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Do IT this week: Layering
Frugal mom feeds family of five on $300 a month. Here's her coupon-free plan
By Lisa Abraham
Beacon Journal food writer
Published on Wednesday, Jun 25, 2008
Tawra Kellam claims she can show you how to feed your family on just $300 a month.
With the rising cost of groceries, it might seem Kellam is boasting the impossible.
But the Kansas homemaker and home-business operator not only feeds her family of five on that amount, but until recently she and her husband managed to live comfortably on $35,000 per year.
Kellam's specialty is frugality.
No, she's not spending her days clipping coupons. In fact, Kellam said she uses only about 10 coupons a year.
But she does employ a strict strategy when it comes to feeding her husband and three children, ages 10, 9 and 4: discipline.
''Everybody is hollering about food prices. But every single time I go grocery shopping, I still see baskets filled with pop and juices and bottled water,'' Kellam said.
Kellam is editor of the learn-to-be-frugal Web site http://www.LivingOnADime.com, and co-authored with her mother, Jill Cooper, the book Dining on a Dime.
''The reality is the food budget will go up about $50 a year with the increasing cost of staples,'' Kellam said.
And staples are the kinds of items that Kellam buys to control her budget. She doesn't buy prepackaged convenience foods or items like bottled water when a container and her kitchen tap will do the same job.
Kellam, 35, learned her frugal ways growing up. After her parents' divorce, her mom was left with $35,000 in debt, and two daughters to raise on a $1,000 monthly income, an amount that dropped to $500 when Cooper became ill. The family learned to sacrifice and cut corners, but also learned to save money for things they really wanted.
Cut out junk food
Her advice is practical and old-fashioned, the kind of things our grandmothers did to save money, but that have fallen out of practice in our quest for convenience. Change your ways and you can save hundreds of dollars each month, Kellam
contends.
Remember when pop was a special treat at the holidays, not a regular on our refrigerator shelves?
It still is in Kellam's house.
Junk food and convenience foods are one of the biggest areas where most families could see significant savings, she said.
That's not to say that Kellam doesn't buy treats, but she buys in small amounts, which forces her children to make them stretch through the week. Each week she buys one package of cookies — Oreos are a family favorite. But her children aren't allowed to take the whole package, plop down in front of the television and start chowing down. Instead, she portions them out, three cookies per day per child.
While that may sound tightfisted, Kellam said she accomplishes two goals — controlling the amount of sweets her children consume, and helping her stretch her food dollars.
She employs the same strategy with chips. She buys one bag each week and when they're gone, they're gone. ''I won't make a special trip to the store to buy snack food,'' Kellam said.
Pop and junk food are areas where she sees many families have no discipline. ''People get lazy and they don't want to do it,'' she said.
She doesn't hesitate to tell her children to use their allowances to pay for their own treats. Once when her son was complaining because she wouldn't buy a $4 gallon of chocolate milk, she suggested he use his own money to buy it if he wanted it so badly. He did, only to find his savings $4 short when he went to purchase a digital camera for which he had been saving.
Kellam believes the incident taught her son a lesson in money management, and in life — he may have to sacrifice something he wants immediately to achieve a longer-term goal.
Money-saving tips
Her other advice:
• Shop for sales and stock up on good deals, rather than clipping a lot of coupons and buying at warehouse stores. She recently purchased 80 pounds of ground beef when it was on sale. She shared the meat with her mother and sister, and now all of their freezers are well stocked.
She looks for marked-down items and freezes them before their expiration date. Often, shoppers are afraid there's something wrong with clearance items, but stores are often just trying to make space for incoming merchandise and put items on clearance to get rid of them quickly.
• Buy store brands or other low-priced brands. Kellam said with a few exceptions — Hershey's syrup being the main one — she always buys the store brand. Kellam also noted that most stores offer a money-back guarantee on their store brands, so you can try them risk-free and simply return them if you aren't satisfied.
• Don't be afraid to ask for a better deal.
Kellam recalled the time when she was at a farmers market near closing, and she asked one vendor if he was willing to cut her a deal on peppers. He offered her an entire boxful for $1, because he didn't want to have to take it home.
• Be frugal, even if you don't have to be. Until recently, Kellam and her husband were earning about $35,000 a year. When their income increased to about $65,000, Kellam said they continued to maintain the same lifestyle they led while earning less.
The result was they were able to bank nearly $30,000 in a year and purchased a new home in suburban Wichita.
Now their goal is to pay off their current mortgage in five to seven years.
''We would rather have the security of not having debt. . . . We don't fight over money. We have peace,'' she said.
Until next week, have fun in the kitchen, practicing your own frugal ways.
Lisa A. Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or labraham@thebeaconjournal.com.
Tawra Kellam claims she can show you how to feed your family on just $300 a month.
Get the full article here.
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