The advent of the financial crisis, which resulted in a decrease in income and an increase in prices in stores, reminded us of the need to save money; just how to do it right? It is simply impossible to refuse to purchase essential goods, among which food, detergents and hygiene products come to the fore, and without buying new clothes and shoes, any woman will lose her attractiveness within a few years.
So what can you save on without unpleasant consequences for yourself and your family? After all, free money will never become superfluous - it can be directed in another direction, for example, organizing a joint trip to an ice skating rink or an entertainment center. What are they, the secrets of a thrifty housewife? Maybe in the matter of rational family budget planning, like in cooking, there are special recipes? Let's try to find out this right now, and try to understand what exactly will allow us to become more thrifty and economical.
Basic principles of saving at home
To get started, get a special notebook, similar to the one where family culinary recipes are kept. It is in it that you, as a zealous housewife, will begin to record all family income and even the smallest expenses. Within a few months you will have a complete picture of all costs. This will undoubtedly make it easier to identify the main points for further savings. After all, entries in a notebook will immediately indicate those expenses that were made without a specific need.
Many tips that will not only allow a woman to become a thrifty housewife, but also involve all family members in the process of saving, relate to everyday issues. After all, a considerable part of the money is spent on maintaining the apartment and the mandatory payments associated with this. Therefore, you can save money here too, while receiving certain benefits.
So, if among the main expenses of the family a significant amount is allocated to pay for utilities, every thrifty housewife will decide to install gas and water meters so as not to overpay the utility companies. To save on payments, do not waste resources, do not leave taps open, repair leaking plumbing fixtures in a timely manner, turn off the lights in rooms where no one is, install energy-saving light bulbs in the apartment. If you are going to buy new household appliances, you should pay attention to the class of this equipment, because the higher it is, the more economical the costs of using electricity and water.
If cell phone and internet costs are becoming a strain on your family budget, it may be time to change providers or upgrade to more cost-effective packages that will allow you to reduce costs in the future.
Secrets of economical housekeeping
Divide your budget into several expense items. You can put the money you receive into envelopes, which can be named exactly as the article sounds. For example, there must be envelopes “Food”, “Utilities”, “Healthcare”, “Unforeseen expenses”, “Deposit”. The latter is setting aside a certain amount of money for savings. For any salary, you can allocate a certain percentage to let the money grow. Open a bank deposit with the possibility of unlimited replenishment. Placing salaries in different envelopes should be supported by your determination not to mix flies with cutlets: if you have allocated a specific amount for food, there is no need to get into the budget for utilities. Always take with you only as much money as you can spend. It's better to make lists before going to the store. Make a list once a week, and then go buy everything you need.
Read specialized literature and immediately use the secrets of economical housekeeping gleaned from there. For example, G. Ogarev’s book “27 Laws of Economical Household Management” gives practical advice on mastering everyday science. Take time and read it. The author places the main emphasis on psychology, which is usually not given attention, relying on precise calculations. It is the ability to control oneself when purchasing that sometimes becomes the key to success in the difficult task of saving.
Study advertising technologies through which marketers skillfully manipulate the minds of consumers. Remember how often you succumbed to bright advertising promises of heavenly pleasure, spending half of the money you earned on trinkets. Understand that they are trying to control you, this will help you overcome the temptation to buy another expensive, but completely unnecessary product.
Many housewives advise switching from semi-finished products to natural products, from which you can cook whatever you want yourself. This statement is true for those who have enough time to cook. If you understand that the minutes spent could be used to earn money, opt for semi-finished products. In general, if your earnings depend on your efforts, try to minimize the time spent on housekeeping. Compare the cost of your time with the cost of unskilled labor you do at home. Perhaps, looking at this angle, you will come to the conclusion that it is cheaper to hire a housekeeper than to waste your precious time on cleaning.
How to save on food?
Many useful tips for thrifty housewives mainly include only recipes for dishes, the preparation of which is not expensive for the family budget, but the main savings lie not so much in the composition of the ingredients, but in home cooking. Our compatriots have long been accustomed to buying chopped salads, pizza in supermarkets, which you just need to heat in the microwave, packs of dumplings and dumplings, and other semi-finished products.
But thrifty housewives know very well that such products are expensive and are unlikely to benefit the body. Therefore, it is better to go to the market or, at worst, to a hypermarket on a weekend. Buy fresh vegetables, dairy products, meat and chicken, all kinds of greens, and then for a week prepare healthy dishes from these products, using old and inventing new recipes. Therefore, any economical and thrifty housewife needs to learn the first rule of rational shopping: high-quality natural food is not more expensive than health!
In order not to spend a lot of time preparing dinner after work, tinker with the meat in advance, cutting it into pieces, make semi-finished meatballs, which then you just have to fry. It’s also a good idea to learn how to create an approximate menu for the week, taking into account recipes for those dishes that will not be difficult to prepare even after a busy day at work. Turn to the experience of more mature housewives and listen carefully to advice, for example, from your mother. She probably knows many tricks related to the issue of saving.
Remember that a truly economical housewife does not waste anything, so there is no need to prepare huge pots of food, the remains of which will then be thrown away, and also fill the refrigerator to the top, since most foods spoil during long-term storage. This is the second rule of becoming more frugal: buy foods with a limited shelf life only in quantities that your family can consume in a timely manner.
The properties of flour and sugar depend on the storage conditions of bulk products, so if you buy such products in bags in order to save money, ensure their safety. To do this, you need to create ideal conditions in the room, for example, in a pantry, where there is no dampness. But you shouldn’t buy sunflower oil in packages - you can always choose it in any store. Here is the third rule that any thrifty young housewife needs to remember: shelf-stable products are indeed more profitable to purchase in bulk, but subject to a reasonable approach and the availability of suitable storage conditions.
To become more rational in your spending, teach yourself and the rest of your family not to go shopping without first having breakfast or lunch. Of course, there are force majeure circumstances when you need to go to the store after work. But at this time you are usually in a hurry, so you will quickly take only what you need and go home. Advice against shopping on an empty stomach applies to weekly trips to the supermarket, which are often done with the whole family.
If someone is hungry, especially children, then the variety of food temptations will quickly move into your cart, leaving no room for the truly important goods. And how surprised you will be when you sort out your purchases and discover that the amount of money spent does not correspond to the fullness of your refrigerator! Rule five: having a full meal before going to the store can be a good deterrent in trying to buy too much.
Thrifty housewife: how not to spend too much on food
The article is not mine, copied. But I liked the material.
I’ll say right away that the article is from 2013, but there’s a lot to think about!
Food prices are becoming more expensive every year, and spending almost half of your salary on food is a very real situation.
This happens not only because of the high cost of products, but also because of our laziness and disorganization. Imagine you bought some product, but forgot about it, putting it deep in the refrigerator. It has spoiled, the money is wasted, and you need to buy new sausage, cheese or cottage cheese, or greens, which spoil very quickly. It's a small thing, but unpleasant. Or you are so tired after work that you don’t have the strength to cook, and therefore you grab ready-made food or semi-finished products from the store, which are significantly more expensive than the usual “grocery basket”. Saving on products is quite possible. This requires a little cunning and a systematic approach to shopping.
Menu for the week. The menu will help you plan your food consumption and make your life much easier. Compiling it takes very little time - after all, few people prepare hot food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Remember what you usually eat in the morning: it will probably be enough to stock up on muesli, bread, cheese and ham for sandwiches, eggs, cereals or ready-made porridge. Working people usually have lunch in the office, and those who eat at home during the day can easily have dinner with the same dishes. By purchasing this meal kit, you will be provided with breakfasts and lunches for the whole week ahead. Consider several options for lunch and dinner. Experienced housewives combine the same combinations of products to create different dishes.
To the store - with a list . Supermarkets are designed so that the buyer “grabs” the excess, spending as much money as possible. A shopping list is a surefire way to avoid temptation. It is useful for inveterate spenders to take a limited amount of money with them. If you have an irresistible desire to please yourself with an unplanned dessert, introduce a rule: no more than one “extra” purchase per trip, or set a limit: do not exceed the planned “expenditure” amount by more than, for example, 3-4 lats. A good opportunity to practice mental counting: when you take a product from a shelf, remember its cost and add it to the price of the next product. It is recommended to round up so that the final amount does not come as a surprise to you.
Dishes are lifesavers. These are cheesecakes, omelettes, scrambled eggs, casseroles and sandwiches. They are great because they can be made from almost whatever is left on the refrigerator shelves. Rice or pasta from yesterday's side dish for lunch can go into a casserole in the evening, and the leftover potatoes and half the sausage are used in the morning omelet. Before you go to the store again, take a look at the refrigerator: perhaps the food left in it will last for another day.
Logistics in the refrigerator . Do not crowd the shelves so that you cannot see the rest of the products behind the pots, bags and packages in the first row. Place the largest purchases against the wall, place jars and small packaged products on the side shelves. Every time you look at it, figure out which products might go bad so you can use them first.
Do your accounting . Record all expenses or save receipts. At the end of the month, this will allow you to analyze how much money was spent on food. You can compare the cost of the same products in different stores and decide which one is more profitable. You may need to split your purchases into groups: dairy products will be cheaper and better quality in one place, and meat in another.
Don't be lazy to find a cheaper store for your "basic purchases" . Typically, convenience stores located near your home greatly inflate prices for everyday products. This is done with the expectation that residents of surrounding houses will run to the nearest store for bread, and not to the one where the prices are lower. Be smart: find a store in the area with better prices and try to buy all the necessary products there.
Seasonal vegetables and fruits - both health and savings. You don’t have to buy strawberries and grapes in January and then pay through the nose for watermelon and blueberries in the fall. Seasonal fruits and berries are much cheaper. In addition, imported exotics are less useful than those that grow in your region: they are much more likely to cause allergies, and the likelihood of containing nitrates is much higher. So we buy apples and sauerkraut - and provide ourselves with the necessary vitamins
Try to buy less prepared foods, cuts, semi-finished products, and so on . A whole chicken, in terms of price and weight, will be much cheaper than minced chicken or ready-made cutlets. It is more profitable to buy a whole piece of cheese or sausage than the same products in sliced and packaged form. Ready-made pizza and “just warm up in the microwave” lunches should appear on your table as rarely as possible.
source - https://www.delfi.lv/woman/zhizn/dom/ekonomnaya-hozyajka-kak-ne-tratit-lishnego-na-produkty?id=42988806
