Hi everyone!
Uberfrugal month - I think it was Mrs. Frugalwoods who used this phrase first and I hope I can borrow it. I will make August an uberfrugal month. I would love you to join me or at least follow me so I don´t feel too alone ;-). The main reason I want to to it is to save as much money as possible. One part of our income is from a retail business we own and it is rather slow at the moment. The other part of income is from my regular job which pays on time so the monthly bills are taken care of. The other reason is that I am really curious at how low I can take our grocery bill without sacrificing regarding taste and variation. Here are the bascis: It is me and my husband, both work fulltime and eat almost every meal homemade (we eat out maybe twice a month for dinner, that is a different budget). I cook from scratch and do not buy many convenience foods, just things like ice cream or sweets.
I want to try out shopping at a discounter type store only for a month. I will choose Aldi for this month and maybe try another one next month. Here in Germany Aldi is everywhere and there is one that I drive by daily on my commute to work.
I hope to achieve the following by only buying what I truly NEED:
• Save time: One stop shopping whether it is for household products or grocery. Aldi has almost everything. The time saved I can invest in cooking even more from scratch and/or keep on going through our belongings to put the extra stuff up on ebay.
• Save money: aldi is so cheap that I am really curious how much I will really spend in a month. The quality of the food is usually good, so I do not think that we will eat inferior.
• Use up what I have: in the pantry (not much), in the freezer (some items need to be eaten) and especially use up the opened packages on my shelves. I mean the differnet kinds of flour, sauces, dried tomatoes and so on. I need to clear these drawers and shelves and really see what I have and what I can make out of it. This also applies to things like shower gel, cleaning supplies and so on.
I will keep on meal planning and writing a shopping list (I already do this but want to get more accurate with this). I also want to plan lunch and snacks more accurate. I will stay out of bakeries and make cookies and cakes myself.
For me there will be three excemptions from the “everything from aldi” motto:
1. Berries – it is berry season and the grow right here usually. I do not want to miss out on them since the season is so short. I will reserve max. 10 EUR per week for them so I can enjoy them but do not buy in excess.
2. Drinks – I do not buy Water in single use bottles. Period. In Germany we have a pretty good deposit scheme where the bottles are refilled over 50x before they get tossed. You can get drink in plastic or glass bottles that will be not recycled but refilled. But they do not sell them at aldi so I have to get them at the beverage store. For the occasional juice or soda I do not mind the single use bottle.
3. Ground Meat - while I do not mind buying meat or cold cuts at aldiI cannot stand packaged ground meat so I will buy it at the grocery store fresh if I want to make a meal that contains it.
All this will be a big thing for me because I usually buy organic and tend to overthink each item I buy. I feel so overwhelmed by the food choices that I noticed that I pay way to much in total. So I feel that a total “set to zero” approach is the best for us. From there I would like to conside more green choices but with careful consideration of the additional costs.
I hope my thoughts make any sense... I will keep you and myself updated how I am doing!