photo by destinelee

There is no shortage of places to go out to eat in our country.  I’m continually amazed at how much food is incorporated into all forms of entertainment. You can’t go anywhere without a hotdog stand, a concession stand, or even a full-blown restaurant stuck inside a discount store.  We recently took our kids to a popular indoor play place (think of a gym for kids with inflatable equipment), but didn’t think to eat before we went.  Like all kids, it only took about twenty minutes of play and the scent of pepperoni pizza wafting through the building before they were begging for a snack.

Snack Savings

I think our lunch cost us about $12.00 that day.  It consisted of two pieces of thin-crust pizza for each of us, and three small drinks (my wife and I usually share, but kids and germs don’t mix well so they get their own cup).  We could have bought an entire pizza with all the toppings we wanted from our local Kroger grocery store, baked it ourselves, and had drinks at home for less!  Lesson learned.  When planning activities away from home it is a good idea to eat a small meal before leaving, else the activity is bound to cost significantly more with food purchases.  I recently wrote about the decision to sneak food into movie theaters instead of buying from the concession stand.  Assuming you simply ate a meal or snack at home you could easily survive a two-hour movie without buying a $5.00 tub of popcorn and a $3.00 drink.

Healthier Food Choices

Things made at home are typically much better for you than food purchased on the road.  Even the choices are significantly better.  It’s rare to find a grilled chicken salad on the menu at eateries tucked away inside amusement parks.  Most menus here resemble fast food restaurants where the most popular items are hamburgers, french fries and hotdogs.  Eating at home saves both dollars and calories.

An Annual Exception

I can easily live with this rule but for one major exception–the fair.  When the state fair comes to a city close to us once a year, part of the experience is fair food.  I’ve often joked that if a place opened and only sold “fair food” they would rake in money!  Funnel cakes, corn dogs, fried candy bars, turkey legs and homemade ice cream are all part of the experience at the fair, and we budget a stomach-ache-inducing binge into our entertainment budget just this once.  After all, what’s the point of living frugal if you can’t have the occasional treat?

How do you avoid food expenses while visiting entertainment venues?  Eat before you go, pack a picnic, or just budget in the food costs?

The following is a guest post from my daughter, who has been begging to write a post for Frugal Dad for some time now.  I’ve edited the spelling, but the words are hers.  I think you will agree we have a budding author in our household.  In fact, my wife and I joke that she will probably publish a book before her Dad!

Chocolate Chip Parfait

Ingredients

• 1 Pack of Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip Cookies
• 1 Container of Whipped Topping
• 1 Cup of Milk

Directions

1. Place a big spoonful of Cool Whip into a parfait cup or bowl
2. Dunk a cookie into the bowl of milk
3. Next, place the cookie on top of the Cool Whip
4. Continue until you have three or four layers
5. Put in fridge until chilled and ready to serve

Notes from Frugal Dad:  This has become our favorite summer recipe because it is a wonderful, cool treat to have after dinner.  The recipe can be made healthy by using reduced fat Chips Ahoy cookies, fat free Cool Whip, and skim milk.  And of course you can save a little money by looking for store brand whipped topping and chocolate chip cookies.  Our daughter makes four servings of this dessert about once a week during the summer, much to the delight of the entire family!

I did something last Friday I haven’t done in a very long time. I visited a fast food establishment for lunch. Yes, I have been out to eat a couple times in the last few months, but not for lunch, and not fast food. I was surprised at how expensive the so-called “value meals” were. I frequently see people looped around drive-thru windows on their lunch hour buying $6-$7 “value” meals. It got me to thinking - just how much wealth are we chewing away on our lunch hour?

The costs of fast food. These days the cost of everything seems to be going up, and few product costs are inflating faster than food. With the cost of milk, meats, eggs, and even bread rising across the country, fast food chains are passing the associated increases along to customers. As the price of eating out increases, so does the opportunity costs we pay by not pocketing that money and brown-bagging a lunch made from home.

Costs per month. The brilliance behind “the latte factor,” made famous by author David Bach, was that it got consumers to think long term. Carrying daily costs out to a weekly, monthly and yearly figure was a wake-up call to those who considered a $3 expense to have a minimal impact on their overall financial life. Take fast food for example. A $6 combo meal (which typically includes a drink, sandwich and side order of fries or salad) eaten every day of the five-day workweek will cost customers $30 a week. That $30 a week, times four weeks, adds $120 a month to your food budget.

Costs per year. Continuing our fast food example, that $120 monthly fast food bill becomes a $1,440 annualized expense. Staggering, isn’t it? Imagine the things we could do with $1,400! You could open a Roth IRA, start a 529 plan for your kids, take a couple courses at a local college to further your career, start an emergency fund, or take a paid-for vacation. All for the price of a $6 cheeseburger, french fries and soda. Next time I’m craving a cheeseburger, I think I’ll just make my own from home.

I picked on fast food establishments for purposes of this example, but they are not the only place we throw away hundreds of dollars every year. Pack-a-day smokers spend nearly the same amount to fund their habit, as do beer-drinkers and wine consumers. My vice used to be bottled soft drinks from my old company’s break room. I probably bought a drink or two a day for years over the time I worked there, at $1.00 a pop! All the while I complained about a $500 minimum investment required by a mutual fund I was interested in - where was I going to get $500? I should have started with the vending machine.

Even the most frugal of us occasionally enjoys an evening out of the house. A dinner out is a great reward for hitting one of your financial milestones, but be sure to implement the following frugal dining tips to avoid overpaying when eating out.

Ask for a “to-go” box up front.  As soon as your meal arrives ask for a to-go box and separate about half of your meal. Restaurant meals have grown to enormous proportions over the years, and they are usually enough to feed two people.  Save the other half of your entree for lunch the next day.  Most importantly, don’t walk out and forget the to-go box (as I’ve done on many occasions).

Split a drink, or just go with water.  At most restaurants a glass of tea or a soft drink can run as much as $1.50 a glass.  That’s $6.00 for a family of four.  I recommend Mom and Dad share a drink, but splurge on small drinks for the kids.  Kids are notorious for passing germs back and forth, so best to keep their drinks separate.  Water is usually offered for free, but skip the lemons.  Lemons are often sitting out around uncooked meats and are handled with bare hands, both conduscive for passing harmful bacterias.

Order an appetizer as an entree.  Appetizers are usually cheaper than entrees.  Look for appetizers that offer a variety of food groups, such as nachos or quesidillas (meat, cheese, greens, sour cream, etc.).  It’s tough to make an entire meal out of fried cheese sticks.

Stick to the dollar menu, and  hold the fries.  At fast food restaurants the dollar menus offer pretty good deals if ordered properly.  McDonalds double cheeseburgers were a welcomed addition to the dollar menu, though Trent at the Simple Dollar has proven you can cook a tastier, more nutritional burger at home.  Still, if you are on the go and must stop for lunch, stick to the dollar menu and skip the fries.  French fries are probably the worst possible choice based on nutritional content.  As an alternative look for a side salad, chili or baked potato.

Ask for as many “extras” as you can get, for free.  When we make our weekly stop at Subway I load up on as many condiments and sandwich components as they will give me (for free).  Ask for extra lettuce to bulk up the sandwich a bit.  Try your sub with “the works” which includes all vegetables.  If you are like me and split the footlong into two meals, hold the mayo, oil and vinegar as it makes the next day’s lunch a little soggy.  You can add these yourself at home.

Don’t order from the kids menu.  Some kids practically live on Happy Meals (we’ve bought our share).  At larger restaurants we’ve found it pays to skip ordering meals for the kids and simply sharing a few bites from our entrees.  This doesn’t work too well if you order backfire spicy buffalo wings, so stick to something kid-friendly like plain chicken fingers and a baked potato.

Skip dessert.  Even a couple scoops of ice cream can cost three or four dollars at most restaurants.  If you really are in the mood for dessert, pay your bill and head over to a local fast food restaurant for an ice cream cone.  McDonalds offers an excellent, low-fat, soft-serve ice cream for less than a $1.00.

Don’t be a cheapskate when tipping.  You might think the Frugal Dad would advocate cutting costs wherever possible.  Well, that is typically true.  However, tipping is an area where I am generous.  If your server has been exceptional calculate 10% of the bill in your head and then double it, rounding up to the nearest dollar.  On that same subject, don’t forget to tip the pizza delivery person.  They braved traffic to drive to your home in the elements and walked your dinner all the way to your door.  Who knows, they may even be trying to get out of debt, too.

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Few spending categories can kill a budget faster than food. For some families the art of frugal grocery shopping comes naturally. We have to work a little harder, but over time we have developed a few tips to help navigate the grocery aisles.

Sign up for customer loyalty programs. Larger grocery chains such as Kroger or Publix have a customer loyalty program designed to enhance repeat business. Take advantage of “member’s only” pricing by signing up for a store in your area with the best incentives (double coupons, members-only hours, savings on gasoline purchases, etc.).

Coupons are your friend. If your Sunday paper was delivered with a $10 bill attached, would you throw it away? Of course not. Well, that’s effectively what you are doing each week by not taking a few minutes to clip and organize coupons. Combined with store sales, coupons have helped us shave over 30% off our grocery bill. My wife and I have been Grocery Game subscribers for some time now, and it is a great service for helping identify those rock-bottom deals (contact me for a $1 trial offer if you are interested).

Plan meals two weeks in advance. Don’t be one of these daily grocery store shoppers who stops by on the way home from work every day to pick up tonight’s dinner. The more times you enter a store the more chances you have to forget frugality and succumb to the grocer’s marketing efforts.

Make a grocery list - and don’t leave home without it. I think the art of making a list is lost on most people because we are an impatient society. Who wants to take the time to make a list, when I can just “wing it.” Any good efficiency expert will tell you that organizing your thoughts in list form will make you more productive, and is well worth the time. A grocery list will also help you stay focused and lessen the chances of you picking up frivolous items on a whim.

Shop without the kids. Older kids can be great helpers, and shopping creates many teachable moments that parents can share with their little ones. However, toddlers are typically impatient and don’t have the stamina to make a full lap around the store. They are also bad about grabbing items and throwing them in the shopping cart, leading to a total meltdown when you have to explain that we can’t buy seven boxes of Lucky Charms to get each color of the magic decoder ring. Better to leave the kids with grandparents or a trusted babysitter.

Never shop hungry. I used to make the mistake of shopping on an empty stomach. Shopping while hungry makes everything look good and before you know it you’ve completely blown your grocery budget.

Bring a calculator. We use a cash envelope system for our household budget, so it’s important for us not to overspend and get embarrassed at the checkout. Take along a calculator to keep a running tab of your purchases. An easier method is to simply keep a tab on the back of your grocery list, rounding up items to the nearest dollar to make the math easier.

Look high and low for deals, literally. The hottest real estate on a grocery store shelf is eye-level, and is usually where the worst deals are found. Make the effort to look at lower shelves to find the best deals, and look for store-brand alternatives frequently stored along the top.

Search the end-caps. End-caps are the space at both ends of a grocery aisle where great deals can be found. We’ve discovered that end caps on a snack aisle (cookies, crackers, chips) often have the best deals because the idea is to draw shopper’s attention up the aisle. Save time and avoid walking the length of the snack aisle - the best deals are found at both ends.

Forget brand loyalty. Most of us grew up eating only one kind of peanut butter, or using only one brand of mayonnaise. If you want to save money on groceries you have to be willing to try new things. Using a coupon to get a different brand of peanut butter for half price makes sense, and I’ve learned to enjoy the taste of savings.

Store brands offer a cheaper alternative. Most people don’t realize that many manufacturers roll products off a conveyor and slap different labels on them - a national brand and a local store brand. Many generic or store products have nearly the same ingredients as their name-brand counterparts, but are much less expensive.

Compare unit costs, not list prices. Bigger packages don’t always mean cheaper prices. The calculator you brought along can help convert price to unit cost to compare which items are really cheaper. Simply divide the price by the total number of units (ounces, items, etc.) to get each package’s unit cost. Many times you will find it is cheaper to buy two smaller packages than one slightly larger. This is especially true of paper products, where stores rely on consumers believing the myth that bulk packages are cheaper.

Buy only the minimum amount you need. Many people are suckered into buying more than they really need by store’s “2 for $4″ sale prices. All this means is that the cost of each item is $2, and you can either buy one for $2, or 2 for $4. If you don’t need two items, just buy one. Some specials require a certain quantity, so be sure to check the fine print. If the pricing represents rock-bottom pricing, and you have more than one coupon, it may make sense to stock up, but don’t do it unnecessarily because the store’s signage persuaded you.

Don’t buy non-grocery items at the grocery store. Our primary store recently remodeled and included several middle aisles dedicated to plates, silverware, etc. These items are priced much higher than discount store equivalents. Resist the temptation to stray outside of grocery products.

Pick up toiletries, medicines and hygiene products at a discount store or pharmacy. Stores like CVS and Walmart typically have much better deals on toiletries and other personal care items than grocery stores. Unless you have a coupon that makes the price competitive, avoid these types of purchases at a grocery store. As an aside, Be Thrifty Like Us does a great job of reporting on deals at stores like CVS, and their “Frugal Friday” is a weekly must-read.

Look for manager’s specials in the meat department. Meat products have a “sell by” date and as that date approaches items that haven’t moved are tagged “manager’s special” or some similar designation. Many stores have a designated space for items marked manager’s specials, and other times the items are mixed in with regularly priced products. Ask the manager on duty if you need help finding special deals. If you plan to cook or freeze the meat right way you can find some great discounts on meats, which usually make up the largest percentage of our family’s grocery store budget.

Buy 2-liter soft drinks instead of cans. 2-liters represent a much better deal, even though they aren’t as convenient as canned soft drinks. If you must by canned drinks look for multi-unit specials on “fridge packs” such as a “3 for $10″ sale. A better plan would be to eliminate soft drinks from your diet altogether. Here is some inspiration if you are so motivated.

Keep eyes front in the checkout line. Candy, magazines and useless gadgets fill the sidelines of grocery store checkout lanes. These items typically represent the highest margin products for grocery stores. You are a captive audience while in line, and stores know that many of the items are bought on impulse. A couple candy bars to snack on during the ride home costs the same as a giant box of spaghetti noodles used to feed a family of four, with leftovers. Use the time more effectively to organize coupons, check your grocery list and get your loyalty card ready for scanning.

Recycle your grocery bags. Not only is this good for the environment, but many stores will offer a few cents off your grocery bill for each bag you bring in from home.

Keep an eye on the scanner. Grocery stores are notorious for incorrectly ringing up sale items. The other day I bought two loaves of a name brand white wheat bread on sale for $1.19 per loaf. The bread rang up $2.64. I notified the clerk who asked for a price check. Turns out I was right, and saved nearly $3.00 just by being observant.

Come here to get printable grocery coupons to save your money at the grocery store. You have come to the right place for coupons and more. Please view printable coupons to choose from in our large selection.

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