Expense reductions in plain sight

All of us are squeezed by higher inflation today, and we might cut back on meals out or stops for fancy coffee drinks. But sometimes the savings are in plain sight, and we just don’t see them.

I like strawberries or blueberries on my cereal and buy them fresh when they’re under $7.99 a carton, so I generally find them most weeks of the year at that price or less. [I know, that’s a pricy food habit, but at least it’s healthy.] Recently, my wife started adding strawberries a few times a week to her smoothies, so instead of one carton of strawberries a week, some weeks I had to buy two. It didn’t dawn on me that she was adding the most expensive form of fruit to grind up in the blender when she could have used frozen strawberries at a third the price. So I’ll get her to switch to frozen, and I think I can save about $5 a week.

And you might be thinking, “This guy’s boasting about saving a few dollars on some fruit?” Next is the granola I buy at the warehouse club. Generally, a larger bag at that type of store is a good deal, so I did some math. It costs me $9.39 for 35 ounces. The way I eat, I’ll get 12 servings from that bag, or $0.78 per serving. But I also like steel-cut oats, and I buy a 25-ounce bag for $4.55. My serving is ½ cup, so a bag will also provide 12 servings, or $0.38 per serving, which is half the price of the granola. Switching to eating more oatmeal will save another $1.50 per week because I’ll put a banana on the oatmeal ($.49 per pound) instead of fresh strawberries, which are 8 times the cost.

Next was the non-dairy beverage we use for smoothies, coffee, cereal, etc. We’ll buy soymilk, almond milk, or oat milk - the same brands all the time - but we never looked closely at the cost. It turns out there was a wide variation in the items we buy; $4.59 for soymilk, $2.99 for oat milk, and $1.33 for almond milk (a 6-box pack at the warehouse store). I knew the soymilk had increased from $2.99 over the past year or so, but since I never compared them, I didn’t realize the large price difference. Of course, there are nutritional differences, and some are better in certain recipes than others, but using soy or oat milk when I didn’t need to increased my expenses, maybe $2 per week.

Finally, my wife has a favorite wine at $10.49 a bottle. I find it unpalatable, but she buys it all the time. Then I found a Spanish Red that was vegan. She liked it, and I think it’s okay. [Yes, most wine is not vegan because an animal product is used during production. Who knew?] The best part is that the Spanish Red is only $4.99. So now my task is to get her to switch permanently from a $10.49 bottle to a $4.99 bottle and save $5 per week. And now you’re thinking, “This guy’s still adding up a few dollars here and there. How much could he really be saving?” [For those who haven’t read my books, in the Volume 1 Spending chapter, I go through the eye-opening results of the price-per-ounce exercise I did at different stores for the same and similar products.] There is a lot of money spent on food, and we can easily be duped into paying more without realizing it.

The answer isn’t how much on one or two items, but how much is saved across a year that matters. On these few items, the savings could be $13.50 a week, which could yield $700 per year on just 4 items. We didn’t focus on changing brands, which might yield additional savings. Nor did I go through other products we buy that could have savings. This happens because our habit is to reach for the items we bought previously before considering alternatives. Now, we probably shouldn’t consume the cheapest foods and beverages for other reasons, but our habits and assumptions might be costing us money, in plain sight.