How to Beat Inflation at the Grocery Store with Frugal Fit Mom

[Music] hey guys welcome to this episode of the rachel cruze show and i'm so excited because my guest today is christine who is frugal fit mom many of you follow her stuff but she is a wife a mom of four and she is an expert she's so good about talking about food on a budget so christine welcome to the show i'm happy to be here thank you so much okay so starting out for people that may not be familiar with you uh yeah so kind of what do you do how did you get started with all of this what's what's been your journey so interestingly enough uh my journey started with your dad um as we were trying to do a debt-free journey and read the total money makeover way back in the early 2000s and i was a stay-at-home mom my husband was a schoolteacher so we didn't make very much money at all you know in the days kind of before social media and didn't even have internet at my house yet it was just learning skills to survive honestly as we tried to pay off student loans and buy our first house and over the years i just took those skills and started putting them online the things that i learned and people seem to like it it's so good well it's such it's such great content because you are so good at giving tactical advice being really specific and as a mom who's not like the most wonderful cook in the world it's always when it gets to dinner time especially and you're like oh my gosh what do we do so to have people out there who that this is like the content they put out to the world it is so helpful so thanks for all you do because it it really does it is so helpful uh for families out there so inflation obviously has become like this massive point of conversation and reality in a lot of our lives plus our food budget christine for the first time and and and probably well the past two months really for a long time i had our food budget nailed like we have a grocery category and a costco category and so i i mean it was nailed i never went over and actually in fact i always kind of prided myself and like i'm like really good at grocery shopping and look at the prices in the last two months i've been like i don't know what's happening to the world because i'm buying the same stuff it's not like i'm buying this crazy new you know i don't know thing or whatever it's the same groceries and it is crazy so everyone's feeling it so my question to you is i know that you've talked about this but i want to know from your perspective like how much you're feeling at how much you're seeing it and what we can do if we have large families you have someone's listening that has six seven kids to those that you know maybe only have one or two kids but have to cook for a family like what are what are the tips and tricks nowadays because of inflation um i'd say first of all i'm impressed you didn't have an amazon lineup i should you just had groceries and costco that's pretty good um my advice would be the same with a big family a small family single people um it's all the advice works for everyone um and if you've never paid attention to your grocery budget i feel like now is the time like it's time to start now i noticed just a couple of days ago the five dozen box of eggs from walmart a couple of weeks ago was like five six dollars and yesterday it is 12. oh my gosh so it's more than double like your basic basic ingredients which is really shocking every time you go to the store and you're like what what happened here so there are so many tips i've given on my youtube channel on all kinds of different ways um number one i would say is to look at your food waste it's probably the number one expense in your grocery budget is just what you're throwing away like you buy what the spinach with good intentions and it sits in your fridge for two weeks then you throw away a slimy mess so like really re-evaluate what you're buying and what you're throwing away and if you notice yourself throwing away the same things let's change the way you're shopping a little bit and if you have never shopped sales at a grocery store it is time to start now like don't go and just buy the asparagus because you always buy the asparagus or the organic raspberries because that's what you always buy look at the prices because those two things do go on sale and that's when you're going to buy them and when they're not on sale we're going to skip them that week and try something else and also don't be afraid of frozen fruits and vegetables a lot of the time they can be cheaper per pound they last a lot longer and then you don't have that food waste that we're talking about yes that's so smart i mean i hate to say it that that is so true literally today this morning i went back pantry and i found this bag i was like what is this bag was a produce bag with like three lemons that were growing all green like it was disgus it was disgusting i was like how have we not seen this when did i buy lemons i don't remember buying lemons but apparently i did for probably something i saw somewhere or whatever but it's so true the amount of waste it you can cut out so much of your budget if you literally just eat with what you have and forcing yourself to do it which i know can be really hard but if we're looking to save money when it comes to groceries you have to do that kind of thing which is so so important so i also know where you shop is a big deal it's a different price tag depending on the grocery stores what's your favorite grocery stores to shop at uh because their prices are more inexpensive i like a variety of grocery stores i actually like to pick and choose depending on the week no one store will have the cheapest price on everything ever so even if you have a discount store like a walmart or a winco or aldi i don't happen to have aldi in my area so i have to go with some of the other ones there's still things that are going to be cheaper at another store especially if you go to like a more expensive store so mine's fred meyer which is owned by kroger and they have fabulous sales just in their weekly ad and with their digital coupons there's every single week there's at least one to five products that are excellent in price so i look for those first like what's a really really good deal this week and then a kind of meal plan around that okay so that that's a question i have is so do you look at okay what coupons do i have what's on sale and you make meals around those things is that one of your like tried and true ways of saving money absolutely or maybe let's say i don't know chicken is on sale this week or whatever and you're like it's 99 cents a pound which i haven't seen in years at this point but let's say it was you'd be like i'm buying 50 pounds of chicken and you just put it all in the freezer and so maybe this week or next week there's no deal on chicken but i stocked up when it was cheap and saved it for later which is another tip i like to use yeah kind of reverse meal planning for sure no which works so well so you mentioned couponing if someone has never really done it they've never entered that world what's a couple of things or tips to get them in that rhythm that really can help save money okay so step one is don't watch extreme couponing the tv show yes why because it's crazy and it's like no that's not realistic it's uh yeah it's so dramatized for the show and it's just i just don't think it's like that anymore i was an extreme coupon couponer back in like 2007 but it's just not the same anymore um the two things i would say now is your stores that do digital coupons like uh my fred meyer like i talked about i think albertsons does i don't know all the grocery stores that exist but if they do digital coupons they can really save some dollars so just check it out it's a little tap tap tap easy peasy don't do anything else and then any of your cash back apps my favorite one is ibotta i've been using it since 2012 so we're sitting at 10 years now wow and i don't buy everything that's on there but once in a while i'll go on and be like they're giving me three dollars off a box of cereal like why not try it out and get a box for a dollar for my family so good and you mentioned a little bit too of buying in bulk uh right like if something's on sale go ahead and just like buy it freeze it if you can and then you can use it so when it comes to buying in bulk what are things and tips that you look at when it's smart when it's not smart to do that definitely know your prices per unit price per ounce that kind of thing any of your standard baking or basic ingredients are excellent divine bulk rice beans flour sugar honey probably oils things like that that you can just use for anything and everyone should have anyway just as a basic pantry staple uh where i live they do something called case lot sales i know that's not everywhere in the united states where they sell cases of peanut butter and pancake mix for a discount so those are always good to look for as well but it's usually your simple basic ingredients okay when it comes to like the amount of grocery shopping when do you grocery shop how often do you grocery shop is it like once a week every other week where do you kind of lead people in that direction so i can tell you what i do however um i don't think it's a blanket statement for everyone because everyone's situation is different and it's gonna work different for everyone's food goals for me i'm a once a week shopper it's my favorite way to do it if i go more than once a week i tend to over buy and i also don't do very well on the once a month which i know some people love just for me it doesn't work that well because i tend to run out of like my salad ingredients a lot and then maybe i want to change meal plan next week and then i can't because yes i decided not to go back for another month so for me it's once a week but whatever works for someone's family is gonna be the best for them yeah you have to be the way i do it for sure for sure uh i know you just you've gotten in such a good rhythm because of all the stuff that you do i'm like man she's just like she knows so much and i know for me if i have to keep going back and back and back and back i do find myself saying oh my gosh i'll pick up that extra that you know and if i can make myself do once a week because i usually just do once a week it does it it's so helpful because i'm like i have to have everything planned i have to know what's going on and then from there it sticks but anything longer than that especially yeah i don't think really works for our family as well so that that makes total sense so okay so with recipes and meal planning and all of that are there certain meals just off the top of your head that you're like oh yeah these are really easy really you know price efficient all of that that people can use so back in the day when i was really on the tight budget trying to pay off all the debt and save up to buy a house i tried as much as possible to take whatever proteins i was eating and not have it be just like a protein and sides it was i would cut it small and stretch it out so you're thinking about stir fries you're thinking about soups um something where you can add a lot of sides to it and kind of stretch your chicken breast or your uh pork roast or whatever protein that you happen to love to feed more people on less protein because back then that was definitely one of the most expensive pieces and sometimes i could even eat shrimp instead of eating like a big pile of shrimp yeah you know you put it on top of a lot of other stuff and it goes a lot further that's so smart or casseroles or whatever it is but that that makes so much okay you know what i used to do with fruit i would get from costco mostly our chicken and back when my kids were small it does not it's not working as efficiently these days which i'm kind of getting mad about like what you're not full but i would like take a chicken breast and cut it in half and be like all right we have two chicken breasts instead of one and i was like it was some mental game cause i'm like they ate it and and they were fine and now that they're getting older they're like we're still hungry and i'm like dadgummit do you need more yeah you need more chicken and now i'm like dang it because i hate i hate you know i'm thawing more because i'm like i just see it dwindle the protein's always hard for me because i i will buy those in bulk uh yeah usually from like a costco or something so when it starts to get low i'm like oh man what can we do to be creative to get us through the end of the week so so that's so good i'll give you a perfect example yeah when when i only had two small kids um i was maybe a little judgy of moms who had older kids or or more kids than me but just because i wasn't there and i didn't understand and so a friend was like yeah we go through two pounds of ground beef on taco night and i was like what that's crazy okay well now i'm here i have four kids three teenagers and yeah it's two pounds of ground beef for taco night um and there's no leftovers because they eat it all yeah but instead of tacos i found a taco salad you know you're taking your protein and you're sprinkling it out over your lettuce and beans and rice if you want to do it and sour cream and chips and they can build it however they want and you actually can use less meat and the ground beef prices hello oh i know oh it's crazy it's so crazy it's a nice way to stretch it yeah that's so smart um okay so what's one thing if someone's watching or listening and they're thinking okay i want to start something new with my our food budget's out of control i feel like i'm spending a ton of the grocery store what's like one tip that they can do right now this week that they could see a difference in the money that they save okay this is a really hard question because i have two that are both give us both christine give us both okay so the first one is going to be to meal plan um i definitely have a friend who was like just went to the store and just threw things in the cart and then didn't know what to make for dinner but she spent thousands of dollars on groceries right you go with a plan in there and you stick to your list stick to the list you are gonna save some money guaranteed uh the other one which people are gonna hate this like they really are is you're gonna have to stop buying junk like you just have you seen the price of ice cream chips have you seen the cost of a bag of chips it's terrible yes it's terrible it's terrible it's terrible step away from the oreos you know and let's go buy some potatoes or something instead you're just gonna get a lot more for your money and if you do have to cut the grocery budget it's an excellent way to cut that's so smart oh that's so good so so good okay christine you're full of so much wisdom so much knowledge when it comes to this stuff so really thanks for coming on and sharing all of this um i usually ask all my guests one question and that is what's one thing that you're doing with money that's creating a life that you love well first of all uh we paid off our house three days ago you did that's amazing yes oh my gosh you have no debt you are like really completely you're done we're done completely it's it feels weird actually i bet yeah that's amazing that's amazing congratulations i should probably buy a new couch yeah yeah you're like i can do stuff now i can do something that's about congratulations that's incredible absolutely incredible and so anything else going on yeah so one of our big things is we like to spend money um creating memories with the people that we love my mom my sister my kids just creating family memories instead of um i probably won't buy a couch you know because i'll probably rather do something with my family yes i love that yeah buying experiences and memories all that and stuff that's so great that's awesome well um where can everyone find you my youtube channel is frugalfit mom i have well over 800 videos on there so you can waste a lot of time there i'm also on instagram at frugalfitmom6 that's more workout outdoorsy stuff and i also have a website with a couple recipes on it frugalfitmom.com amazing amazing well you guys make sure to check out all that christine's doing because again it's such practical tactical content when it comes to food and our budgets and all the things so thanks again christine for coming on and for you guys listening and watching hopefully these tips helped you take control of your money and create a life you love

Channel: The Rachel Cruze Show

Views: 108,321

Keywords: the rachel cruze show, the rachel cruze show youtube, money, budget, how to save money, budgeting, personal finance, rachel cruze, save money, how to budget, debt, saving money, save, how to make money, ramsey, finance, how to get out of debt, debt free, How to Beat Inflation at the Grocery Store with Frugal Fit Mom

Id: giVnIRXmDgg

Length: 15min 31sec (931 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 01 2022