Suggestion #1 re Spending on Food — Keep a Price Book
A Price Book is a self-prepared listing of the foods you buy that notes the highest price you are willing to pay for each of them. The idea is not to be taken in by a grocery store’s claim that an item is “on sale” when the discount is from an unacceptably high “regular” price. Maintaining a Price Book puts you in charge.
Suggestion #2 re Spending on Food — Check the Day-Old Section
Most grocery stores have a day-old section. They often are in hard-to-spot places. Most shoppers walk around them. Buying stuff from the day-old section not only saves you some money. It changes your attitude about spending in the opposite direction from the way in which advertising changes it.
Advertising flatters you into thinking that you deserve the best and that nothing is too good for special you. Buying from the day-old section is humbling. The statement being made is: I can’t afford the best. That’s so. It may be that you can afford the best in some areas. You can’t afford the best in everything you buy, not if you also want to enjoy best results in terms of attaining early financial freedom. Buying luxuries can be a healthy choice. So can buying day-old bread. Let that in.
Suggestion #3 re Spending on Food — Calculate Your Cost Per Meal
We rationalize all sorts of things. I remember my mother telling me once that eating at McDonalds is cheaper than preparing a meal at home. It can be. But, if you are going about things the right way, it usually isn’t.
McDonalds prices can sound awfully low when your frame of reference is what you spend in sit-down restaurants. You should calculate how much you spend per person per meal on home-cooked meals. It is possible to get this number down to $2 or less, including drinks. It’s hard (but not impossible) to beat that at McDonalds.
Suggestion #4 re Spending on Food — Don’t Play at Appreciating Fine Wine
If you enjoy fine wine, you should buy it, at least on occasion. If you appreciate it, it’s worth the cost.
If you don’t, don’t play at being a wine expert. It’s an expensive game. It makes sense to buy a bottle of wine when you go out for a nice dinner. The conversation held when drinking a house win is every bit as good as the conversation held when drinking something up in price a few notches. Even moving up to the mid-level on a wine menu sets you back more than it’s worth if you can’t tell the difference.
Suggestion #5 re Spending on Food — Treat Eating Out as a Separate Category
Food is an essential. Eating out is not. So you should have a separate category covering eating-out expenses. You want to direct more scrutiny to that category.
Suggestion #6 re Spending on Food — Get to Where You Enjoy Preparing Meals
Most people don’t eat at home because they are out of the habit of making their own meals and it is just easier to pick something up. But putting meals together can be a lot of fun. Think of what you need to do to make it fun again preparing meals, and you will be on your way to saving a lot of money over the course of a lifetime.
It might mean taking a cooking course. It might mean making changes in your schedule so that you have time to prepare meals the way you like to go about doing so. It might mean learning about meals than can be prepared quickly. It might mean making it a team project with your spouse or partner.
Suggestion #7 re Spending on Food — Bring Lunch to Work
This needn’t be something you do every day. You should be sure to do it at least once a week. Again, it is a humbling thing. Once you get over your resistance to the humbling experience, you will at least see bringing a lunch to work as a viable option. Then you will likely end up doing it more than once per week.
Suggestion #8 re Spending on Food — Don’t Even Sample Convenience Foods
Convenience foods are often sold at greatly reduced prices to get you hooked. If the regular price is too high (and this is usually the case with convenience foods), you don’t want to get hooked. So don’t buy even at the sample price.
Yes, you could resist paying the higher price after enjoying the sample price. But the research shows that there’s a good chance that you won’t; otherwise, you wouldn’t be offered the sample price.
Suggestion #9 re Spending on Food — Make Drinking Special
I drink when I am at a restaurant or when I have friends over. Not otherwise. That makes drinking special. It makes it a treat.
Suggestion #10 re Spending on Food — Work This Category Hard in the Early Days
There’s a lot of money to be saved by cutting back the food category because these are expenses you incur month after month after month after month. Work this category hard until you are sure you have it right.
After you’ve worked it hard, you can pretty much forget about it. The category stays stable once you have got the numbers right for you.