Disclaimer: I did not follow all of these things all of the time, but I try to most of the time. I’ve also added in somethings that I’ve learned about recently. Oh, and additional ideas/tips are welcome in the comments.
Dr. Man and I got married after his second year of med school and before my first year of grad school. This meant for the first two years of our marriage I was the only one with any positive income (by positive, I mean opposed to negative– as in loans). In order to minimize the number of loans we had to pull out (med school is expensive!), we learned to live frugally and I learned some extreme frugality tips. So, I figured that I’d share with everyone else. The key to maintaining this is not to try to adopt all the frugality tips at once, but to ease yourself into it. Also, pick the ones that work for you. So, on to the guide.
In this part I’ll focus on Food:
-Do NOT pick frozen dinners just because they are cheap. They will end up costing more than if you just made the dinner yourself and froze the leftovers for lunch.
-Repeat after me, Sales Are Your Friend. This means that whenever pasta and pasta sauce goes on sale– stock up. Pasta/Pasta Sauce was a main staple for Dr. Man and I because we both liked it and could jazz it up in a variety of ways.
-Additionally, whenever ground meat (if you are carnivorous) goes on sale buy a lot. Then, split the packages into ~1/2 lbs packs and freeze. This is about right for making a meal for yourself with enough leftover for lunch or dinner.
-A second part to this is to take advantage of the internet. A lot of grocery stores post their weekly fliers online. So, take a look there to figure out where the best deals are at for the week.
-I went so far as to make a “grocery log” where I charted the prices of our staple food (flour, milk, butter, etc.). Pretty soon you’ll notice that the grocery store price things in cycles.
-Make your own bread. It’s much cheaper and delicious.
-Powdered milk. I don’t like to drink it on its own, but as far as baking, cooking, or making instant pudding it’s delicious.
-Beans, beans, the musical fruit… well it may make you more musically-inclined, but beans are an excellent food source. A large bag of Fifteen Bean Soup (I’m talking serving size of approx. 14 here) is around $2 at Grocery Store here. And it comes with everything you need to make said soup. That works out to be about 15 cents a serving!
-Now the trickiest part of food shopping: Fruits and Vegetables. To this I say, “Get thee to thy Local Farmer’s Market.” Seriously, this is how Dr. Man and I afforded fresh fruits and veggies. Go towards the end of the scheduled time (I’d say somewhere between 15-30 mins before the market is scheduled to end) and haggle with the sellers. Don’t try to haggle with anyone who has their own trailer in sight (unless you like to do things the hard way or you like an exercise in futility), but try those that have a limited amount of produce left or that are parked far away from their stand. A lot of the time you can get their produce for anywhere between 25%- 50% off just so they don’t have to cart it back to their car/truck/etc. Plus if you live in a college town and plead poor grad student, sometimes you’ll get extra stuff thrown in. And (at least at our Farmer’s Market) the produce is already just a little bit cheaper than at Grocery Store.
-Booze. As any graduate student knows, alcohol is a very important food group. So, these are the things that I’ve found to help lower the cost of such things. Sam’s Club (or any whole-sale club) usually has a discount liquor store– with cut-rate beer and wine. Make friends with your local, independent liquor store clerk. They’ll point you towards good deals and cheap, but tasty wine (ok, I like wine). Or if you have a clearance liquor store (our Chain Liquor Store has one a few miles from Public U.), go there and find stuff you like on the cheap.
Stay tuned for the next installment…
Great tips! We do a lot of these- except the Famer's Market due to scheduling difficulties. I could live in Vigo Black Beans and Rice
The only thing I'd add is about the alcohol because different states have different rules. In PA, there are no wholesale stores and all beer/wine & spirits stores (which are seperate) are state run so sales are limited.
However, you can often get great deals on microbrews if you go straight to the local brewery. Same if you are stocking up from local wineries.
We've also changed our social schedule. We can't afford to go out to a bar at night but we know where has really good happy hour specials and frequent those places instead.
Can you do U-Brew in the States? I hadn’t come across it in the UK (although I knew grad students who made their own homebrew wine and beer), but it’s pretty popular here. You can brew different kinds of beer and wine at the company’s premises, and go back to bottle it when it’s ready. You have to mix the ingredients yourself, and bottle it yourself, probably to get around some kind of law, but it’s apparently really simple compared to doing the whole thing at home. It doesn’t taste bad either – not as good as the proper stuff, but better than most homebrew!
Oh, and the food stuff is important too, obviously. I’ve eaten more than my fair share of rice-carrots-onions-soy sauce dinners.
Lots of good tips here! I didn’t know that grocery stores put their weekly fliers online.
This one is probably obvious, but eating out is expensive! I tend to make big batches of food and then freeze individual portions so I’m not tempted to go out to eat when I haven’t had time to cook for the past week.
Bulk products can be good, especially spices. Not everything is cheaper in bulk, but if you need a tablespoon of some spice you don’t use that much, buying from the bulk bin allows you to purchase only as much as you actually need.
If you have the space and motivation, growing your own food can also save you money, especially on things like fresh herbs. Most any herb will do well in a pot (though basil tends to like big pots or the ground), as will tomatoes (especially cherry varieties) and peppers. If you have some ground to work with, squash, beans, cucumbers, broccoli and greens are really easy to grow. Lots of towns also have community gardens that are free or cheap to join if you don’t have a backyard to work with.
Speaking of sales, I like to stock up on frozen fruits and vegetables when they go on sale. We also have stores called fruit stands around here that carry primarily agricultural products–lots of fruits and vegetables as well as dried fruits, nuts and other snacky items, all quite inexpensive (less than the farmer’s market).
Farmer’s markets can be wonderful but the prices relative to the grocery stores can vary wildly. In my hometown the market is awesomely cheap. Here in my current town, prices average around what the grocery store charges, though I would say that the produce is usually better quality. In some places (Berkeley comes to mind), the stuff at the farmer’s market is definitely more expensive than the local grocery store.
I think the key to saving money on food is the “cook yourself and freeze”. Why? Well, if I look at my budget and what I spend money on the “oh I’m hungry on my way home from a long day and gosh that restaurant looks good to bring some food to go”.
not the best plan. Then I have realised that I need to ask myself if I really need that Starbuck’s coffee everyday? (cheap me says no)
and buying food on sale is really good but one has to be flexible.
My own rule of thumb is “buy as little processed as possible”. Too bad that I found out that preprocessed meat and stuff is cheaper than “the real deal” here in the South of US. I still buy nonprocessed, it tastes much better.
I also like the local bars around here where they have “pint night” and “wine night” when the pints/glasss of wine are $2.50 and $3.50 instead of normal… makes it easier to go out.
Some liquor stores have a ‘bargain bin’, from which I have bought a wide array of surprisingly good wine, all $6/bottle or less.
The farmer’s market here in Snootytown (leaving tomorrow! SO GLAD!) is more than twice as expensive as the grocery. Why yes, I do hate it here!
Happy hours! There’s a great bar here that will serve you a margarita for $2.50 during happy hour. A really big margarita. Plus free food.
Albatross: I forgot about that. Obviously, the state I’m in doesn’t have such archaic (I kid, I kid) laws.
Cath@VWXYNot?: I’m not sure. There might be a winery near me that does that, but it costs lots of money.
Egg: I didn’t know that until I was chatting with the cashier one evening. It’s been pretty valuable. Bulk spices is an excellent idea! I forgot about that. BTW, thanks for coming by!
Chall: That’s true. I’ve started doing bits of that. It definitely cuts down on the pizza ordering.
Jenny F. Scientist: Twice as much?!? I’d be glad to leave, too.
You should write for The Economical Academic!
EGF: Sure… I’m a bit intimidated to do the whole collaborative posting thing.
Great site–I happened upon it by chance and have marked it as a favorite.
I RECOMMEND ANGELFOODMINISTRIES.com
Anyone can use it–NO REQUIREMENTS–NOTHING to JOIN–NO RECORDS KEPT–has gotten thousands through hard times, grad school, med school, single parenthood, etc. The more people that join, the better the prices.
TRuLY A GODSEND!
Great nutritious wholesome food:
Angel Food Ministries–NOT a religios thing (though sponsored by one)–NO REQUIREMENTS–THEY ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS. THEIR FOOD IS TOP QUALITY AND DELICIOUS. My mother-in-law buys the 10-meals-fully-cooked in quantities of 30 meals at once. Also offer boxes of uncooked Grade A Food. Largest US Food Coop, I think. Many local sites near you–
see http://www.angelfoodministries.com and then your local zipcode for pickup places.
Angel Food Ministries is a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing grocery relief and financial support to communities throughout the United States. The program began in 1994 with 34 families in Monroe, Georgia (between Atlanta and Athens), and has grown to serve hundreds of thousands of families every month across 35 states. Angel Food Ministries crosses denominational lines and has spread the good news of the gospel of Christ through salvation tracts that are placed in each food order.
Blessings by the box
Angel Food is available in a quantity that can fit into a medium-sized box at $30 per unit. Each month’s menu is different than the previous month and consists of both fresh and frozen items with an average retail value of approximately $60. Comparison shopping has been done across the country in various communities using a wide range of retail grocery stores and has resulted in the same food items costing from between $42 and $78.
We were skeptical at first, but now wish we could tell everyone affected by the economic meltdown. (Sorry I think it’s USA only).