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While putzing around online this evening, I came across this article from the AP newswire. This is yet another article detailing a shift in the spending habits of “The Jones’s”. The article mentions nothing ground-breaking, but it did get me thinking once again about the potential effects of a large societal shift to frugality.

For those of us who are already quite frugal, what does this change in the average American mean for us? Surely it will have an impact on retailers and how they gear their offerings to their believed client base, but will it be all good? I tend to think it will have a variety of impacts on our lives, both positive and negative. Right now, I’m thinking about grocery stores, since I just finished perusing our weekly store ads for sales…

For one, I anticipate a rise in the number of sales and depth of product stock on lower priced or generic items. As people become more price concious, stores will no longer be able to bank on providing small quanities of “loss leaders” to get people in the door, because those people very well may end up just leaving because the items they wanted are sold out. It also brings up the potential increase in rainchecks.

Do you get rainchecks when a sale item is out of stock? I do and I love them. Sometimes I look for things that are currently on sale for a great price, even though we don’t them need right then, in the hope they will be out of stock so we can get a raincheck. A good use of rainchecks can keep you from the dreaded “poop, that’s a great price, but we don’t need any right now” scenario. Note: You’re normally more likely to find the sale items out of stock in the end of a sale, so I try to plan accordingly.

I would also expect us to see a rise in manufacturer coupon disbursements. Stores will only discount their prices so much and if manufacturers start seeing too much of a hit to their top line sales, they will more than likely being to push their ad/coupon campaigns harder. Stores should see an increase in coupon redemptions, which will in turn slow down checkout times at the register.

Have you ever been behind someone with 20 coupons to redeem? It doesn’t bother me, because I applaud the use of coupons, but how will I feel when every person in line is holding $5.00 of savings split up into 20 scannable chunks? I don’t know… We may also see an increase in people scrutinizing the “ring up” process to ensure they are being charged the right amount. That would be another contributing factor to a slow-down in the check out process.

Now it is more important than ever that we step up and take notice of the pricing on the items we buy. I’ve discussed this in part 1 of my series on stretching out your food budget and Passive over at PFI recently saw just how important it is to know what really is a good deal when you see one.

I anticipate that grocery stores will really focus on finding new ways of enticing us to spend more than we should by making prices appear to be a good discount when they really are not. They’ve been doing it for years and I only expect it to get more creative as food prices continue to rise.

It’s hard to resist prepared foods. The pizza is already made and frozen. The chicken is already “rotisseried” and ready to serve. The fish filets are already breaded and frozen. The additional preparation and handling costs that come with foods that are already partially or even fully prepared may spike an uptrend in buying non-prepared foods. Finding good prices on raw meats may get more difficult and in turn, the use of freezers for stockpiling becomes all that more rewarding.

Wow, I am one opinionated guy. I guess that’s why I enjoy making momentum plays in the market. At any rate, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out. We can’t control the prices, but we can control what we buy and how we spend our money. We’ll definitely see changes in more arenas than grocery and I’m interested to see what you think about this.

If you have a blog and decide to post your opinions on upcoming changes that we may see in grocery stores or any retail avenue, please let me know and I will add a link to your post here. It’d be neat to have a compiled list of the similar discussions.

So I’m putzing around the internet this evening and I ran into this article over at MSNBC. The article, entitled, “For frugalists, bargain hunting is a lifestyle“, provides a look into the lives of a growing number of people who are finding alternative and free ways to live in today’s America.

This includes dumpster diving for everyday needs like food, clothing, and creature comforts, while also including internet searches for free items from places like FreeCycle.

Excerpt:
“When Rebecca reaches the grocery store, she moves with purpose across the parking lot to a fenced-in Dumpster. With practiced nonchalance, she opens the gate and walks in, closing it behind her. On the ground, she immediately finds a bag of baby squashes. They go in the backpack to be steamed up for dinner.”

Check out the whole article: For frugalists, bargain hunting is a lifestyle.

I am not entirely sure where I stand on this topic. On the one hand, if people are able to find food that is of normal quality and it’s sanitary, then who am I to judge what they are doing. However, from a frugal standpoint, I tend to wonder how much money was spent and time wasted searching for low cost items. The treasure hunting piece of it seems more like the goal here than cost savings to me.

On the contrary, I think searching the internet for free items makes alot of sense. I have used Freecycle as both a “giver” and a “taker” and I think it’s a great way to keep more money in my pocket and more crap out of the landfills.

So, what do you think? Are you now trying to think of where a good dumpster might be or are you writhing in stomach pain at the sheer thought of eating trash?

I love my wife. We’ve been married for a little over two years now and I can honestly say that she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. However, as with all couples, we are two different people who make decisions for different reasons anticipating different outcomes. This post is about one of those decisions that she made that sounds more like it came from me, but I had no piece of the decision making process.

Spill it!
Well, admittedly my wife is frugal, but not as frugal as I am. So, sometimes when she makes a decision deeply rooted from a frugal mindset, I am taken aback. This just happened to be one of those times. About a 2 weeks ago, we were discussing her upcoming birthday and I was asking her for ideas about what she might like.

I fully expected her to have a very short list, but nonetheless a list of a few things she had been wanting. Since we have both lost some weight recently, I thought she might actually like to get some new clothes. Well, here’s the kicker. She asked if I would just not get her anything because she would like some new clothes, but only once she felt like her weight loss had stabalized a bit more, so she wouldn’t be buying “iterim” clothes that wouldn’t fit her for all that long anyway.

Ok, so maybe that didn’t blow your mind, but it did mine. That decision wasn’t just frugal and well thought out. It was indicative of a mindset where the joy that is derived from losing weight doesn’t automatically transcend into the entitlement of making quick reward purchasing decisions. This is the kind of stuff I do all of the time, but to have her make that same type of choice just floored me. I am planning to elaborate on more ideas like this in a post very soon and this is the situation that spured my motivation. I am just so proud of her that I decided that it deserved its’ own post.

This is the second post in my two part series about making the most out of your food budget. In my first post I discussed some ways to save money before and during your food shopping trips. In this post, I am going to discuss ways to make the food you have bought go further.

It was my hope that this series would bring some people out of the woodwork to share some other great ideas on the subject. However, I didn’t receive any reponses to the first post, so maybe this one will spur some commentary. I’d love to hear some new ideas!

Be an Educated Consumer

1. Eat what you buy: This one is a carry over from the first post. However, I feel like it bears repeating. If you overbuy a perishable item, even when you know something is at a great price, and you end up throwing it away, it is just like throwing away the money spent on the item.
2. Keep food costs in mind: One thing that can definitely have an impact on your food budget is the overall cost of your meals. If you’re the typical “one meat and two veggies” meal preparer, maybe try less of the one meat and 3 veggies instead. Typically meat costs will be the highest costs in the meal.
3. Planning meals: Another good use of the total meal cost information is how you can use it when planning meals. If you know that you will have a very tight food budget for the week, month, etc… knowing your total meal costs will allow you to effectively plan ahead by choosing meals that have a lower cost. This is not my way of saying have rice and beans for the next week, it’s more about just being cognizant of the prices so you can still have healthy meals that you will enjoy and at the same time know that they aren’t breaking the budget. Being an educated consumer means eating what you like for the lowest price possible, not always sacrificing taste or quality for the cost savings.
4. Eat your leftovers: Ok, this topic is a double-edged sword. I know many people who simply will not eat leftovers and that’s fine. However, if you aren’t going to eat them then it’s time to not cook so much that you will have them. Nothing is wasted if you don’t cook more than you need. On the contrary, for those of us who do enjoy our leftovers, it’s vital that we eat them. If you are the type of person who doesn’t mind eating leftovers, but just not so soon after you have had the original meal, try storing each type of food in seperate containers. That way you can make a lunch with the chicken from one meal, green beans, from another, and corn from another. Variety will help to keep you interested and those food dollars going into your stomach and not your trash can.
5. Simply cook less: No, this isn’t a recommendation to eat out more, it’s a recommendation to cook less food for each meal. Unless you prefer the leftovers to the fresh food, you’ll do yourself a favor by not creating as much. Cutting down the quantities will let you stretch your food budget without having to make the choice to not buy the expensive things you want. It may take some time fine tune your “cooking less” skills and be careful that the lack of leftovers doesn’t cause you to feel compelled to eat out more.
6. Leftover Recipes: I don’t know about you, but I would normally rather buy a whole fryer chicken at 48 cents per pound than 2 breasts at $2 or more a pound. Buying the larger quantity for a better discount can be a great cost saver. However, it does no good if you end throwing most of the meat away. That’s where leftover recipes come into play. By just searching google with keywords like Leftover chicken recipe, you can find tons of different ways to make more meals with the food you have already prepared. Sometimes, I enjoy the leftover recipes better than the originals.

My ideas in this post are geared to help you think about how costs are impacted by consumption. Paying as little as possible for the food you eat is one thing, but not forgetting costs once you have bought those foods is equally as important. I hope you have enjoyed my tips.

Do you have any ideas to add to the list? How do you get your food to go the furthest it can?