The Six Stages of Grocery Budgeting
Food is the largest negotiable section of the family budget. Mortgages and
rent are set in stone once you sign the papers. Electric can be brought down
by a large percentage, but you’ll still pay the same amount per kilowatt.
Food, on the other hand, can almost always be found more inexpensively.
Grocery budgets are a touchy subject with economical types, because we all
would like to believe that we are giving our families the optimal fuel for their
bodies at the most reasonable price. Yet it is something we feel compelled to
discuss and bicker about. As I talked to other women about their own bargain-
hunting experiences and compared them to my own, a pattern seemed to
emerge. Like all transitions, the change from spending to scrimping doesn’t
happen overnight. People move through stages, learning and mastering new
habits before moving on to others.
Stage 1: You buy what you need when you need it, period. You don’t
understand how other people find such good deals and suspect that they are
either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 2: You buy what you need when you need it, using coupons and
buying from sales when either is convenient. You don’t understand how other
people find such good deals and suspect that they are either lying or eating
a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 3: You discover big box stores. You now have an overstuffed freezer
in your garage and a lifetime supply of Fruit Roll-ups in your pantry. You still
use Stage 2 methods, but Safeway doesn’t give you goose bumps the way
Costco does. You don’t understand how some people find such good deals
and suspect that they are either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 4: Here you cross the divide from normal thriftiness into extreme
frugality. You become a coupon junkie and secretly envy Edward
Scissorhands—how convenient! You’re surprised coupon organizers aren’t
sold everywhere. You join coupon exchange groups and The Grocery Game.
You pride yourself on getting X amount of merchandise for X dollars—fill in
the blanks yourself. Never mind that you are living almost exclusively on food
that comes from a box and you aren’t exactly sure how the boxes of douche
filling your linen closet are used. It isn’t whether you need it or what it cost
that matter—it’s the amount you saved. You don’t understand how some
people have such low grocery budgets without hardcore couponing and
suspect that they are either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 5: You start doing the math, calculating the cost-per-serving of every
meal in your repertoire. You realize that junk food at any price is still too
expensive. You cut back on couponing when you find that even with all the
“savings,” you are often spending more. You return to big box stores, but
limit yourself to items that meet your increasingly stringent price guidelines.
You’ll follow a good deal anywhere: restaurant supply stores, dollar marts,
flea markets. Women at this stage have been known to buy half of a whole
cow and hack it into pieces themselves to save money. Yet, even with all of
these measures, you still occasionally meet someone who spends less. You
don’t understand how they could find such good deals and suspect that they
are either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 6: You develop a neurotic obsession with consumer math. In an
attempt to further bring down your price-per-serving, you begin making most
foods from scratch with bulk ingredients bought at cut-rate prices. People in
line at Costco ask if you own a bakery. Further, you realize that, A. there
indeed are sources of free food, and B. nothing is cheaper than free. You
grow a garden, and not the kind with flowers. You convince your husband
that Catch-and-Release fishing is cruel because it subjects the fish to being
hooked repeatedly. Hunters, gardeners, orchard owners, backyard chicken
farmers, and your entire freecycle community all know that you’re the person
to call when they need to get rid of food. The North American lifestyle is full of
waste and you are more than willing to benefit from the excess. Your extreme
frugality spreads to other areas of your life. Suddenly Nike’s seem
astronomically expensive; even at clearance prices they cost enough to feed
your family well for a week. Barring residents of the third world, you don’t
know anyone who spends less than you do on food.
Certainly there are variations, but most of the truly frugal women I have
surveyed followed this pattern. On the other hand, I, a long-time Stage 6-er,
am not necessarily the pinnacle of frugality. There could be a Stage 7 that I
don’t even know about. Somewhere, a housewife may claim that she feeds
her family of eight with half of what I spend. But I don’t understand how
someone could get such a good deal. I suspect they would either be lying or
eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Food is the largest negotiable section of the family budget. Mortgages and
rent are set in stone once you sign the papers. Electric can be brought down
by a large percentage, but you’ll still pay the same amount per kilowatt.
Food, on the other hand, can almost always be found more inexpensively.
Grocery budgets are a touchy subject with economical types, because we all
would like to believe that we are giving our families the optimal fuel for their
bodies at the most reasonable price. Yet it is something we feel compelled to
discuss and bicker about. As I talked to other women about their own bargain-
hunting experiences and compared them to my own, a pattern seemed to
emerge. Like all transitions, the change from spending to scrimping doesn’t
happen overnight. People move through stages, learning and mastering new
habits before moving on to others.
Stage 1: You buy what you need when you need it, period. You don’t
understand how other people find such good deals and suspect that they are
either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 2: You buy what you need when you need it, using coupons and
buying from sales when either is convenient. You don’t understand how other
people find such good deals and suspect that they are either lying or eating
a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 3: You discover big box stores. You now have an overstuffed freezer
in your garage and a lifetime supply of Fruit Roll-ups in your pantry. You still
use Stage 2 methods, but Safeway doesn’t give you goose bumps the way
Costco does. You don’t understand how some people find such good deals
and suspect that they are either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 4: Here you cross the divide from normal thriftiness into extreme
frugality. You become a coupon junkie and secretly envy Edward
Scissorhands—how convenient! You’re surprised coupon organizers aren’t
sold everywhere. You join coupon exchange groups and The Grocery Game.
You pride yourself on getting X amount of merchandise for X dollars—fill in
the blanks yourself. Never mind that you are living almost exclusively on food
that comes from a box and you aren’t exactly sure how the boxes of douche
filling your linen closet are used. It isn’t whether you need it or what it cost
that matter—it’s the amount you saved. You don’t understand how some
people have such low grocery budgets without hardcore couponing and
suspect that they are either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 5: You start doing the math, calculating the cost-per-serving of every
meal in your repertoire. You realize that junk food at any price is still too
expensive. You cut back on couponing when you find that even with all the
“savings,” you are often spending more. You return to big box stores, but
limit yourself to items that meet your increasingly stringent price guidelines.
You’ll follow a good deal anywhere: restaurant supply stores, dollar marts,
flea markets. Women at this stage have been known to buy half of a whole
cow and hack it into pieces themselves to save money. Yet, even with all of
these measures, you still occasionally meet someone who spends less. You
don’t understand how they could find such good deals and suspect that they
are either lying or eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
Stage 6: You develop a neurotic obsession with consumer math. In an
attempt to further bring down your price-per-serving, you begin making most
foods from scratch with bulk ingredients bought at cut-rate prices. People in
line at Costco ask if you own a bakery. Further, you realize that, A. there
indeed are sources of free food, and B. nothing is cheaper than free. You
grow a garden, and not the kind with flowers. You convince your husband
that Catch-and-Release fishing is cruel because it subjects the fish to being
hooked repeatedly. Hunters, gardeners, orchard owners, backyard chicken
farmers, and your entire freecycle community all know that you’re the person
to call when they need to get rid of food. The North American lifestyle is full of
waste and you are more than willing to benefit from the excess. Your extreme
frugality spreads to other areas of your life. Suddenly Nike’s seem
astronomically expensive; even at clearance prices they cost enough to feed
your family well for a week. Barring residents of the third world, you don’t
know anyone who spends less than you do on food.
Certainly there are variations, but most of the truly frugal women I have
surveyed followed this pattern. On the other hand, I, a long-time Stage 6-er,
am not necessarily the pinnacle of frugality. There could be a Stage 7 that I
don’t even know about. Somewhere, a housewife may claim that she feeds
her family of eight with half of what I spend. But I don’t understand how
someone could get such a good deal. I suspect they would either be lying or
eating a dangerously unhealthy diet.
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