The Money Food Fight

Since May, we've knocked off over $7,000 from our debt snowball - feels pretty good to be on a roll! Still a long way to go until we can scream "we're debt free!!!", but it's amazing how one starts to find extra ways to save money once the determination set in. It really does feel like we've been giving ourselves "bonuses", as several folks have commented regarding the home budgeting process.

As i review each month's budget, i've been banging my head trying to find new ways to save little pockets of money here and there - as i mentioned in my "Dandelion Wine" article, i've gone as far as changing/downgrading car insurance, starting the process of switching away from whole life to term life insurance, and even learning how to cut my kids' hair! One area i hadn't actually considered was the grocery budget. We're not extravagant eaters, and we stopped buying junk food for the most part, but i couldn't help wondering if there was any way to trim a $250/week expense for food shopping.

i happened across an advertisement on the Dave Ramsey Show for MealtimeMakeover.com, an online grocery and dinner planning service from www.e-mealz.com. For about $5 per month, you receive weekly shopping lists that can either be tailored to Wal-Mart, Kroger, or "Anyplace" supermarkets (the latter being my option) to take advantage of both seasonal and sale items. Typical dinner plans feed 4-6 people, and the meals can be customized to an extent to accommodate low-fat, low-carb, or other options. They claim that by following this shopping and cooking plan, you can keep your weekly shopping bill to about $75.

Well, i'm putting the plan for a test spin and will report back the results in about a week or so. One thing to keep in mind is that the plan only covers dinner meals (i emailed the webmistress about considering lunch plans for families with kids - she told me that it's in the works, so be sure to keep an eye out for that), so you'll still have to contend with lunch and breakfast budgets if you plan to cook all those meals as well.

Another complication is ethnic cooking. Shopping at the Korean grocery store can be quite expensive, but necessary in my family's case. i'll have to figure out the best balance between the meals we replace on the online plan and our regular Korean diet, but my wife was able to pare down some of the Korean shopping already this morning (only about $30, as opposed to the normal $100+ for an HMart run...) My bill at the local supermarket came to about $120 - like i said, extra padding needs to be considered when including breakfasts and lunches in your shopping, but this is still a huge improvement over picking up groceries willy-nilly...

Of course, no online plan will work if the meals taste lousy...wish us luck, i'm trying the Chicken Mushroom over Linguine recipe tonight...