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7 Simple Ways to Cut Down on your Grocery Bill

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7 Simple Ways to Cut Down on your Grocery BillLiving on one salary has meant that we have had to really get honest about our monthly budget. One of the best ways to save or cut down on your expenses is honing in what you spend your money on. Since we all gotta eat, food and eating out seems to take a large portion of  your overall monthly budget. It is exceptionally costly to eat out here in Dublin – more than it was back home in Johannesburg. But there are ways we have learnt on how to lower our food costs each month. We still are able to eat out (selectively), but here are ways we have been able to cut down on our grocery bill.

  • Set a budget for take-out and eating out  – and stick to it.

Something we have gotten quite good at is getting creative on how we eat take out or eating out in general. We look for specials all the time. We often skip going out at dinner time because dinner is often more expensive, especially if there is alcohol involved. If we do plan on eating out, then we opt for brunch or lunch. One of or fave things to do over a weekend is make a big breakfast at home and then grab a coffee and or donut while we are out. It still gives us the same amount of joy, just works out cheaper.

  • Create your own take-out meals at home.

If we feel like take out we opt for getting frozen pizza or making nachos or burgers at home. It is super easy  to make and is more cost effective than if we were to order take aways.

  • Drink water – it’s free.

We try not drink during the week, not only does it help keep the costs down, but it is healthier! What I have noticed is how much money we can save if we skip drinking even non-alcoholic drinks and opt for water instead. We drink water straight from the tap, we crazy like that, and to be honest I think it tastes great.

  • Plan your meals for the week and meal prep what you can.

We have found that the minute we plan what we are going to eat – we spend less on food. We eat breakfast at home, and take a packed lunch to work. I try plan at least 4-5 dinners every week. This way we have some wiggle room for impromptu plans while we are out exploring or we eat the leftovers. On top of planning what we eat each week, I like to meal prep on a Sunday. We grill a bunch of chicken, chop some veg and boil some eggs. Easy things that we can grab and put a quick meal together. This is perfect to have on hand on the evenings we both get home late from work and the thought of starting to cook dinner from scratch sounds like too much admin to do.

  • Use what you have at home first before buying more.

When we plan meals, we stick to the plan. The rule in our house is we eat what we have at home before going and buying more food. The key to making this rule work is making sure that you have planned a variety of meal options for the week – if you stick to chicken and veg every day of the week, you will get tired of eating the same thing every day. But if you have different dinner ideas, then you have the option to change dinners around to what you feel like eating on that particular day.

  • Pick meals that use seasonal foods, and look for items that are on sale.

The best way to save money on the cost of food is to use seasonal foods that are slightly cheaper than if they were out of season. Our local Tesco keeps the food in season or on sale right at the front of the aisle. When we go shopping for food, I try incorporate these foods into the dinner ideas we plan for the week. Similarly, if its not on the plan for that week, even if it is on sale, I try stick to my shopping list. It is quite easy to get wrapped up on the sale items and buying for the sake of a good deal, does not save you money. Especially if you can’t eat it all, if you buy too much it causes unnecessary food wastage – which is one thing I hate to do. Besides, its very often the unhealthy food on sale – and we don’t any more of that in the house!

  • Avoid buying bulk if you know you won’t use it in a month.

This rule just helps keep the budget in check. If you buy a large amount of one thing, you might be saving money in the long run but it uses up your monthly budget pretty quickly. Unless you take that savings in the next month and put in savings, but not many people do that – you tend to not really see where that money goes in the end.

WHAT ARE SOME WAYS YOU TRY SAVE MONEY ON YOUR OWN GROCERY BILL?

Unlock the simple life,

~Meg~

p.s. If social media is your thing (snap! It’s my fave too!), you should totally follow me on Instagram.

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7 Simple Ways to Cut Down on your Grocery Bill

How to Declutter and Organise Your Home Like a Minimalist

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If you are looking to get rid of the clutter, live with less and keep your home organized like a minimalist, then I have some tips for you.

We started this “journey to less” last year when we packed up our house, sold most of our things online and moved to Ireland. I guess in some ways the best way to cut down and really organise your home is to move countries. If you are still looking to get rid of the clutter, live with less and keep your home organized like a minimalist, then I have some tips for you.

Looking to get rid of the clutter? Keep your home organized like a minimalist, with these tips Click To Tweet

The most obvious tip is that you need to start somewhere. There are tons of challenges or steps you can follow online, but just start in one room or aspect of your life and work your way through. The sooner you start, the sooner it will feel so overwhelming. Waiting for the right time to sort things out is the height of procrastination, trust me I get that but just start and slowly you will start seeing the space open up. Just starting somewhere creates this knock-on effect where you see results so you feel motivated to keep going.

With that in mind, it’s very hard to get it all done in one day, so be patient with yourself – it’s an ongoing process. If you do a little bit each day, it becomes manageable. Try focus on one room at time, and don’t move on until you are happy with the look of it.

The key is to keep the mission of decluttering top of mind. So replace things, and avoid adding more into your home without acknowledging that you are bringing more into the home. If you are always buying things and adding to your home that is when starts to feel overwhelming. Try work with what you have before you bring more stuff into your home.

Find a home for everything. The best way to beat that overwhelmed feeling of drowning in clutter is to keep things in their place. Once you finish using something, make sure you put it back in the same place every time. If everything has a home or a space, you will clearly see if you have space to add anything more.

Try limiting the urge to buy in bulk or stock up on things that will take you months to use up. It’s not really saving if you don’t actually need it. You will end up storing it in the cupboard, forget you have it, and never use it.

Actually use and enjoy your things. We talked about this the other day on my Facebook group, don’t save the candles for a special occasion, or let the fancy glasses gather dust. Why live with things that you just store away and never use? Lately I have been making a conscious effort to use the things we have, give the items in your home a purpose or a reason to hold onto them and if they don’t spark joy or make you happy – then why are you hanging onto them?

Get into the habit of straightening up your home for 5 minutes each day – make your bed, clear your counters, pack away the things you are finished using. I find that if I start my day with my bed made and my room tidied, I feel far lighter and I am generally more productive for the rest of the day.

These are just some of the things that I do each day to stay on top of the clutter. Don’t think that it will happen overnight and be kind to yourself as you go through this journey. If you focus on your reasons why you want to get rid of the clutter – it makes the experiencing of organising your home far more enjoyable. It is also important to remember that being a minimalist is not about limiting yourself, and have zero items. It is about being conscious about what you spend your time on. If you are forever cleaning and tidying a messy home, or if you are always feeling crowded by things – trust me once you let go and open up your home, you will enjoy being in your home. So light the candles; use the fancy bubble bath, pour a glass of that good wine – you don’t need a special occasion to enjoy your home. Make your home your sanctuary by clearing it of things that don’t spark joy for you.

And if you are looking for a challenge to get you started, why not join me in a #minsgame created by The Minimalists. The rules of the game are simple: on day 1 remove one thing from your home; day 2 you remove two things and so on; all the way to day 30 where you need to throw out 30 items. Items can be big or small; you can throw out in the trash, donate, give or sell but it has to be out your house by the end of that day. I am going to start the challenge tomorrow; you can follow along on my Facebook page or in my Instagram stories.

JOIN ME; LET’S GET RID OF THE CLUTTER! SO WHO IS WITH ME?

Unlock the simple life,

~Meg~

p.s. If social media is your thing (snap! It’s my fave too!), you should totally follow me on Instagram.

p.p.s. I try post varied content once or twice a month, to be sure you don’t miss out on the new post you should sign up and get all the news straight in your inbox – Sign up now!

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If you are looking to get rid of the clutter, live with less and keep your home organized like a minimalist, then I have some tips for you.

6 frugal ways to live off one income

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6 frugal ways to live off one income, and the hidden benefits you find when you do live off one salary.It has nearly been a month back at work for me, and with that comes the excitement of my first paycheck in 5 months. But while the experience of how we lived off one income is still fresh in mind, I thought it was important to share it with you. Firstly, to show that it can be done, secondly to share the hidden benefits we got from doing it, and thirdly to share our game plan for how we plan to now live with 2 incomes going forward.

First a bit of a disclaimer: I know that talking about money and finances is a bit of a hush hush conversation. No one likes to really talk about it. It is considered rude to ask how much people earn, although I am sure we all have secret thoughts imagining (or assuming!) what we think others are earning. I do think that talking about money and learning about budgeting is the number one key life lesson we all need to learn. So, while I am not going to tell you actual numbers and figures to what our salaries look like, I do think the more important part is the method, and how we managed to live off one income for 5 months (and still do fun things!).  I hope by me talking about our experience, it can help someone else who may be going through something similar (either by their own choice, or not).

and now, 6 frugal ways we lived off one income:

  1. Have a clear budget. If this is the only sentence you read out of this whole post, it needs to be this: The only way you can have a clear budget is if you are super honest with yourself Click To Tweet. List all your expenses, and figure out what you can and can’t afford given what you earn.
  2. Cut out the non-essentials. If your expenses are more than what you earn – something must be cut. Cancel some of your debit orders like gym contracts, and eating out, or try go on lower phone package. Read my post on 15 ways to save money.
  3. Keep saving. After you have cut down the non-essentials, hopefully this gives you a bit of wiggle room. It is important not to just try spending every cent of your income every month. Try save a little each month, for the months where you truly will need it.
  4. Where possible, use cash. I find that what worked best for us was to draw cash when we needed something, so that when we were at the store, we were forced to stick to what we had in our wallet. One of the biggest ways to over spend is to swipe your card and not track where that money is going.
  5. Learn to say no to things you can’t afford or don’t want to want to spend money on. Rob and I are serious people-pleasers. We have a hard time saying no to friends, and suffer badly from what young kids call FOMO (fear of missing out). But having one income meant that we were forced to learn to say no. And you know what? We didn’t lose any friends because of it! You will find that when you are honest with yourself and those around you, more people will relate to not having the funds to do absolutely everything. Your true friends will understand why you must say no sometimes, as hard as it is at the time.
  6. Get creative on how to get out of the house. I loved this part, I loved the challenge in finding free events to go to, and thinking up ways to still get out us out of the house and still exploring. It costs nothing to go for a walk, or take your sandwich outside and have a picnic in a park. We also learnt that it was cheaper to grab a coffee or share something small than eating a full meal or drinking loads of rounds.

The hidden benefits we found to living off one income:

  • One of the things you need to remember is that sometimes it is cheaper for one person to stay at home, than the cost for both of you to travel to work each day, lunches, and coffees out with the team etc. all add up. Also having one person at home means that they can manage the household tasks like cooking, cleaning, laundry and walking the dog.
  • I also learnt that I love finding bargains and getting creative with how to cut our costs even more. Even though we were on a tight budget with no line item for entertainment, I still found ways to save a little each week so that I could meet a friend for coffee, or we could afford to grab a donut or explore a bit of Dublin.
  • A side benefit to one income meant that we walked or cycled more, so we still got a bit of exercise in, to save on transport costs! Although I will admit that our diet has not been the healthiest, it is sometimes cheaper to eat bad food than it is to buy all organic, super healthy foods.
  • With one person managing the home and one person earning the income, it meant that when we were both together, we had more time to spend together and chill. Our weekends were completely free from admin and chores.
  • Living off one salary required us to delve deeply into how we were living previously, and forced us to make some hard decisions that ultimately set us on a better path going forward. In a lot of ways, I can truly say we are grateful for the learnings living off one income has given us. I am even more determined that our decisions to declutter, cut back or down on things that we don’t want to spend money on, have lead us to see the true value of our life lies not in being rich with money, but in learning how best to work with what you have. The greatest learning was figuring out that as a couple, we have gone from a his and hers view of money to our money and how we spend it is now a team decision. I know that that is not how some couples work their finances, and I know that other methods work for different fold, but it works for us.

So, what is the game plan now that we have 2 incomes coming in?

Friends can I just say how excited I am that we have travelled this journey to learning how to live frugally, live with less, and how to spend our money wisely. Going forward we want to take these lessons and keep doing what we have been doing. It means that now we will have a bit extra that will go into savings and investments, and most importantly travel. But for the most part, I don’t want our lives to change that much. I want to still get into a better work/life routine. We have new challenges we need to face; things like figuring out how to manage the household admin, commuting to work, how to get rid of our outstanding debt, save more and still get some travel and fun in. I can only think that had we not had this experience of living off one income for 5 months, we would not be able to make the best decisions now that we have two incomes. Life has a funny way of working things out, and gives you challenges you can learn and grow from can only help you in the long run. At the very least we have learnt that we can live off one salary, but we are incredibly grateful that we don’t have to any more.

HAVE YOU LIVED OFF ONE INCOME – ANY TIPS TO SHARE?

Unlock the simple life,

~Meg~

p.s. If social media is your thing (snap! It’s my fave too!), you should totally follow me on Instagram.

p.p.s. I try post varied content once or twice a month, to be sure you don’t miss out on the new post you should sign up and get all the news straight in your inbox – Sign up now!

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6 frugal ways to live off one income, and the hidden benefits you find when you do live off one salary.

How to live life simply and more intentionally

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In order to meet our goals we had to cut back on the frills, and through that, we found that life is great when we live life simply, and more intentionally.

When Rob and I decided to move to Ireland we were adamant to make the move to really getting comfortable with our budget, what our focus in life should be and how we were going to get out of debt to be able to live the way we wanted to live. It sounds super hippy, but we wanted to really know ourselves and really follow our own path. Too often in life we focus on things that appear to be a big deal, we focus on showing off our success by the cars we drive, the money we spend and the life that appears to be just perfect. But life is’t perfect, and trying to compare your life to that of others is setting you up to fail before you even start. You cannot compare your journey to anyone else. But you can figure out what you want and what makes you happy, and then steer yourself towards that goal. For us the huge focus has been on getting out of debt completely, to save, and to travel. In order to meet those goals we cut back on a lot of the frills, and really through that decluttering process we realised that life can be pretty sweet if we live it more simply, and more intentionally. Less is often more. I know I sound like I am just listing off a bunch of motivational quotes but this is truly what we believe.

To meet our goals we had to cut back, and found that life is great when we live life simply. Click To Tweet

Like with anything, learning to live with less is often first about becoming aware of our own internal dialogue. Sometimes I catch myself saying we need this, we should buy that, but upon further inspection – these are often fears of not fitting in, fears of not measuring up, and this feeling like we need instant gratification of buying something we actually don’t really need, and in some cases, don’t even want.

The big thing that we have learnt is to think through a big purchase. Sometimes it is due to the fact that we simply could not afford to buy it right then, but choosing to delay the purchase till the end of the month often makes you much more aware if you really needed it in the first place.

Using less means there is less wastage. Because we are so conscious of how much we have, and where our money goes. We have stopped buying food in bulk. We now stick to a weekly shop, and really work out what we plan to eat, and buy just what we need. It means that we don’t waste as much. We try eat up the food we have before we go and buy any more. What I have learnt is that if we keep to a meal plan, and allow pizza on Friday, we actually don’t ever feel like we are restricted, it is a bit like a flexible diet – although, not all together super healthy!

We don’t hold on to things just in case, it means that everything we have in our house, we use and love. I use to save beauty masks, and keep candles for special occasions. Now that we have cleared all the extra clutter, we now take time to light the candles, have spa days, and actually enjoy the simple things we have in our home. We don’t keep it stored in a cupboard, we don’t hide the things we love – we use them, or we let them go.

We have also learnt to say no when we really don’t want to do something. Not only if we don’t have the cash to afford an expensive meal out – if it doesn’t spark joy for us, we try not to waste money and time on it. So we have really learnt to un-busy ourselves. I like to keep at least one day a weekend completely free and unplanned. It leaves room in our diary, time to breathe, reset and focus on self care. I find having a day a week that is calm and uncluttered, helps improve my mood and clears my head.

Be aware how you spend your time and money. I did an exercise on my Facebook group a few weeks ago where I asked my community to share the last 5 purchases they made. When you start listing off coffees, and take out, and gifts, and impulse buy of a magazine, a cheeky top you got for half price. You can see quite quickly where your money is going, but also it gives you chance to evaluate that if given the chance – would you make the same purchase again? You should have no regrets when you spend your money. When you learn to live life more simply you will find that you will be a lot more cautious on your priorities and how you spend your money, but also how you spend your energy and time.

HOW DO YOU LIVE LIFE SIMPLY?

Unlock the simple life,

~Meg~

p.s. If social media is your thing (snap! It’s my fave too!), you should totally follow me on Instagram.

p.p.s. I try post varied content once or twice a month, to be sure you don’t miss out on the new post you should sign up and get all the news straight in your inbox – Sign up now!

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In order to meet our goals we had to cut back on the frills, and through that, we found that life is great when we live life simply, and more intentionally.

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