Mastering The Retirement Grocery Budget

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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Mastering The Retirement Grocery Budget

This week's haul - $87.16, including one impulse buy - those $2.49 bean and rice burritos at center front.
Silliness on my part, but one such item tends to creep in each trip, hence why I only shop once a week.

When we first set up our retirement budget, we realized our prior spend, about $140 a week, was extremely inefficient due to our heavy reliance on convenience foods during our hectic dual income working years. I blogged about some of the changes we made then, in 2011, to bring our spend down to $120 a week in this blog post.

As I settled into retirement and began paying attention to the details of our spending patterns, I was able to develop some grocery shopping principals and slowly reduce our grocery spend to $100 a week. I now average around $85 a week, with the extra $15 either remaining in surplus for later usage, or being directed to sale items that I then stockpile. And while I know $15 doesn't seem like a lot of money, if used efficiently it can deliver an amazing amount of product yield. Not only do I consistently have a well stocked pantry and freezer, I also have a nice little surplus of cash set aside for the upcoming flurry of holiday entertaining.

Interestingly, according to get-out-of-debt radio guru Dave Ramsey, who I listen to from time to time for financial stay-the-course reinforcement, most people spend less in their first year of retirement than they had anticipated, with one notable exception . . . they spend considerably more on groceries.

So here's what I did, and do currently, to stay the course. 

• I stopped buying the convenience foods we relied on so heavily during our hectic working years. I realized I was paying a hefty premium to have someone else do the food prepping for me, plus the quality of ingredients used was often poor and loaded with preservatives.
• I religiously peruse the grocery store sale circulars each week before making up my menu plan for the week, matching sale items to recipes using same. I love trying out new recipes, and will often start with the index of a cookbook and work backward. Meaning if, for example, eggplant is on sale, I'll peruse 'eggplant' in the index and see what catches my eye.
• I use up all leftovers, either freezing them in two serving quantities for future meals, serving them as repeats the next night, as starter ingredients in new meals in and of themselves, or as lunches. Having leftovers consistently on hand is actually my number one line of defense for those nights when I'm simply too tired to cook. It's been well over a year and a half since anyone delivering pizza has showed up at our house, which has served my pocketbook well.
• I plan ahead for special meals so I can pick up what I need on sale, hopefully, ahead of time. And crazy as it sounds, I actually set up my entire Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years menu, including holiday baking, about a month ahead of time. Besides saving my sanity by providing a game plan for knowing exactly what I need to make when, I'm generally successful in picking up most of my specialty items at discounted prices.
• And finally, I note sale items that would be good to stockpile with any money leftover after purchasing my weekly menu items. I love doing this by the way! It's fun to walk into a market, load up my cart with deeply discounted items, and hand over just a few dollars at the checkout stand.

And I should probably mention I don't use coupons for the most part, unless they are literally stuck to the item I'm buying. I don't tend to buy the type of products that generate coupons.

I do have one little dark secret - I generally get all of my bread products from markdown tables. There's generally nothing wrong with the bread - often discounted by 50% or more - it's simply approaching it's sell-by date. Since I keep my bread in the freezer regardless, it's always nice and fresh when I pull it out to use.

I also do a good amount of baking and freezing each week. I use up ripening fruit in breads and muffins, bake up at least one batch of homemade cookies for lunches, and usually one or more after-dinner dessert. Because I keep a close eye on my baking staples, I almost always have the ingredients I'll need at hand to make homemade brownies, peanut butter cookies or banana muffins at a moments notice. As a matter of fact, all three are in my freezer right now waiting to be enjoyed!

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What the photo items above, plus what I already had on hand, will be turned into this week:

Breakfast
- Trader Joe O's with added dried fruit, nuts, and wheatgerm, coconut milk plus a fresh banana (Mike)
- Greek yogurt with fresh fruit, nuts and wheatgerm (me)

Lunch
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple, grapes and homemade cookies (Mike)
- Turkey and cheese sandwich, peach, grapes and popsicle (me)

Snack
- Trader Joe ABC nut mix (Mike)
- Swiss cheese on crackers (me)

Dinner
- Butternut squash gratin, green salad, cheese bread

How my Old Fashioned Banana Cake turned out.
As yummy as it was pretty!

- Spaghetti with red pepper, onion and soy sausage, Caesar salad, garlic bread
- Thai corn chowder, green salad, Naan bread
- Chicken Vindaloo, basmati rice, cucumber salad, Naan bread, Chocolate-butterscotch chip coconut oatmeal cookies (Bookclub night dinner)
- Leftovers from above (It made a lot!)
- Old Fashioned Banana Cake (Our contribution to a family BBQ we attended)
- Grilled marinated chicken breasts, smashed red potatoes, broccoli (The chicken and red potatoes were leftover items from the list of ingredients needed for the Chicken Vindaloo and Thai Corn Chowder. Both were bought on sale a week earlier since I knew my bookclub hosting duties were coming up and had already planned out my meal.)

General Baking
Katherine Hepburn Brownies