Switching to Cash Only Grocery Shopping
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For the last 6 months it seems that everything under the sun has increased our expenses which has been offsetting our normal budget! From needing new car tires, major surgery, etc. we have decided to *try* and switch to a cash-only grocery system. Although I would never switch to a cash only system for our entire budget (for many reasons) I know that buying our groceries with only cash will definitely help to tighten things up for us! I’ve also found that being conscious of what we spend on groceries (even if it’s only shopping off of a list!) has helped us to decrease our weekly spend by about $20 – that’s $80 per month!
As easy as this may sound, if you’ve been using a credit card it’s VERY hard to switch over to a cash only system, especially when you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You can’t exactly pull out $400 for groceries for the month when you need them to pay for last month’s groceries. The way we currently have our budget set up has been a great system that works well for us – until we had so many unexpected costs come up! Tomorrow my husband is going in for minor surgery and the hospital is requiring us to pay over $600 up front today! Ouch! Most of you are like us and that extra $600 does NOT come easily! For some reason in our house groceries are the first thing to get cut out of the budget. Obviously not completely but since we don’t have much to cut out of the budget when things get tight groceries seem to be a little more expendable.
GO SLOW!
As nice as it would be to start using cash only for our groceries all at once it is highly unrealistic. We recently received a membership to Costco so we decided to start saving $20 here and there and once a month make a trip to Costco – cash only. Â As we have a little more cash available, we roll it into our Costco fund. The idea is that eventually, the cash we spend at Costco will offset our other grocery expenses and eventually we will be able to completely switch to cash only for our groceries. It was easier for us to designate only ONE grocery store to start cash only.
For example, yesterday we bought cheese, vitamins, pull-ups, meat, chicken nuggets, flour, and a few other groceries at Costco. The total cost was under $80 – but now I need to spend a LOT less at our grocery store this weekend which means less expense on my credit card. We can slowly increase the amount of cash we have to spend on groceries while we slowly decrease the amount of grocery totals that we have on our credit card.
Have a designated envelope or bank account. Keep it handy!
We tried to start this 3 months ago but things just kept coming up and it was impossible to start. Keep at it! If a large unexpected expense comes up one month don’t get too discouraged – aim for starting it the next month! I find that it’s easier for me to keep our grocery cash at home in an envelope than it is for me to put it into the bank. Partially because our bank is not close by and it would really be a bit of a hassle in some situations to have to try and withdraw money before I go shopping! If it’s not handy I know that I will just use my credit instead of going out of my way to get cash.
Is there anything in your budget that you use a “cash only” system for? Join me as we try to switch our groceries to a cash only system! My goal is to be completely switched over by the end of the summer!
I actually just started putting money in an envelope so that my fiance and I can do a BJ’s run when we get at least $100. And we just went shopping the other week and did a cash only run and went $5 over our limit. I like the idea of making myself pay in cash only because it really does save you money.