We’re kicking off the year with an 8-week Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge. I’ll be sharing a weekly post here every week with a task or challenge for you to complete/focus on to help you tweak, improve, or overhaul your grocery budget.
My hope is that we can all work together to crowd-source new ideas and fresh inspiration to be more thoughtful and intentional in our grocery budgets + hopefully save some money and instill some practices and principles and habits that will continue to save us money throughout the rest of the year.
It’s February and we’re starting week 7 of the Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge. How is it going for you? Here’s what we’ve covered in this challenge so far…
In week #1, we talked about setting up a grocery budget. That’s the most important first step in cutting your grocery bill.
In week #2, we discussed why you need to recognize potential roadblocks. Be sure to read through the comments here to hear about others’ roadblocks. I think it will encourage you to know you’re not alone.
In week #3, I challenged you to commit to change one thing for three weeks. You can see the comments on the post for ideas of what others picked.
In week #4, I encouraged you to check in on your progress to see how you are doing, what you are learning, what’s working, and what’s not working.
In week #5, we talked about evaluating your options when it comes to stores in your area.
Last week, we checked in on the commitment we made three weeks ago.
Week #7: Challenge Yourself to Go Cash-Only
If you’ve made it this far, I’m so proud of you! And I think you’re ready for a big challenge — trying the going cash only for a few weeks.
What do I mean by this? Well, I mean actually only bringing real cash with you to the store for a few weeks. Leave your debit and credit cards (and checkbook, if you still have one of those!) at home. And just shop with cash!
You see, when you shop with a credit or debit card, you can have your budget in your head and you can do the best to stick with it when you check out, but it’s so much easier to go just a little bit over here and there when you’re swiping. You can justify that $2 you went over your budget to buy something which was a “great deal” when paying with your card.
$2 might not seem like much, but if you spend $2 to $3 more on groceries every week, that’s adds up to around $130 in extra spending over a year’s time!
Paying with cash forces you to stick to your budget.
When you know all you have to pay at the store is your grocery budget envelope, you better believe you carefully evaluate every impulse purchase or great deal you come across: “Do I really need this?” “Is this in the budget?”
If you find yourself struggling financially and wishing you could figure out why your grocery budget is so high, can I challenge you to take a Cash-Only Challenge for 3 weeks and see if it impacts your grocery spending over the course of a three-week period?
Take the Cash-Only Challenge!
Here’s how the Cash-Only Challenge works:
1) Commit to only spend what is in your grocery envelope for the next 3 weeks.
2) Go to the bank and withdraw cash in the amount of your pre-determined Grocery Budget. Put this cash in an envelope and keep it in a safe place. For more on cash-only shopping, read The Envelope System Experiment.
3) Leave your credit/debit cards/checkbook at home and only bring your cash envelope and a calculator with you to the grocery store.
4) Calculate your purchases as you add them to your cart. I mentally add up how much I’ve spent as I add things to my cart, rounding up for tax. You can also keep a running total on your phone’s calculator. This will motivate you to carefully evaluate all purchases, will make you aware of how much items actually cost, encourage you to look for the best deal, and force you to get creative if your list is longer than you have room for in the budget.
5) Pay with cash when you checkout. This three-week experiment will likely teach you some things and challenge you in good ways… and you may end up decided to go cash-only for a few months, or even longer!
Are joining us for the Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge? If so, I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell us if you’ve ever tried using cash only. If so, how did it work for you? If not, would you be willing to try it for 3-6 weeks and see what you learn from the experience?
I had planned to go to Kroger and Aldi on Thursday, but then there was a severe storm warning, so I stayed hope and then planned to go on Friday and a bunch of unexpected things came up. I finally just did a small Kroger pickup order this weekend to tide us over (I’m traveling Sunday and Monday for book launch media stuff.)
I hope to finally make it in-person to Kroger on Tuesday, but we’ll see what this coming week brings! At any rate, we spent $29 on the above items at Kroger.
Need some practical ideas for ways to cut your grocery bill? Be sure to sign up for my free cheatsheet with 10 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill by $50 This Week!