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Food can be so costly so how can you save money on groceries and still eat the food you love? And food that is healthy for you! If you know me you know I love a simple process so today let’s pull back the curtain on 3 of the easy ways I save money on groceries without having to drive from store to store just to save a dollar – let’s do this!
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Podcast Keypoints
0:00 – Episode Overview
1:54 – Episode Sponsorship – Money Masters Inner Circle Academy
4:06 – Simple To Do… But You Still Have To Do It
6:12 – Meal Planning System
7:49 – Go-To Meals
10:32 – Before You Go To The Grocery Store
12:52 – Kitchen Inventory
15:57 – Recap
13:03 – Grocery Shopping – How Do You Shop??
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Read It! 3 Easy Ways To Save Money On Groceries
Food can be so costly.
So how can you save money on groceries and still eat the foods you love? And food that is healthy for you?
If you know me you know I love a simple process. So today, let’s pull back the curtain on Three of the Easy Ways I Save Money on Groceries without having to drive from store to store just to save $1.
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast where ambitious women come together to have clarity, prosperity and confidence with their money without sacrificing precious time and well-deserved fun. So, let’s do this!
Welcome to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka.
After my husband and I faced three major financial roadblocks in the last six years, I felt like I wasn’t doing all that I could and I had let my family down. It always felt like life was a struggle like I had to work harder than everyone else. It just came easy to them, and I didn’t feel worthy of success.
Until, a coach helped me see the successes in our experiences instead of our failures. This allowed me to create and implement systems to grow our network by 200,000+ while spending time with my loved ones and on my priorities. Now I help motivated women create the happiness, family life, financial security, and long-term wealth they deserve.
If you’re ready to eliminate stress, struggle, frustration and guilt within your finances, you’re in the right place. Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!
Money Master Inner Circle Academy
This episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast is brought to you by Money Masters Inner Circle Academy. I’m so freakin excited to be bringing the academy to you.
So, do you struggle with overwhelm, judgment, frustration or fear when it comes to your finances? Or do you just never have time to do the things that you know you need to? Or even know where to begin and end up in like this vicious cycle? How about when you finally get ahead, and then the refrigerator breaks, or a kid gets sick or the car needs to go to the shop and you lose all your hard work?
You’re not alone. Actually, you’re in the right place. Inside the brand-new academy, we’re going to start with the basics, creating a solid financial foundation for you that allows your budget to meet the three critical rules for growth. Then we’re going to add in power ups to make sure your hard-earned money goes farther and of course systematize the process that you have more time to do what you love with whom you love, all stress free.
When you have those tough moments where you just don’t know if you’re doing enough or even the right thing, you’ll have weekly group coaching calls so that you can get back into momentum, fast. As well as up to date relevant training for what’s going on now in the world and what’s coming. And of course, we’re going to do it all with simple practical strategies that actually work, in a fun manner!
That’s part of why we’re adding in the Execution Lab, a monthly meeting where we sit down, listen to some fun music and work on our finances. The stuff that we need to make time for, we’ll do it together! And of course, I’ll be there live with you if questions come up along the way.
The Academy officially opens in June. So, all you need to do right now to stay in the know and to be eligible for some pretty sweet bonuses, is go to aimeecerka.com/academy and join the waitlist. Of course, if you miss that link, it’s going to be hanging out in the show notes for you.
Welcome back to another episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. Let’s do this!
We’re talking about Three Easy Ways To Save Money On Groceries.
So, first thing, well really before like we get into this, I feel like so many other things that we talk about, like you know, like I said, I’m into simple processes. And sometimes when it’s a simple process, you know, like it’s something simple to do. It’s also simple not to do and it might not be like this new revolutionary process that you’ve never heard of, right? Like just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it.
Already Always Listening
Let’s talk about something real quick first before we dive in, it’s called Already Always Listening. Now, Already Always Listening is something that one of my coaches talks about, like where you’re listening to somebody speak. Kind of like now, and you hear them say something and you’re like, “Oh, I already know that”. And then we kind of like tune them out, we’re not really listening, because you know, you know that already, right?
But when we take on that lens, on the Already Always Listening, we’re not actually listening for what we can do to move forward and like actually make the progress. And sometimes, even though we know something, there’s a difference between like, knowing about something, and like experiencing something and actually doing something. We talked about, like you can know what love is, but there’s a difference to experience love. And there’s a difference here, we can know about some of these things but if we’re not actually doing them, then like, we’re still not there, we still need to actually do those things.
And yes, some of them are simple to do and some of them are simple not to do so. Well, they’re all simple NOT to do and they’re all simple TO do. So okay, I think we’ve made the point. It’s simple, but you still need to do it.
Meal Planning and Go-To Meal List
So, first easy way that I saved my money is Meal Planning, okay.
And I’ve actually just updated my meal list to make this a little bit more simpler too. So, I used to keep and actually if you join the waitlist for the Academy, if you join the Academy, all of this is going to be available inside the Academy. It’s gonna be super simple.
But I used to break my meal planning up into categories. So you know, like, chicken, pork, Italian, Mexican. I had a simple category, which we’ll get to in a minute, I think it was like a beef and other. I’m trying to remember those categories, but like, I would pick one meal from each category for the week. And it was working, but I felt like I could streamline the process a little bit.
So now I took all of the meals and I put them together like in a meal plan and I didn’t include the simple meal category, we’re gonna get to that in a second, and I made I think it’s four. I’ve got enough for almost six, but I think I stuck with four and like I have an “extras” category. So I made a Week A, a Week B, a Week C, a Week D meal plan lists. So now when I meal plan on Thursdays, I just plug whatever week we’re on next into the meal plan. If something’s not gonna work, if we’re adding something, there’s the extras list with spaces to add new recipes as we try new stuff that I can substitute the extras list.
But like the second half of meal planning that like really sets you up for success here is what we call it our Go To Meal List.
Okay, so what your go to meals are, you know, when the day gets crazy, which is honestly, today has been crazy, like there has been so many videos and trainings and everything that I’ve been doing today. We’re actually going to use our go to mail list tonight. I was supposed to have stuffed meatballs on the crock pot cooking right now so that we get who stuffed meatballs and spaghetti for dinner. That did not happen.
So when you have a day like today where that just didn’t happen, your go to meal list saves you. Because right now, if I didn’t have my go to meal list, I’d be telling my husband like okay, we’re gonna have to pick something up because I don’t know what the heck I’m gonna make for dinner and it’s going to be dinner time and I’ve got a call the night with a group anyway so we’re gonna do this like just grab something to eat, okay. Which we’re spending more money.
Which like we’ve talked about, spending money is fine but we want to be intentional with our spending money. I would much rather go out to eat this weekend and be intentional about it and pick something that I want than just telling him to grab some fast food on the way home because we need to eat something.
So what is it Go To Meal List? Your Go To Meal List is a list of all the simple stuff that you can make that you’ve got on hand and that’s going to be part of the key, we’re getting into that and the third step here.
Simplify Your Meal Planning
But it’s gonna be simple stuff, it’s not always the most healthy stuff. Like I can tell you right now it’s not super crazy healthy but like you know hotdogs, chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. We’ve done like wraps before we’ve done sausage and mac and cheese. Mac and cheese is a really great side for my Go To Meal List and it is also something I’ve been craving this pregnancy.
Kind of interesting, I don’t know. There’s been times where I just wanted to eat a bowl. Like the whole container of the… It has to be Kraft mac and cheese. I’m sorry, but there is no homemade mac and cheese that is like Kraft mac and cheese. I’m getting off topic, but your Go To Meal List.
Those simple things to make. I think we’ve got corndogs on there, fish sticks, the stuff that you can just stick in the oven and it’s ready 25, 20, 30 minutes. And your kids might eat more of a variety than mine, you can have a totally different thing. Your Go To Meal List does not have to look like my Go To Meal List.
But having that ready to go so when life happens and things get crazy, you can still make something to eat at home, and you’re not having to go get fast food unexpectedly. You PLAN to go get fast food that’s different. But that’s our first step. Okay? Meal Planning and have that Go To Meal List.
Eat Before You Shop
The second easy way that I save money on groceries, it’s gonna sound silly, Eat Before You Go To The Grocery Store.
Even if I wasn’t pregnant, you still got to eat before you go to the grocery store. So we will end up impulse spending, we’ve talked all about this before with the Impulse Spending Challenge at the beginning of the year. But like, we need to be strategic about it. We need to know like what our weaknesses are.
My husband loves to look at absolutely everything in the grocery store. That is not me. But if I’m hungry, I know that I have a higher tendency to want to pick up stuff, where when I’m not hungry, I have more of a clear mind of like, okay, I am not actually going to eat that I have tried these things in the past and it did not work out. If you were going into the grocery store and you have eaten beforehand, we typically have like a loose rule that you can pick a one extra thing that’s not on your list per person. So, I don’t always use mine. My husband always finds something that he wants to try and that is just something he enjoys to do, looking at every single grocery aisle.
That might be your challenge today. Like tell me, if you’re one of those people that likes to look at all the things at the grocery store or if you’re just like I’ve got the list get in and out, right?
Use Pickup Orders
Okay, eat beforehand. But really, what a lot of us are doing now, what I try and do and most places like all these, I can’t really figure this out, it just does not work for me. Use a pickup order, it saves so much time, especially if you’ve got kids, stick them in the car.
Little minor pro step – I keep stuff with me in the car. Like when I go to do my pickup order, if they’re taking a while, I still got something I can work on. Whether it’s a book to read or something that I’m planning out, or it’s intentional downtime. Whatever it might be like, I’m not going to get frustrated if it takes them longer to go get my groceries, because my butt doesn’t have to be inside going up and down all the grocery aisles with the kids trying to pick everything up.
So pickup order, definitely the best way to go. If not, and you’re gonna go in the grocery store, make sure you eat something beforehand, because none of us like to be hangry. I know I get hangry; I’m raising my hand here. But set yourself up for success, don’t go to the grocery store hungry, it just causes more problems. Okay?
Kitchen Inventory and Smart Prepping
The third easy way to save money on groceries is the Kitchen Inventory.
So I know I’ve had people tell me, “I don’t have time for this, Aimee.” This is the thing we just have to make time. This is part of why the Execution Lab is now part of the Academy because we need to execute on all of these things that we do. But what a Kitchen Inventory is, a Kitchen Inventory is a list of all the stuff that you’ve got in your pantry, in your freezers because we’ve all had that food that gets lost to the back of the freezer and we don’t know what the heck it is or like it’s just lost and forgotten until its freezer burned or way expired if it’s in the pantry.
You know, when my dad and stepmom moved, oh, it’s been a while back now, what, five, six years ago now? Somewhere in there. That they gave us a bunch of stuff like out of their freezer for us to be able to eat and there was like a meat that they had like packaged and they put it like in a sandwich bag. And I remember it was labeled like, I had just take a picture of it, send it to my stepmom and be like, “What the heck is this? Like, I don’t know, it wasn’t labeled. I felt like we had the mystery meat there.” So even though we kept the inventory, I didn’t know what the heck it was.
But keeping the kitchen inventory, this is part of just scheduling the time to do it. There is a Standard Level and like a Pro Level. So Standard Level will be kinda like just taking like a sheet of paper. I’ve got all the Canva templates for you that I’ve created you can go use.
But the Pro Level is, kind of brings me to like the pro step and what we call smart prepping. Which again, we’re talking about all about inside the Academy. I feel like there’s a common theme here. We’re talking about Smart Prepping inside of the Academy.
And especially with food cost on the rise, we need to be Smart Prepping, okay? This isn’t like go hide in a bunker; this is being smart and being prepared. So then you kind of create just create a checklist, there’s a little bit more work to go into this like upfront that you’ll create a checklist of everything you expect to see in your pantry, in your freezer. So then, you know, if it’s not there, it needs to go on the grocery list and then you have a little space for the extra stuff that you know you want to buy at the grocery store.
But at a bare minimum, take a sheet of paper, make a kitchen inventory, do it once a month, part of what we call a month in process, which is going to correspond with Execution Lab timing. Just a side note, set aside a time, schedule it, make the kitchen inventory, don’t lose the food, delegate it if you can. If you’ve got kids that you can trust to do it, maybe if you’re homeschooling and you make it part of like their handwriting, life skills, language, art, some in there. Everything can be teachable, right?
But there we have it, there’s really it was Three Easy Ways To Save On Groceries but like each step had like an A part and a B part so it almost ended up being like six easy ways to save on. We talked about Meal Planning, and your Go To Meal List. We talked about Eating Before You Go To The Grocery Store and Utilizing Pickup Orders. We talked about your Kitchen Inventory at a Standard Level and the Pro Level and starting to Smart Prep especially with everything is going on being prepared and taking care of your family is more important than ever.
So there’s a lot there. They’re simple to do like we’ve talked about. Three Easy Ways To Save Money On Groceries.
Your Challenge For Today
Let’s do your challenge today. I want to hear, are you the type of person that like goes to the grocery store and like looks at every single thing and every aisle or are you like in and out? Which one do you stand on? Send me a message on Instagram. I want to hear. We’ll take poll, let me know which one most of us reside in. And we’ll see you next week for another episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast. Bye for now!
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money Your Life podcast. My favorite place to hang out is on Instagram. You can find me at @aimeecerka. Send me a message or post a screenshot and tag me! I love hearing from podcast listeners.
When you’re ready to master your money, go to https://workwithaimee.com. You and I will work together to ditch financial stress and struggle for good with a customized plan that works for you, your goals, your priorities, your life. I’ll see you next time on the Your Money Your Life podcast.
If you love today’s episode, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. That way you’ll receive new episodes right when they’re released, then leave a rating and review. It helps amazing people just like you find the show faster. We’ll see you next week!
if you love today’s episode, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcast. That way you will receive new episodes right when they are released then leave a rating and review. It helps amazing people just like you find the show faster. We’ll see you next week.
