The ‘other half’ of the diary!
lifestyle
Most of what goes up on Instagram comes from me, Kezia. While I tend to do the posting, the journey is definitely both mine and my husband’s. In between his…
This week I did one thing I’ve been meaning to do for weeks. (Meaning to, but then real, mum life keeps happening, sleep keeps not happening, and I feel like my brain doesn’t work!) This week I finally I took my receipts from grocery shopping and sat down to do some price comparisons. Yes, I’m a budgeting** junkie.
I don’t have time (or the patience) to shop at a ton of different places, but there’s a good balance between effort and savings that’s different for everyone and mine balance is using physical local shops, Amazon, and Thrive Market. So far I’ve been shopping randomly on Thrive after signing up for Christmas shopping. (See my later tip on that!)
But you know me, I wanted to be strategic with spending so I grabbed my receipts, hopped on the Thrive Market website and did some comparisons to see what I could buy more cheaply there. If you’re US based I’d encourage you to do the same comparison and see if it can save you. They say they’re Costco meets Wholefoods but the prices on some things (NOT everything!) are a lot lower than our local stores so I wanted to cross check.
EDIT: I had to include this comment from below because it sums up THE perfect way to use Thrive:
“I, too, planned on using Thrive for a month and then canceling! But our peanut butter consumption alone has saved us the $$$. What I do is add items to my cart on the app as we are getting low at home. I did spend the time to figure out what is always less expensive on there. And most everything we buy “packaged” is. Once I have reached the amount needed for free shipping, I watch for a day when they are giving away something fun and order on that day. That way I can still try out the fun, flashy items that I wouldn’t normally purchase with out spending the money!
I found our toothpaste and organic tamari are both $2 cheaper there, and the pasta we bought this week was a few bucks cheaper too, along with laundry detergent and a handful of other products. Here’s the takeaway for you – I’d suggest you do one of two things:A) ONE TIME STOCK UP: Using your grocery receipts, find all the things that are cheaper on Thrive Market, do a one month trial, stock up, and cancel. (I shamelessly did this at Christmas, except I loved it so I kept my subscription!) Bulk buy with the good prices, and make sure you also get the deal of free shipping and 20% your first three orders (see the bar at the top/bottom!). Then say bye bye.
B) BECOME A MEMBER: If you think it could save you MORE than $5 a month (which is what the subscription costs) then keep the subscription and save year round. That’s what I ended up doing. And partner up with another family and shop together and split the cost of the membership – I’m pretty sure that’s allowed! For some people who live far away from great health food stores it might serve you differently. Potentially it will could then be less about saving you money but more about giving you access to a huge range of healthy options. I can’t tell you how often I hear people in our small town complain that there isn’t a Wholefoods. Well, here it is. Or if you do have some kind of store, it could solve accessing some of the things you guys comment and tell me you can’t find access to locally like sprouted spelt flour, organic nut butters sold in glass, and great protein powders.
MY DISCLAIMER
I’m going to come out and say this, if you’re trying to stick to a budget and you’re someone who gets caught by shiny products at the grocery store (you know you you are!), someone who tends to off road when it comes to meal planning and sticking to the list… don’t even get on the website! You will see every shiny new fun brand and product on the market, all at ‘slashed’ prices, and while they’re basically all great products and can probably save you money, if you’re on a set budget you NEED to have the self control to manage your shopping cart, do price comparisons, and make it work for YOU! And this girl over here doesn’t want to be responsible for you overspending on a fun website and ending up with fancy pants granola bars, collagen supplements you didn’t want, and home products you didn’t need, when I was trying to help you SAVE your dollars! K?
That said, I do actually highly recommend that you see if it can save you, and then use it really really smartly if you have need for it.
Here’s my challenge, hop on and compare at 5 products you usually buy and see if it could save you $5 a month! Tell me what you think!
**I use the work budgeting not to mean just spending less. I actually often spend way more than the average person on a certain product. $6 toothpaste? $200 jeans? Yep. We spend money to live by the values we care about. (And if you’re wondering, those are ethically made organic, non GMO cotton jeans from a company that offers free repairs!) But that means we have to really work our budget to serve us and our desires well. So we’ll hugely save where we don’t have to spend, to be able to spend more in the areas we care about. So we work very carefully with every cent we earn to allocate it to be spent in a certain area, to make sure bills are covered in advance, and that we’re not overspending in any certain part of life. People have asked if I’ll do a video about life budgeting across the board, honestly I don’t feel like a pro enough to talk about it but maybe Jared and I can hop on and do something informal if people want!
