Groceries : Let's Slash the Bill 

Hey, good morning, everybody. It's Thursday and it's 10 o'clock, so that means it's Coffee Chats with Candice! And look, I had coffee today, so I want to try to remember everything that I need to talk about today to help you curb your grocery budget and eating out budget.

First thing is you want to make a list. You want to make a list and you want to stick to it.  

It's very important that you don't go into the grocery store hungry (which everybody tells you.) Always look on the top and the bottom shelves, because those are the the lesser expensive things and that things right at our eyesight are more expensive. 
 
Off-brand, generic, whatever you want to call it, most of the time tastes the same as the brand, so you can get-by with that and it's okay! 
 
We want to concentrate on, while we're trying to save money and while we're trying to cut down our debt, to do the best that we can to give us the most amount of money to put towards that debt. Like I said, list and stick to it. 

Shop online grocery stores. I remember when, (and I'm aging myself), my daughter was born in 1999. I remember when she was a baby, and they had a service called “pea pod” and I was so excited that you could order it online and have it delivered! They just didn't do anything like that and it was just really odd. Then they stopped doing that, but I think it was offered by Tom Thumb. And it wasn't until COVID, now everything has changed.  And you know, things are the way I have wanted them to be for the last 20 plus years. 

So anyway, as far as ordering online and doing everything online with ease. If you shop online, instead of having it delivered, you can pick it up yourself and you will avoid the fees. And that will help as well. You don't have to have a membership or anything like that, like Walmart+ anything like that, in order to be able to take advantage of that. 
 
The other thing is coupons. Use coupons when you can. I know coupons are sometimes a pain. I also know, too, that if you're going to use coupons, that you wouldn't be able to use like generics, but different stores offer different programs that you can try. So kind of look a little bit into that. 

Make your food envelope, which is your grocery envelope, and your eating-out-and-blow. Make it cash so that when you use all the money up, it's gone. So for example, if you get $400 a month for groceries, then each week, you can spend $100 and that's it. Also “All Day” is a good choice and they have a lot of great things, small place, small footprint, so you can get in and get out, and you can get probably 98% of the things that you need there. 

Last thing is that your monthly budget for your food should be between 5 and 15% of your total monthly income. 
 
But for example, if you make $2,000 a month, then you should spend somewhere between $100 to $300 a month on food. Yeah, shocker. So most people are spending like $500 to $1000 on food. You don't you don't realize how much you spend. And if you don't believe me, go look at your bank statement. Go look at your online statement. Go do a little report and look at how much you eat out. 
 
DoorDash… oh my gosh. So convenient! However, fees out the rear.  Anyway, you want to make sure and pay attention to that because I get in the habit of that (husband and I both do) because I'm tired, I come home from work, I'm like “I don't want to cook,” “I don’t  feel good,” blah-blah, whatever, it's so we order and it's easy.  

However, we're now past our debt-free, you know, getting to be debt-free. So it's not as bad, but in this process when you're in the trenches and you're trying to get to the point of getting out of debt, paying your debt, saving some money, finding money in your budget, why you don't have money at the end of the month, why you're always running out of money. That's a big key. So remember that 5% to 15% of your total income, so when you're making up your budget, pay attention to that amount. 
 
Alright! So, if you like what you see, I'm Candice Montgomery, my Husband and I are completely debt-free – we have been since 2022 and in seven years, we paid off over $450,000 and we are debt-free in our businesses and in our personal lives. 

It is something that is hard work, but I really, really enjoy. But food is one of the biggest budget busters that there is. So anyone thinks of Coffee, since it's Coffee Chats with Candice, grab a cup of coffee, or beverage of your choice. There's no judgement for me and you get knowledge on your grocery budget. 

So anyway, if this stuff interests you, then you can also book a complimentary consultation call with me and that is there on the screen. It's Candice, it's calendly.com/candicemontgomeryonline/finding-hope and we'll put the link in the comments after I'm off.

Okay, so to recap: 
 
- List and stick to it. 
- Whenever you go in, don't go in hungry. 

- Shop online and pick it up to avoid fees. 
- Put your food budget in a cash envelope and go from there. 
- Your total food budget should be between 5 and 15% of your total monthly income. 
 
So in my example, if you make $2,000 a month, you should spend between $100 and $300 a month on food. I can tell you that most people are spending two to three times that amount. So pay attention to that. 
 
Take a look at your bank, take a look at your online statements. If you don't believe me, do a quick report on that, and you will see that you are spending more money than you need to.  
 
Eating out should be a treat, while you're getting out of debt. My favorite thing that Dave Ramsey says is that, “You should not see the inside of a restaurant while you're paying off your debt.” And the “rice and beans, beans and rice.” We didn't do rice and beans, beans and rice, But you know, we may do with a lot of stuff. 

So all right, well, I'm gonna quit rambling for today, and I'm so glad that you joined me. If you have any suggestions of topics you want to hear about, let me know in the comments. If you'd like this topic and you want to know more, chime in in the comments also! And like I said, we'll put the link to my free consultation if you want to book a consultation with me in the comments. So I hope everybody has a fabulous Thursday; I hope you have a wonderful weekend! It's nice and sunny. It's not raining, so excited, and I'm happy to be here. So thanks for listening.