George Kamel - Grocery Hacks for Frugal People

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!    If you find yourself saying, “Oops, I Did It Again” every time you see your grocery store receipts, not to worry, Britney fan. In this video, get the best grocery saving tips from thrifty shoppers so you can stay under budget (without sacrificing the fancy cookies).    Next Steps:  📗 Order George Kamel’s new book, Breaking Free From Broke.  🎥 Watch my video Budgeting for Beginners | The Only Budgeting Method You Need to Worry About!     Connect With Our Sponsors:  This episode is sponsored by DeleteMe. 🔒 Remove your personal information from the web at joindeleteme.com/george and use code GEORGE for 20% off. 🙌     This episode is also sponsored by Laurel Road. 💸 Open a high-yield savings account and make your savings work harder for you. Check it out here: laurelroad.com/george.  This episode is also sponsored by Tello, a mobile service plan designed to save you money. Go to tello.com/George for $5 off your first month of Tello’s unlimited data plan.    Explore More From Ramsey Network:  🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💼 The Ken Coleman Show  📈 EntreLeadership    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you know the average household spends $475 per month on groceries? That's around $5,700 per year. It's a lot of dough. But I don't have to spit stats to convince you food is expensive. You can almost feel your man-purched pucker when you walk by the avocados at Whole Foods. Sorry, cross-body bag. Don't at me, Gen Z. Oh, no, no, we're totally chill with that.

Sure, you can clip coupons and buy generic, which are solid ways to save money, but what are the most solid ways? What are specific things real people are doing right now to save big money on food? Well, I went to the most frugal people I know to find out. Dave Ramsey fans. And in today's video, I'll share their best hacks to save on groceries. And spoiler, it's more than just eating generic brand rice and beans. But before we jump in, give those like and subscribe buttons a little tippity tap.

And share this video with your friend who's currently at Whole Foods spending their whole paycheck. So where did I find all these uncut grocery gems? The Ramsey Babyseps Millionaires Facebook group, a treasure trove of knowledge, entertainment, and the occasional bickering over withdrawal rates and retirement. If you know, you know. No one knows what you're talking about, man. Here was the question posed by Casey in the Facebook group. What's everyone doing to save money on groceries?

Now, lucky for you, I've combed through this culinary council of 383 comments to bring you only the best responses and maybe some of the worst. Starting with Michael, not eating. Oh, you are funny, Michael. Okay, let's get to the real tips. Aaron said, our local grocery store does discount meat that needs to be sold that day. I'll buy that in bulk if I get during the mornings in time and freeze it. That has saved quite a bit of money.

This is a great tip. I think people forget that you can free stuff to make it last longer. That's what we used to do back in the day. And before that, we just use salt and somehow that worked too. And question, RFK Jr., if you're watching, which I assume you're a fan, does bear meat freeze well? Asking for a friend. Here's a comment from Lori.

I focus on purchasing the products we like to use when they're on sale so we don't have to pay full price when they're needed. I also find I spend less when I order online and use curbside pickup. I always select one of the free pickup times so I don't have to pay for the service. It also saves time, so it is a win-win. Love this. So there's two things here. Number one, if something's on sale that you generally use a lot of, go ahead and buy more of it so that you're not paying full price three weeks from now

when it's not on sale anymore. And the second piece is ordering online curbside pickup using the free pickup times. That is a huge win and can save you from impulse buying a bunch of random crap you didn't actually need. Next comment. It's coming from Curtis, who said, six fat chicken breasts made 14 copycat chick-fil-a sandwiches. Stop eating out and do copycats. And he so kindly included photos of his chicken sandwich, which I got to say, they do look pretty good. Now, Curtis, the team and I, we're trying to figure out the math on this, because you had 14 sandwiches from six large chicken breasts. Now, I'd understand if you had 12 sandwiches, because that's half of each

large chicken breast per sandwich. But somehow, you use slightly less. than half the breast, which means at the end you have like a little bit of each of the six chicken breasts left over. Did you make nuggets from that? Is this a new life hack that you're gatekeeping from us, Curtis? We need answers, man. Our secret recipe is a secret. But I do love the idea of recreating restaurant meals at home because a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich is now over five bucks. So making 14 sandwiches with six large chicken breasts, that's going to save you a whole lot of money. And number two, it's probably healthier because we don't know what these restaurants are putting in their stuff.

Have you seen the ingredients list on it? Let's put up the ingredients list on a chick-fil-A sandwich. I can't even think of that many ingredients. Our next comment is from Eliza. Eat at other people's houses, L.O.L. Not a very sustainable plan, but I will allow it. And it did remind me of a great idea that I like to do with my friends, and that is a supper club.

It's what we call on the South. It's not dinner, it's supper. A lot more wholesome somehow. So here's how it works. You invite a bunch of friends over. You agree on a certain type of meal. For us, last night, it was Panini night. So if someone brought a Panini press,

Someone brought some bread, someone brought the meat, someone brought the cheese, someone brought some arugula. And we had quite the time, and it didn't cost any of us that much because everyone pitched in to make one wonderful meal. So find some friends. Write that down, write that down. Moving on, we've got Justine. Cook at home and make double batch and freeze, i.e., I make a large pan of lasagna, and it feeds our family of four for several dinners and lunches, and it costs about $15 to make. Absolutely, yes. I think one of the things that keeps people from eating at home is they feel.

feel like it's a hassle. They got to make dinner every night from scratch, but you don't have to make a brand new meal from scratch every day, because if you learn to love leftovers, you'll have money, leftover. Dead joke. Next comment, Tim, we eat out more, keeps the grocery bill real low that way. Someone give this man some breadcrumbs because he's being a silly goose. It blows my mind that people think eating out is cheaper than eating at home. Now, I think and hope Tim is joking, because we know, you know, I know, that restaurants charge a 300% markup because they got to pay the bills, they got to pay their people, they got to make a profit, they got to stay in business.

So you are not winning. And if you think you are, you're eating very low quality, terrible food that will sooner than later kill you. Now, I did see a commercial for Golden Corral the other day, and here's their new marketing tagline. It's cheaper than groceries. This is better than cooking at home. More affordable.

If that's true, you've got to ask yourself, what's really on that buffering? What's going on over there? Move over, is it cake? Because Golden Corral needs a new Netflix show called, Is it Food? And the answer is always no. Never food. Then what is it?

Jennifer said, grow your own. Even a small container garden helps. She said kids can grab snacks. I don't know why snacks is in quotes, out of the garden whenever they want. All right, I like this little house on the prairie, homesteading kind of life you've got. I don't personally have a garden,

but this sounds like an idyllic life to me. You know, just walking out of the house yanking up a carrot to munch on Bugs Bunny style. I think we gotta go back to that. And if there's an apocalypse, I'm going to Jennifer's house. She's gonna be alright. Okay, we've got some more grocery tips to cover, but first, I want to tell you about Delete Me,

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from hundreds of these data broker sites, and they send you an easy-to-read report outlining exactly what they did, and how much time they saved you, which for me, it's 44 hours already, which is more time I can spend clipping coupons on hummus or Baba Ginoosh if you're nasty. So help protect yourself from the risks of online scams and data breaches with DeleteMe. And right now, you can get 20% off by going to join DeleteMe.com slash George, or just click the link in the description. And before we get to the next money-saving grocery tip, let's talk about what you can do

with all this money you're saving. If you're stacking cash for a vacation or down payment on a house or numerous pounds of nearly expired meat to freeze, your money should be working for you. And for that, I recommend a high-yield savings account like the one offered by Laurel Road, one of the sponsors of today's video. Right now, your account balance earns 5% APY. Plus, no minimum balance required, your deposits are FDIC insured, and there's no hidden fees.

And if you need to talk to a real human being, Laurel Road's got those two. Their premium care team will take premium care of you. Learn more by going to Laurelroad.com slash George or click the link in the description. All right, back to the hacks. Here's another comment from Becky, who said, buying more frozen fruit and vegetables than fresh. They last a lot longer. Yes, take advantage of the freezer.

Great way to minimize waste. I always try to be the hero and go, we're going to eat some fruits and veggies this week. And then they sit and I'm like, is it ripe? Is it not ripe? Is it too ripe? Is it overripe? I have no idea.

Should it taste this sour? Why is that happening to me? So I do think it's wise to buy frozen fruit and veggies if you may not use it all at once to avoid a lot of food waste. Very smart. Here's another comment from Nate. We do online order pickup, prevents all impulse food purchases when you're actually in the store, and also you can see the final cost of your order before submitting.

So if trying to keep it under a certain budget amount, you can adjust or remove stuff as needed before submitting the order. Then we go pick it up later in the day or next day if ordered at night. We budget $110 per week for our family of five in Indiana and have never went over for the last three years now since starting online ordering. That is impressive, my friend. And I like this. Online ordering, picking up at the store with something people mentioned a lot in the comments. but I do love the fact that you can see your total before you ever hit the submit button,

which definitely can help keep you under budget. Next comment is from Wyatt, who said, I boil turkey hot dogs and drink the water. It's gross. Like, tell me you're a NASCAR fan without telling me you're a NASCAR fan. And what a waste of a perfectly bad hot dog?

Because what are you doing with the hot? Are you just drinking the water for hydration? Is there extra hydration and turkey hot dog water? Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to, buddy. Next comment comes from Paul. I purchased a $20.00-dollar rice maker. Every month and a half, I purchase a $20, 20-pound bag of rice.

I purchase 60 eggs every three weeks for approximately $15. I purchase frozen veggies every two weeks. I put rice and frozen veggies in the rice maker, scramble four eggs, and put all of that together for my meal every day. Very cost-effective while giving me the nutrients I need. Wow. This felt like a common core math rattle, man. He's like, two and a half weeks,

then every three weeks, I get the veggies, and then I get the eggs every two. You're impressed, man. You don't need to go any further. We are impressed. But to respect the hustle. And most people, they're simply not willing to do this. You know, eat the same food every single day.

But it's a great example of how you can buy some simple ingredients and get a whole lot of meals out of them. Our next comment comes from Allison, who said two meals a day, drinking more refrigerated filtered water, leftovers, Aldi, breakfast for dinner, three to four ingredient meals, limiting kids snacks, buying generic, no sweets or rarely, more protein to stay full longer. My girl, Allison, and she's writing a book on grocery savings over here. She's just throwing the hack after hack. Just can you even keep up, bro?

Something worth noting here. Shopping at affordable grocery stores like Aldi, this came up a lot in the comment section. So if you have one in your area or a similar discount grocery store, take advantage of this. This is how real people save real money. These are the hacks. And all of these are going to take a little bit of work,

a little bit of sacrifice, a little bit of compromise. So here's what I'll add to this already amazing list. Crunch some numbers while you shop. Look at the packaging, look at the price, and figure out the cost per serving. I mean, you're trying to decide between two similar products. Don't just look at the price. Pay attention to the price per ounce or the price per item to help you make the best decision and get the best deal.

But I get it. Food is expensive. Inflation is real. But listen, there's still plenty of things you can do to save money on groceries. Don't just go woe with me. Someone needs to fix this. You have a lot of control when it comes to your spending. So don't tell me you can't do it.

Just tell me you're unwilling to do a little extra work. And some of that extra work means making and sticking to an intentional spending plan. Because when you've made a plan for your money before the month, begins, you can traips down the aisle at Trader Joe's with confidence. Plus, you can always adjust your plan as the month goes on. The best app for this is every dollar. It makes it super easy to track all of your purchases. You can move your numbers and categories around.

You can see where you can cut in other areas to create some margin. I did a whole video showing people how to create a budget from scratch using this app. So if you want to check it out, just click here or click the link in the description below. And if you want to find out for yourself, you can go check it out. There's a link in the description to start using every dollar today. Thanks for watching. next time.