Money Matters: We are back this week boiling down a straightforward plan to get the most bang for your buck at your favorite place to shop!

It’s not the Amazon, nor is it the hipster coffee shop down the street charging 14 dollars for an “edible rock” they call a scone (sorry scone lovers, they are just the desert in bread form).

It’s the grocery store!

Alright, it may not be your favorite place to shop, BUT it’s likely one of the places that you spend the most money each month from your budget.

So it’s important to craft a plan to optimize our budget skills at the grocery… Allowing for more savings in the bank…

Less time spent shouldering that grandma out of the way for the last carton of milk in Wal-Mart before a snow storm…

And a healthier lifestyle in the long term.

So before we get into it let’s check the menu for today’s issue.

Survey says: The USDA says the average family of four spends roughly $13,055 a year or about $251 a week on food costs (this combines eating out and groceries).

That’s a lot of money for most people, so let’s see if we can help bring that number down over time.

Here is what on that portioned plate today:

 😎 Our Favorite Resources
 🛒 Devising Your Personal Grocery Master Plan
👌 Let’s Get Cooking! - Resources for anyone to level up their culinary game!
🤷‍♀️ What’s up for next week

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Cool Links

Our favorite resources

💵Apps

• Listonic is a great List app to make grocery lists that you can share with family

• EveryDollar is the budgeting app my family uses and loves every month

👀ICYMI

7 Budget Tactics for BIG Wins on Inconsistent Incomes

📜Quote

“To Contract new debts is not a way to pay old ones” - George Washington

Today’s Main Event

Devising Your Personal Grocery Master Plan

It is often said in some fashion or another, “those with a lack of planning, lack results”.

This holds true especially when it comes to budgeting their monthly food costs.

So let’s jump into where it should all start!

How to Easily Meal Plan Like A Pro

This can be one of the most fun and rewarding parts of the journey. To start every week start by creating your family’s menu.

Write down the following meals for each day of the week on a piece of paper: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks (DO NOT SKIP THIS ONE).

Breakfast:

• Choose something that everyone can make on their own, or if you still have young ones, something you can prep the night before/ahead of time and reheat.

• This allows you to keep one meal simple!

Lunch:

• Find 1-2 recipes you can cook and prep ahead of time that make at least 10 portions.

• If you choose 1 recipe of 10 portions then you will need to fill in the off days with simple lunches like sandwiches, fruits, and veggies. Totally fine to go this route and you could probably save a smidge more doing this.

Dinner:

• Pick 2-3 recipes that make at least 1.5x your family size in portions. Ideally, I would suggest 10.

• The reason for this is you can freeze a few leftover portions for later use for lunches and future dinners.

• You can easily get away with only cooking 2-3 nights a week while building up some frozen meals in your freezer.

• Pick an easy meal at least one night a week, i.e. Take-n-Bake pizza or something along those lines. This also fulfills some comfort food cravings.

Snacks:

• These are some of the biggest money wasters out there if you pick the wrong stuff.

• Buy fruits, veggies, nuts, and cheese. This will be a cheaper and healthier option than buying pudding packs, chips, and other non-sense.

• Foods like apples are going to make you fill more full than the chips or other junk much faster, so you will end up eating less over the long run.

• One of my favorite snacks are cheese sticks wrapped in prosciutto with some watermelon on the side. Sweet and savory all in one snack.

Why Lists are Important

After creating your menu for the week you should have an idea of what you need to make each meal.

Make a list of those items and make sure to stick to it.

Sticking to the list will limit your impulse buys at the store and help save money in the long term.

Additionally, you will save time by knowing exactly where to go in each store and which store you need to shop at.

You may end up forgetting a thing or two but don’t sweat, you can always go back to the store later in the week.

Where and How Often to Shop

Let’s start with how often to shop…

Generally, you want to have one big shopping day each week to gather all of the essential items on your list that you know you’ll need to make your meals.

However, if there are some perishable items on the list and you have time you can plan to make an additional stop on the way home from work to ensure you have the freshest food and it doesn’t go to waste.

At the end of the day it comes down to your routine and what works well for you.

Now, where to shop for groceries?

Stop shopping at places like Kroger, Giant Eagle, Dollar General and the like. ALL of them have way higher markups on food across the board.

The only time I would advise shopping at any of these is if you know there is a good sale that can beat out an item at a cheaper store. BUT that comes with making an additional stop.

I would advise shopping at Aldi for most everything that you need.

You should be able to get 99% of everything you need from here and they even have some name brands of items you may be pickier on.

Trust me, I’ve done it for years… if you shop at Aldi, and stick to your list, you will save money.

If you don’t have one in your area I would then suggest Wal-Mart…

However, be careful not to go off the list. Wal-Mart has way more than you need and the temptation will be ever lurking to tempt you with that sweet pair of pants you see across from the grocery aisle.

Let’s Get Cooking! - Resources for anyone to level up their culinary game!

One of the easiest ways to meal prep and cook at any level of cooking is Crocpot cooking.

One of my favorite recent finds is the cookbook from stealthhealthcookbook.com.

The recipes are easy to follow and anyone can find success and something they would like to eat here.

An alternative is YouTube and TikTok (which Stealth Health has a channel on).

A video format often provides a visual aid to follow along to and the recipes are normally in the description.

FitMenCook by Kevin Curry is a great place for healthy recipes and you can find him on YouTube and his own website.

Josh Weissman is another great YouTuber and has a meal prep video here I can personally vouch for.

The world is your oyster when it comes to finding good recipes and I would just try and find someone you like and follow along with them if you like their meals.

Until Next Time

What’s Up Next Week

That’s a wrap on this week’s issue.

If you have any specific questions or want further details on today’s topic let us know by sending an email.

Next week we are tackling “Controlling Housing Expenses” so check back in next Sunday.

Peace out,

Nico and the Hootsquad

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.