September: Our Savings Month

Our family is on a “no-nonessential spending kick” for September. Why? We had a few hangover bills from a summer vacation and three unexpected car repairs. So a spending freeze seemed like a sane way to get our budget back on track.

Now, we’re pretty careful with our money anyway, so I thought, “How hard can this be?” Well, it’s only September 2. And I’ll tell ya the truth: It’s very, very hard!

I read a suggestion in financial celebrity Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan (which I downloaded for free; you can still read the first chapter here). It was: Don’t spend ANYTHING for one day. So during the last part of August, I kept trying to do that, in preparation for September. Emphasis on “kept trying.” I’d think: OK, this is an easy day to spend nothing. Then we desperately needed milk. Or it was my “mom’s night out” and I wanted to buy a cup of coffee with a friend. Or I needed to send in a check for my daughters’ lunch money.

So I’d put off the “spend nothing day” until tomorrow. But the funny thing was that something kept popping up—sometimes a need, sometimes a very strong “want”—and I found it really tough to go even one single day without spending at least a few bucks! I wondered: How the heck are we going to get through September?

Advanced tips for grocery savings

I’ve been “playing” The Grocery Game for more than a year. See this post for more info, but it’s basically an online service that tracks weekly sales at your selected grocery store (I use Safeway), notifies you and tells you how to combine sales with coupons for really incredible savings.

I thought I was doing a decent job of using the Game’s principles. Then I read founder Teri Gault’s newest book. It really opened my eyes.

I realized I wasn’t really doing the Game with full power. After reading this book (it’s a quick, fun read), I buckled down and really shopped right. In just one month, I dropped our household grocery budget (2 adults, 2 kids) by $125! From $560 down to $425. And I don’t think we’ve ever had more food in our pantry and freezer, seriously. I’m actually excited to see how little I can spend this month.

I will say that my husband was a little worried when he saw how much food I bought last month. He was SURE I must be going over budget. But when I showed him the cash left over at the end of February, he became a huge supporter.

And the most fun of all? Sounds silly, but it’s being congratulated by the checkers at my local Safeway for the great deals I’m getting! They’re starting to ask me how I’m doing it. Kudos to Teri Gault and her saving system! I think she is fab. (And not just because we have the same first name.)

Pets with purpose: Chickens

One of my all-time favorite money-saving family projects of the past year is our cute backyard chickens. Ok, ok, we also wanted some outdoor pets, since my hubby is allergic to the standard indoor stuff (cats, dogs, rabbits, gerbils, etc.). But seriously, now that organic, free-range eggs are getting so spendy, our girls are definitely earning their keep!

Each of our girls lays an egg a day–fewer during the shorter days of winter. If you’ve never had a really fresh egg, it’s a real treat. The yolks are so rich they’re almost orange. And they come from very happy, doted-upon chickens.

You don’t need to have a farm to have chickens. We’re in a typical, urban neighborhood (50 x 100 lot) and we can have ‘em. In fact, two other neighbors within 5 blocks have chickens. As someone said (I forget who), “chickens are the new pug”!

This cracked me up–Manhattanites with chickens. But we actually kept ours (these folks gave up on having a coop in their co-op). And our girls seem to be putting up with us pretty well.

Are we a generation of spoiled spenders? Maybe not completely.

Whenever I’m poring over grocery ads and clipping coupons, I wonder: Are we big food spenders compared to our parents’ and grandparents’ generations? I don’t feel like we buy a lot of expensive or convenience food, yet somehow I’ve always had a gut instinct that we are spoiled shoppers compared to the families who came before us.

And eating out? I remember going out maybe once every other week when I was a kid in the 1970s. My own family today (2 parents, 2 kids) goes out slightly more often—maybe twice a week. And my husband eats lunch out more often than my dad (a consummate brown-bagger). So I often feel a pang of guilt when we pay a restaurant bill.

Then I read this interesting book, which really opened my eyes. Turns out we aren’t entirely the “Overspending Generation” we guilt ourselves out to be.

Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren did a comprehensive comparison of American spending patterns in the 1970s compared to today. And guess what: We aren’t blowing our paychecks on expensive restaurant meals and designer clothes after all.