How to save money as a family

The family budget depends on family circumstances. There is no right way to keep a joint budget. T—F talked a lot about the successes and mistakes of families in various situations:

How to live together on 40 thousand rubles and save at the same time
How to keep a separate family budget
How to keep a family budget when the wife earns more than her husband
How to manage a family budget if you have an unstable income and a mortgage
How to keep a family budget before the wedding
How to keep a family budget if you moved to another country

Children and money. I was never taught to save, and as a child I never had savings. At that time, I used everything that fell into plastic rifles, firecrackers and ice cream.

Are your kids good at managing money?

My parents did not know that there were principles to help teach a child to save:

Don’t buy anything on demand. The purchase must be conscious and desirable.
Let the child choose. Don’t push.
Help create a sound financial plan.
Do not buy yourself – offer to save.
Get your child two envelopes: one for spending, the other for savings.
Do not be afraid of bad spending.
As a drastic measure, you can let your kids manage their own budget.

How to save on groceries

I am horrified when I imagine how much I would save on groceries if I had been given advice from T-Z when I was a child.

I studied the approaches of Svetlana, who saves 50 thousand on groceries, Viktor, who and his wife spend 10 thousand per month on groceries, and Lena, who lived on 5000 R, and highlighted general recommendations.

Experiment: I ate free for a week

Make a shopping list. Remember that all marketers in the world are powerless against the guy with the shopping list. The list will help you not to miss anything and avoid unplanned expenses. For example, I do not use a shopping list, so I often take too much.

It is necessary to make a shopping list not before going to the store, but at the moment when there is a need for a product. And make it not on a piece of paper, but on the phone, which is always at hand. They took the last bag of tea out of the box and wrote it down in notes: “Tea.”

Cook at home. When I buy tea in a cafe, I pay not only for a bag, sugar and water, but also for the work of employees and the rent of the premises. If I make tea at home, I only pay for the tea. The same happens with everything else: meatballs, salads, soup or dumplings.

Don’t go shopping hungry. When I come to the store hungry, I buy what I want to eat now, but I don’t really think about the benefits and price of the products. Remember: a well-fed person is a reasonable person.

Don’t buy a lot of perishable foods. It’s simple: you may not have time to cook them. For example, if you buy 25 bunches of green onions at a discount, but then throw away some of them, it’s like overpaying.

Stop eating fatty meats. Two arguments: fatty meat is more expensive and harmful to health.

Don’t buy energy drinks. I got off energy drinks because I learned that the main substance in energy drinks that invigorates is caffeine. There is nothing more wonderful about them. I also calculated that one energy drink contains about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. But coffee is more profitable energy and more pleasant, especially grain.

Make coffee at home. A cappuccino in a coffee shop costs 100-300 rubles. The price includes the salary of the barista, the cost of renting a place and equipment. I worked as a barista for a long time and I think that the same coffee at home can be made for 10 rubles.

How much does it cost to make delicious coffee at home

In addition to these general principles, there are special ways to save on products. Good savings are obtained if you purposefully hunt for discounts in stores. These people are called cherry pickers.

Another separate method is to buy products at wholesale bases and through ads. Another way to save money is to bring down the price. Read how to trade properly.