Mary Poppins spoke the truth when she said, “In every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun…. and snap! The job’s a game!”
I love games and I’m always up for a challenge. Though my husband and I never fight, we can be very competitive when it comes to games. (In fact, he rarely plays Big Boggle or SET with me anymore because I win every time… we usually stick to Scrabble where both of us stand an equal chance.)
Over the years I have tried to take advantage of my competitive streak by using it to reach my (normally non-competitive) goals. Most of the time I’m only competing with myself, but just like the my favorite nanny illustrates, when you can find fun in a chore, “the job’s a game!”
Lowering your grocery budget isn’t usually seen as a fun challenge. In fact, just bringing up the topic of grocery budgets is enough to make some people break out in a sweat and get their grumpy face on. So lowering your grocery budget is the “job that must be done” and now I get to show you the “element of fun!”
Remember, attitude is everything here. Scrooge wouldn’t think these games could be any fun, but if you go into them with a positive attitude, you really can have a good time lowering your grocery budget.
With our further ado, here are six of the games I play to make keeping a low grocery budget fun!
If it’s not on the list…
If you have a habit of grabbing impulse items from the end caps in the grocery store or seem to get uncontrollable cravings when you’re shopping, then this is a great game for you! Not only will you have an incentive (i.e, to win!) to avoid impulse buys, you will also be refining your grocery-list-writing skills.
The game is straight-forward. You plan your meals and make a good shopping list before heading to the store. When you’re at the store, you must limit yourself to only those items on your list. If you make it out of the store with only the items on your list, you win! You’ll become a focused, rockstar grocery-list-maker in no time!
How long can I go?
For some people, this one might be torture, but I actually think it’s a fun challenge. If you really want to cut your month’s grocery budget, try to see how long you can go without buying food.
Now, you can set your own rules for this challenge, so maybe your rules are that you can only but milk and a set amount of produce each week. Other than that, all of your meals must come from your pantry or freezer.
An alternative to the “How long can I go” challenge is the no-spend challenge (also called a “pantry challenge”). With a no-spend challenge, I set a specific time limit on how long I will not buy groceries. For us, I usually do a month. In fact, you can go beyond just groceries and do it for all of your flexible spending categories of your budget.
Sometimes I try to see how long I can go without going to the grocery store just for fun.
Cash Budget Game
I have never done a full cash budget, but I have worked with a cash grocery budget before. It’s a really effective way to limit your spending because when the money is gone, it’s gone! No cheating– that’s a given.
With a cash budget you are forced to pay attention to everything that you put in your cart because you don’t want to end up with a total you can’t pay for at the register. #beentheredonethat
The rules are simple, if you make a weekly shopping trip, only bring 1/4 of your monthly grocery budget. If you stay within those parameters, you win!
Just the Perimeter
The next challenge will save you both time and money. The object here is to only shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Typically the perimeter of the store has fresh produce, meat, and dairy. You will avoid the inside aisles, including boxed, bagged, or canned food. You might be surprised at the money you’ll save when you don’t buy the pre-packaged convenience food which makes the bulk of what is sold in grocery stores (at least here in the US).
How do you win at this one? Simple! You just don’t buy anything that isn’t on the perimeter. Chances are, you will need things from the inner aisles at some point, so this challenge isn’t one you’ll do every week.
Nothing at Regular Price
There are two levels of this challenge. In its simplest form, you would focus on sale prices and loss leaders from your store’s weekly ad. The front page of the ad will have the best deals. Planning your menu around key sale items is a great money-saving strategy.
To increase the intensity of the “Nothing at Regular Price” challenge, you can involve coupons. In a former life (read: when I didn’t live in the boonies), I enjoyed couponing. Couponing is a whole game in itself. I won’t get into all of the details, but trust me when I say you can get lots of food for great prices if you’re willing to put in a little effort to learn this skill. The most effective way to use coupons is to combine them with a sale price, a cashback rebate, or other promotion.
Challenge yourself to only buy what is on sale. Hopefully you’re keeping track of prices on the items you use regularly so you can recognize what a real sale is when it hits. If you make it out of the store without buying anything regular price, you win!
On your Mark, Get Set, Go!
How can we go without a challenge that is time-based? One complaint busy people have is that grocery shopping takes too long, so why not challenge yourself to do it faster? Decide on a time that you’d like to beat, then start the countdown with your stopwatch (or a phone app stopwatch substitute) Don’t forget your list! Your list is what will allow you to speed-shop!
The money-saving factor here is that you will just buy the things you need and won’t take time to browse all of those impulse items that are dying to get into your cart. You do have to be careful here though, because when you’re time-bound, you won’t take as much time reading labels and comparing prices. This isn’t a problem for me usually because I have done all of the comparisons at my local store and already know what’s a great deal and what isn’t. If you’re new to cutting your grocery budget you will want to take some time to compare the prices per unit on the items on your list.
A Disclaimer
I don’t expect (or recommend) that you use one of these challenges every week. Most of these challenges (except the cash grocery budget) work best when they are not used every week. Also, not all of these challenges are inherently money-saving. You have to couple each challenge with a money-saving mindset in order to see the best results. In other words, don’t rely on one of these challenges alone to revamp your grocery budget.
How about you?
- Are you (like me and Mary Poppins) motivated by challenges and games?
- Have you ever made saving on groceries a game or challenge?
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I’m loving reading all of this. Just found your blog. I am a very frugal person. When it comes to groceries for sure. We spend about $100 a month for my husband and myself. We eat basics Beas rice, Cut up carrots, make cabbage stir fry. ( only I don’t buy oil. I save all my veggie scraps in a gallon bag in the freezer. when its full I make broth out of it . freeze the broth for future use AND to us when frying something to prevent sticking 🙂 I rotate 7 meals for dinner breakfast is Oatmeal and 1 day a week we have HEALTHY cereal with frozen blueberries we grew… I make oat milk at home saving even more. onions cabbage carrots potatoes ect. all VERY affordable I buy dry beans. make hummus at home. the most expensive veggie where we live is red bell peppers ..but they make the bust hummus! I also make bean burgers for my husband to eat at lunch.. again cheep and homemade…
I’m really bad with groceries. I can go about…2 days or so before I need a trip to the store. At least it’s not a daily trip, right? :/
Grocery shopping is something I really need to work on! For the past six months we’ve had the tiles in the shed to replace the floor for our entry room and laundry room (where the big freezer is.) We keep saying, ‘Just as soon as we empty out that big freezer, we’ll get the new floor in.” But do you think I check the big freezer first before I go shopping? Nooooo. Instead I go shopping, buy meat, stick it in the little freezer above the fridge, and then wonder why the big freezer isn’t getting any emptier.
I totally get this! I tend to use and restock the top quarter of our chest freezer (it’s always packed full). My kids keep asking for pumpkin bread but the pumpkin puree is in the bottom half of the chest freezer, which takes more digging than I usually feel like doing. I really should do it though, before this year’s pumpkins are ready…
I get such a rush out of a low grocery bill lol. I love playing the how long can I go game. Another favorite of mine is what can I create out of ___, ___, ___. We made veggie mac and cheese one night in an attempt to use up our vegetables :).
Yes! My dad use to call those “Star Trek Meals” when my mom would invent casseroles from the pantry. He’d say “To boldy eat what no man has eaten before.”
That’s a good one! Star Trek Meals
Oh, my goodness, I got a good chuckle out of that one. I’m going to start making Star Trek Meals!
I love making obligations or chore like things into games. I worked as a library page which was a lot of fun, but it does get tedious shelving carts one after another for 5-6 hours. So I would “compete” with my coworkers to try to shelve as many or more carts as them (they never knew about this competition.)
When I didn’t drive the grocery game I played was “how fit all the groceries I need for the week on my back because I need to walk 3 blocks to the bus stop from the store.” It is amazing all the treats you can do without when you have to carry everything on public transport.
Awesome! Shelving library books would get tedious- i’m glad you could make it more enjoyable with some competition!
I definitely remember the “can I carry all of this” factor from back in my college days! Good times! 🙂