When my spouse died in September 2020, my disposable income was cut by one-third. I was worried that I would be broke at the end of the month because, for sure, my spouse didn’t account for one-third of the expenses. I added a contribution from an annuity we purchased in 1996, which had grown nicely. It didn’t cover the entire loss of income, but it helped, and I was sure I would somehow manage. And I did.
I am told that in 2022 or 2023, food prices increased by twenty-seven percent. I didn’t need to be told because my grocery expenses for myself and my daughter, who lives with me, skyrocketed overnight. We had been getting by spending around $500 to $600 a month to feed us. And we bought what we wanted without looking at a price tag. Then, last month, I spent that much in BJs and another $300 in Harris Teeter. I was shocked.
When my spouse died in September 2020, my disposable income was cut by one-third. I was worried that I would be broke at the end of the month because, for sure, my spouse didn’t account for one-third of the expenses. I added a contribution from an annuity we purchased in 1996, which had grown nicely. It didn’t cover the entire loss of income, but it helped, and I was sure I would somehow manage. And I did.
I am told that in 2022 or 2023, food prices increased by twenty-seven percent. I didn’t need to be told because my grocery expenses for myself and my daughter, who lives with me, skyrocketed overnight. We had been getting by spending around $500 to $600 a month to feed us. And we bought what we wanted without looking at a price tag. Then, last month, I spent that much in BJs and $300 in Harris Teeter. I was shocked.
It seemed like overnight, we went from spending with abandon on food to checking the price on every item, cutting out coupons, and only shopping on senior discount days. But even doing this only shaved a mere $100/month off our food costs.
Even my daughter, who never gave a thought to how much we spent on food shopping, was concerned. We talked about it every time we went shopping, which was about once a month, with supplemental shopping trips for perishables like produce and dairy items. We wondered what we could do to minimize our expenses.
And so it began. We had to cut out or minimize “want” foods like chips, nuts, candy, or even prepared meals like those delicious Bertolini meals that can be cooked in eleven minutes. We were faced with making these meals ourselves from scratch. Did I mention that neither of us particularly likes to cook? This helped a bit, but not as much as we expected.
We pondered what else we could do each time we sat down to make our grocery list. So, we eliminated all brand-name foods in favor of store brands. This practice helped more than we anticipated, and we were so proud of ourselves. Forget the fact that some of the store-brand foods tasted like cardboard. We’ll get used to it, we rationalized. Yeah, right.
As a last-ditch effort to control our food expenses, we analyzed our “need” foods. To our amazement, we found some items we could do without or, at best, find a less expensive alternative. For example, we could make tuna or egg salad for sandwiches rather than buy expensive lunchmeat. We could also make chicken salad from any leftover chicken. We didn’t need olives, pickles, or four different kinds of salad dressing.
Due to our grocery list due diligence, our last monthly foray into restocking our shelves and refrigerator we saw a decline in our spending around $100. With this achievement, we are encouraged to keep looking for more ways to lower our food costs. We may even be rewarded with some weight loss as well.
