found an organic dairy product that we like and at a price I am willing to pay.

Coupons and Sales

It is true that many of the coupons available are for processed and junky food but you can regularly find coupons for wholesome foods. The only reason I shop at stores other than TJ’s is to save money using coupons as both Whole Foods and Safeway allow you to use up to 2 coupons per product: a store coupon + a manufacturer coupon.

I follow several blogs and manufacturers that post coupons for foods that we buy, here are just a few:

• Gluten Freely Frugal – coupons for gluten-free foods
• Mambo Sprouts – coupons for natural and organic foods
• Whole Foods – coupons good for use eat Whole Foods only
• Organic Deals – coupons and deals for natural and organic products
• Earthbound Farms – regularly posts coupons for their organic produce
• Pacific Foods – coupons for their organic broths and soups

One other way that I save money at grocery stores is to take advantage of sales by stocking up. For example, the cheese I regularly buy is on sale Buy 1, Get 1 Free so I would buy 4-6 packs, enough for my family for several months until that great sale price comes up again.  I follow this same principle on household and personal care items as well, such as toilet paper or tampons.

NOTE: This is in no way a comprehensive post about coupons and stocking up.  Here are a few blogs dedicated to teaching you how: Frugal Living NW, Happy Money Savers and The Frugal Find.

Buying in Season

The primary reason I buy produce in season is because it typically costs less. We don’t eat apples in the summer because organic apples in July are $2-$3 per pound. We start eating them again around October when they are less than $1 per pound.

The same follows with grapes and oranges and many other fruits and vegetables. Again, a Price List is helpful here.

Discount Websites

I occasionally buy groceries online when they are a better price than I can buy locally. Both Amazon and Vitacost.com offer competitive prices and free shipping. You can get a free $10 Vitacost credit here to try it out.

Tomorrow I’ll share 5 more tips on saving in the grocery budget and then we’ll move on to other topics!

What about you? Any grocery shopping tips you have to share?  What are your favorite places to find coupons?

I have to tell you, taking the pantry and freezer inventory yesterday was the best use of my time in ages. Seriously, I had NO idea how much food we already have on hand. I was able to plan 2 weeks worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner meals mostly from what we already have.

Speaking of planning, I mentioned yesterday that I’ve been able to cut our grocery budget by 40% because of meal planning. This consistently makes a difference in my grocery spending.  When I don’t plan – I spend more than I need to.

Honestly, meal planning can sound a lot more daunting and professional than it needs to. I take the easiest road I can. Here’s how I do it:

Get Into a Routine

My husband gets paid every other Friday and that is how we manage our budget. I take the following steps on Wednesday or Thursday so I’m prepared to shop on Friday mornings. This also coincides with having one child in school so I only need to take one along with me.

Pantry and Freezer Inventory

We covered this yesterday. Read, print the pretties, inventory.

Put Together Breakfast and Lunch Meals

I know a lot of moms put together a breakfast, lunch and dinner menu but  I find it easier to have a list of breakfasts and lunches that will be available after I grocery shop and then we pick what we want to make each day.

So my “meal planning” for breakfast and lunch might look like this – we also throw in fruits and veggies to each meal – whatever is on hand.

Put Together Dinner Meals

Dinner is where I really *plan*.  I grab the following resources and a pen:

• my pantry and freezer inventory
• my recipe binder (a collection of my favorite recipes printed or ripped out of magazines)
• our Favorite Meals list
• my laptop open to my ‘To Make or Bake’ board on Pinterest
• my All Out Of pad
• a Meal Plan printable

1.  I go through the pantry and freezer inventory and try to put together meals that only require purchasing one or two items and I write down meals on the Meal Plan, where appropriate.  Notice, I don’t plan specific meals on specific days. I like the freedom to choose based on our schedule.

2.  I go through our Favorite Meals list to see what I haven’t made in awhile and add those meals to the Meal Plan.

3.  I go through my recipe binder and my Pinterest board to find new meals I’d like to make. I usually try to make at least one a week.

4.  Once the Meal Plan is all filled out, I go through it and write down on our All Out Of pad what we need from the grocery store.

That’s it! It might sound very time consuming but I promise once you do it a few times, it will take you about 15-30 minutes. I do this about twice a month and spending no more than 1 hour per month has been worth every minute for the hundreds of dollars I’m saving each month.  I often do it while watching a favorite TV show (or Presidential Debate).

I am no meal planning guru, this is just what has worked for me and saved us a lot of money along the way. If you want a step-by-step, with lots of printables, I recommend Plan It, Don’t Panic. It’s a great meal planning eBook by Stephanie Langford from Keeper of the Home.

Come back tomorrow, I’ll be writing about how I grocery shop and where to save money, particularly on natural and organic foods.

Note: I know this was *barely* actually posted on Day 4 but I promise I will be here writing all 31 days – it might just be at 11:59 pm!

Welcome to 31 Days:The No Spend Month. If you are  just joining me for the first time, you may want to start on Day 1.

Two years ago, I cut our grocery budget by 40% per month with just one changes: meal planning. I know that seems too simple but I talk to moms all the time that are spending $600-800 per month in groceries because they don’t meal plan.

My routine is this: Hubby gets paid every other Friday. So I plan our meals for 2 weeks at a time and then grocery shop on pay day. Again, too simple, right?  It’s the one method that consistently has kept our grocery budget down for 2 years.

With our busy life over the summer and my sheer laziness (ahem), I didn’t meal plan much. And our budget paid the hefty price.

Pay day is this Friday so I’m working on our meal plan now in preparation. Because I’m cutting over $100 off our regularly grocery budget for No Spend Month, I want to eat as much food from our pantry and freezer as possible.

If you’re like me, you might not know what’s hiding in your pantry and you really don’t know what’s in the freezer – particularly that one in the garage.

I had to do a little pantry reorganization and most importantly – an inventory of what I already have.  This will help me finish my meal planning (tomorrow’s topic).

If  you’re up to the task, print off a pantry and freezer inventory list and get started. You might just be surprised at how much food you already have on hand!

So what’s hiding in that pantry or freezer of yours that you didn’t know you had?

Welcome to 31 Days:The No Spend Month. If you are  just joining me for the first time, you may want to start on Day 1. 

Our budget for our ‘No Spend Month’ is a modified version of our regular monthly budget. A few of our expenses are fixed and cannot be easily changed for just one month such as rent, insurance, cell phone bill.

However, most of our expenses are directly controlled by our actions and that is where we plan to cut.

Groceries

Our grocery budget has ballooned due to illness, travel and frankly, laziness on my part.  Our grocery budget for October is $300, a 25% decrease from our normal monthly budget. We regularly eat an organic diet and I plan to continue this, even on a reduced budget. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be talking about how I plan to accomplish this.

Gas

We recently bought a second car after being a one-car family for some time.  The new (to us) car is far more gas-efficient than our older car but it has allowed us to come and go more often than we need to.  Our gas budget for October is $300, a 35% decrease from our monthly spending this summer.  We have an out-of-town trip planned this month so this is going to be tight.

Eating Out

Eating out became a crutch for me this summer with illness and busy summer days. Because we have 3 obligatory events to attend in October, we need an eating out budget but have set a goal to only use it for these events.

Personal Care

Our personal care budget includes items such as toothpaste, deodorant, razors or makeup. It’s only $5 this month. Fortunately I have a great stock up on most of these items from shopping with coupons over the past year. Later this month, I’ll let you know how I stock up, inexpensively.

Utilities

You might assume, initially, that utilities are not a variable budget item. I might argue that your actions directly control your utility bills.

We’ve made it our goal to reduce our utility bills by 25%. To be honest, we have only lived in our current house for a few months so we are not comparing this year’s bills to last year’s bills (although I would do exactly that, if I could).  We are comparing October’s bills to the average bill during the time we’ve lived here – in our case, 5 months.

Clothing

Our budget for clothing is 0. That’s right, nada. We need exactly nothing in this department.  This may be my hardest budget item to make.

Kids

Some of the kid related expenses such as diapers and school cannot be adjusted this month and we’ve already prepaid their sports programs so the only manageable expenses are entertainment, toys and childcare.

The entertainment and toy budget is $0.  We are having the most beautiful fall weather and the kids play outside every day. Our childcare budget is $25. Remember those 3 obligatory events? Fortunately we have family to watch the kids for 2 of those evenings and will only be paying for childcare for one night this month.

Non-Essentials

Honestly, there are SO many non-essentials in our budgets, aren’t there?  Entertainment, Starbucks, haircuts, crafts. Things that seem essential for living but aren’t essential for life.

When you only budget for the essentials, you start to find out where your money is really going. (Mine is going to Target.)

So there you have it, our goals for our No Spend Month. The rest of the month I’m going to be writing about ways to save in every budget item, even the non-essentials.

I’m also going to be doing some cleaning, organizing and purging because sometimes we spend money on things we already have – but didn’t know it.

Did anyone else overspend this summer? Are you joining me in a No Spend Month or just watching from the sidelines?