The cost of living is really pointing to the sky these days, and I find that it’s almost impossible to feed my family with the normal budget that I’ve been sticking to for years. I used to set aside an amount of money as the household monthly grocery money, but these days, I feel that I had to increase the limit a little bit. 🙁 It’s getting really difficult to shop without being over-budget these days.
I’m not sure what the hell is going on, but when I went groceries shopping last week, I discovered that I over-budget terribly even though I bought the very same items as I did in the previous round. I checked the receipt, and the cashier got everything right. She did not miscalculate and I didn’t take anything extra…so…the only thing that can go wrong is the price, right?
My husband checked the receipt too, and he pointed out to me that a lot of things have become much more expensive than before… most by a few cent and a few Ringgit. If some people are not attentive enough…(like me) they probably wouldn’t realize it til they pay for it at the cashier counter.
Eating out these days seems to be much more energy and cost effective these days as not all food item that’s sold at hawker stall or restaurant can be increased drastically like groceries cuz diners tends to boycott.
While eating out or taking away food from hawker stalls and whatnot is much more cost effective and energy saving, but my family and I tend to get bored with it easily and we always prefer home-cook food rather than food from outside.
And so, we went grocery shopping again, in hopes that we don’t over budget like the previous round. This time, I pay much more attention to those items that I picked up and discovered that unless I go for ‘reduced to clear’ item, I wouldn’t be able to get everything that I need to stock up my kitchen supplies. 🙁
Deciding that it is okay to purchase and consume some ‘reduced to clear’ items, I picked up a few foodstuff from both wet and dry aisles. I managed to spot and grab hold onto some ‘reduced to clear’ biscuits, crisps, pastas, instant noodles, canned food, vegetables, meat and poultry.
All of the vegetables, meat and poultries still looks reasonably fresh and the biscuits and canned food still have a couple of month more to go before reaching the expiry date.
I come to realize that I managed to save much more by purchasing those ‘reduced to clear’ items and instead of going over budget, the total bill was much cheaper than buying those items that’s not tagged with ‘reduced to clear’ sticker or ‘discounted items’ sticker.
A lot of people are apprehensive of buying ‘reduced to clear’ items whenever they go for grocery shopping, but since I cook pretty often and the foodstuff that I bought usually lasts only a week, I did not think that buying ‘reduced to clear’ items is such a huge issue to me. After all, most of the food are already in the tummy when they reach their expiry dates.
If I had a choice, I would probably choose those that’s not tagged with ‘reduced to clear’ items and opt for those ‘fresh’ ones instead, but the bills is killing me terribly and I think right now, instead of moaning and groaning about the drastic price increase, opting for ‘reduced to clear’ item is a temporary solution for the over-budgeting issue that’s plaguing me whenever I go shop for groceries these days.
So…what do you folks do to continue to retain your frugal lifestyle? Do you buy ‘reduced to clear’ and ‘discounted items’ like me too or you have other ways to combat the price increase in order to keep every mouth in your family fed and your account happy? Information on online accounting classes can help those who want to learn to balance their budget.
Cleffairy: As of late, I discovered using clipped coupons and discount card before paying for the groceries helps too but please, do share with me on tips how to shop wisely and stock up on groceries in a more cost effective manner. I definitely could use it.
