For the newly unemployed

Ok, now that you have some time on your hands, I am going to tell you how to eat well on a small budget. If you can, the first thing I recommend is getting a freezer and a meal sealer machine. I have seen extra freezers in even small apartments, and it will really help maximize your money. The next thing is something of an undertaking and will take about 1-2 months to complete, but it is super important. Get a spiral notebook at the dollar store or BigLots or wherever. It doesn't need to be big, and in fact it is easier if it fits in your purse or pocket. If you are like many people I know who have never worried about having the money to feed your family (and I see you all the time at the grocery store :-)) and your shopping strategy is to throw whatever strikes your fancy in your cart without a second look, this is going to be especially hard for you. Not as hard as giving up the lattes, but close.

Next, get with your family and make a meal plan for at least a week. If you can do more; do it. If your kids are requesting lobster, just say no. Use websites like www.eatingwell.com and let the family help with this part. Look in your pantry and see what you have hiding in there and plan meals around that item.

Here comes the hard part: you need to go to at least 3 stores (I use King Soopers (Kroger, City Market-all the same), Safeway and Albertsons. This will take at least an hour in each store so plan accordingly. Go down each and every aisle and make notes in your notebook the prices of things you like to buy and the store brand as well. If it happens to be on sale at the moment, note the regular and the sale price and highlight the sale price. You will have a LOT of entries and it helps to have a page dedicated to each of these 4 things: Fresh (lunchmeat, cheese etc.) Dry, Frozen and personal/cleaning.

This is time consuming, you say, but not so hard, right? Well, you have to do this each week for at least a month and 2 is better. Use the same items you wrote down before but note the differences in prices from week to week. After awhile, you will start to see a pattern emerge about when stores put items on sale and for how much. You will know what the highest price for an item is and also the rock bottom price. Knowledge is power. If you do nothing else but not buy products if they aren't on sale and stock up when they are rock bottom, you will have saved a ton of money on groceries. If you are anything like me, you will plan a meal and go to the store and realize that in a week that item you need is going to be waayyy cheaper, you will change your meal plan instantly.

The notebook serves several purposes, first-it will help you see that some stores will put items on sale and they will not really be a bargain at all. For example, say Safeway has a 2 for 1 on something and you think, "ooohhh free!" However, many times they jack up the price on that one item you have to buy and your handy dandy notebook will show you that you can go to another store and get 2 of the same item for less than the one you have to buy to get the other "free." Second, you will be able to really, innately, know how much things cost and moreover, how much things should cost.

Yes, there are websites that will do all this for you, and that is much easier in a way. But I don't like not thinking for myself and I don't like paying someone else to do something I can easily do for free. It makes me feel like saving money is my current "job" and I can do it well. And so can you.