HEChicken
Power Conserver
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2011
- Messages
- 98
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 34
I've been reading the other threads about how long one could survive on food stores, how much we spend on food etc., and while doing dishes just now, got to thinking about the portion of the grocery budget that is "not food". So I thought I'd start a thread to discuss ways we might reduce just that portion of the budget.
I guess to start we have to know how much of our grocery bill is actually food and how much is not. Hopefully I'm not the only nerd out there that tracks those expenses. I use Quicken but there are other products out there. Rather than just call a transaction "groceries", I actually break it down when entering it, into sub-categories such as "groceries", "household - paper", "household - cleaning" and "sales tax". I've done it for years this way so am used to it. I realize it might sound time-consuming, just tracking it, but to me it is time well-spent.
I digress…one thing that tracking has done for me is help me reduce expenditure. So I'll get this started with some of the ideas I have come up with to reduce how much I spend on perishables that are not food.
I guess to start we have to know how much of our grocery bill is actually food and how much is not. Hopefully I'm not the only nerd out there that tracks those expenses. I use Quicken but there are other products out there. Rather than just call a transaction "groceries", I actually break it down when entering it, into sub-categories such as "groceries", "household - paper", "household - cleaning" and "sales tax". I've done it for years this way so am used to it. I realize it might sound time-consuming, just tracking it, but to me it is time well-spent.
I digress…one thing that tracking has done for me is help me reduce expenditure. So I'll get this started with some of the ideas I have come up with to reduce how much I spend on perishables that are not food.
- Paper towels. I don't buy them. We cut up old clothes and use those as cleaning rags.
- Toilet paper. I reduced the amount we buy by switching to microfiber cloths for #1. Once the females in the house reduced their usage to the same as the males, our overall use of tp went way down.
- Sanitary. Switched to a reusable cup and cloth panty lines and not only like it better but cut out a huge monthly expense.
- Kitchen sponge. Rather than disposable sponges, for the same cost as one packet of 4 disposable sponges, I purchased a pack of 2 that are reusable. One side is a scourer, the other side microfiber and in between is some kind of absorbent, spongy material. When it gets dirty, throw it in the washing machine. I've been using the two now for a year so in that time have not had to purchase new sponges.
- Cleaning products. I stopped buying any of the commercial cleaning products and now use baking soda and/or vinegar for everything. One or the other seems to work for almost any application and I love not having an under the sink cabinet full of a variety of cleaning products specific to each new task.
- Aluminum foil. I haven't completely cut this out but I've reduced purchases by reusing each piece several times before it is discarded. Most of the time I use it to cover a casserole and because it was over the food, it never touched it and is still completely clean and reusable.