Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Overcome Your Financial Blindspot (the Grocery Store!)

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

How to pay less for peas, quit tossing your carrots, and really, truly, make meals for one. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. So way back in week two, I told you about my golden spending plan.

70% for the essentials, 15% for the extras, and 15% for the endgame. Pretty simple, right? It's just three groups of costs and my personal favorite, there's alliteration involved. Well, okay, it's easy to remember but might not be easy to follow. So if you took the steps to put your own spending plan together, you may have had a hard time making all of the categories add up like money rehabber L. Here's her question. Hey, Nicole. I listened to your episode on budgeting and I made my spending plan. I feel like my expenses should be fitting within the 70% for essentials pretty easily because I'm actually making more money than I have before. But I'm actually seeing that most

months I'm spending more than I'm making in general. Can you help me get on track? I don't really know what's going wrong. Elle, I'm going to let you in on a little financial blind spot that everyone misses. The grocery store. It is so easy to overspend unnecessarily at the grocery store. I cannot pass go and collect my $200. Yes, that's a Monopoly reference, without flagging two things for you. First, budgeting on groceries is probably

groundbreaking for you if you're considered middle class. Now, I hate this terminology, so I'll just say instead, budgeting at the grocery store is probably a game changer for you if you're at a point in your life where you're making enough money to consistently be able to treat yourself every now and then without breaking into hives like Elle. However, that's not everyone's situation. I know there will be money rehabbers out there who know exactly how much they spend on groceries because money is tight. And I've been there with my calculator. And there will also be money rehabbers out there who have struggled with food insecurity. And I've been there too. So if grocery store budgeting feels beyond your reach right now, just remember that you

will get there, we will get there, and when we do, you'll be ready with the budget to knock it out of the park. Second, I want to make myself extremely clear here. So sticking with my Monopoly reference, I will be squatting in Park Place until the following message sinks in. I am not saying that you should buy less food than you need. That is not how to budget. And in fact, if you're budgeting correctly at the grocery store, you should be able to buy exactly as much food as you need. Groceries fall into the essentials category and should comprise of 5 to

10% of your spending plan. Sure, it depends on how many people you're feeding, but single people don't spend less on food automatically. For starters, if that's you, it's easy to say, oh, I don't want to cook a whole big meal thing just for myself, so I'll just order in. And because you're flying solo, you don't have the accountability buddy with you to say, hey, this delivery fee is kind of whack, so let's cook instead. Also, most grocery stores don't sell single servings of stuff like tomatoes or burgers. If you buy a pound of meat and only eat one portion, that's not saving anything. It's just a waste of money and food.

So here's where I want you to start. Next week, keep a very close track of how much you are spending on food. I mean everything. Groceries, dinners out, the snack you bought at the gas station, any other groceries like laundry detergent. And see if you're spending within the 5% to 10% range of your spending plan. And then ask yourself, are you actually using what you buy?

And if not, quit buying. Like when you go to the doctor and you say, it hurts when I do this, and the doctor says, don't do this. Did you know Americans throw away around $165 billion of perfectly good food every single year? In fact, 40% of all the food in the United States goes uneaten. Are you guilty of this? I mean, it's not that hard to do, right? You go grocery shopping without a list and you buy all these random ingredients

that don't actually work with anything you have at home. Or you go find a new recipe that you just have to try so you go grocery shopping again and all the food you got on your last trip gets pushed into the no man's land section of your fridge. No woman's land. Fuck the man. You gotta cut that out.

Instead of scrolling through TikTok for new recipes, look at what you already have and put those ingredients into Google. Say your last grocery trip, you got leeks and strawberries. I don't know what you were thinking, but it's happened to me. So Google recipe with leek and strawberries. It's just that simple. And along the way, you'll learn new recipes that may become your next favorite meal. If you're still reeling from that stat about food waste, I have a solution for you. There's this app I love called Too Good To Go, which tells

you the spots in your neighborhood that are putting food on sale that they would have to throw out at the end of each day. And this isn't things like milk that's expired two days ago. This is like two dozen perfectly good same-day bagged bagels, and you're getting them for pennies on the dollar. So you save money and you combat food waste. That's a textbook win-win, right? Maybe you're a foodie and you're thinking, 5% of my spending plan should go to groceries, but I spend 20% and I can't trim any fat, so to speak. Well, Gordon Ramsay, I would say this to you. How much are you spending on extravagant meals out? How often do you download a recipe and notice you're missing three of the spices

so you rush order some grocery delivery just because you have to make Moroccan food tonight? First of all, Moroccan food sounds wonderful. My family is Moroccan and now I want some all, Moroccan food sounds wonderful. My family is Moroccan, and now I want some couscous. We should be friends. Invite me over for dinner, but I hate to break it to you. Those costs do not go into essentials. If you're splurging on going out to dinner or extravagant meals at home, that's exactly what it is. An extravagance. A splurge. It's not an essential. But that doesn't mean you should never do it.

Throw those costs into the extras category and budget for some treats. Here's a tip for you foodies who are chefing it up on the daily. Check for substitutions before you buy new novelty items. Spices are sneakily expensive. Saffron? $18 a pop. I mean, I can make a whole meal for $18. Easy. So if you fall in love with the recipe but don't have some of the ingredients, look up some common substitutions and see if you can use something that you already have. Who knows, maybe using some substitutions you'll come up with the next big flavor craze.

And for the other side of the spectrum, you snack connoisseurs who are down for Fritos for dinner. Yes, packaged foods and snacks with a million ingredients you can't pronounce might be perpetually on sale and seemingly cheap and easy, but you don't need to compromise your health for cost. Yes, organic food should be more easily accessible. I totally agree. But you'd be surprised if you just Google cheap healthy meals, how many great recipes come up. Plus, studies have shown that buying healthy food and cooking at home, as opposed to cheap fast food and prepared meals, are actually less expensive in the long run. A typical family of four will spend nearly $30 for a meal at a drive-thru window, while a basic and nutritious meal of rice, beans, and fresh vegetables makes

enough for a few days' worth of leftovers for less than $10. Winner, winner, tofu dinner. And you'll likely end up spending less money once you get the hang of shopping and meal planning this way. And yeah, the last time I checked, an apple was less expensive than a bag of Cheetos. Plus, you'll skip the hospital bills that you might incur if you get a kidney stone from all that salt or, you know, turn orange. Here's today's tip you can take straight to the bank. Stretching your meals doesn't have to be boring. The convention forever has been that you stretch your meals by making one big pot of something on Sunday night and eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all day next week. Hell to the no!

What you should do instead is make one big batch of protein, like chicken or tofu, which is cheaper than meat, thank you very much. And then rotate that into different meals. On the first day, throw your protein into tacos. The second day, use your protein leftovers in a salad. On the third day, throw it into a pasta. On the fourth day, send me some Kleenex because I will truly be crying happy tears of pride for you. That's all for today's episode. I will see you tomorrow for some more Money Rehab. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from

Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the Thank you. and get it all.