If your household was a manufacturing plant, you’d be “sourcing” to the nth degree. This means finding the best vendor for your supplies, but most especially for your keystone supplies.
In my businesses, I need toner and paper—but most especially, legal paper, which varies wildly from $5 a ream to $12 a ream for the same quality. It all depends on the vendor. Seeking out that $5 vendor and developing a plan to find a better deal and a backup vendor is key to frugal success, not to mention, profitability.
A quick-and-easy way to do this with your household economy in mind, is to take a look at your grocery receipts over a couple of weeks—and circle the ten most expensive items on each.
Maybe they’re the same? (At my house the most expensive items were consistently beer, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, and pull-ups).
Beer is a bit of a sacred cow. I’m afraid my dear husband isn’t about to let me tinker with more frugal solutions to that at this time. (honey, home brewing is trendy!), The others were easy targets. I switched from our favorite laundry detergent which was about $15/mo to a home-made version at just over $2 a year. Dishwasher detergent I now cut 50-50 with washing soda, and the pull-ups are getting replaced with cloth diapers. Talk about savings—between those changes I’m saving about $32 a month.
Consider other “vendors” to your household. Where do you spend money that you could re-source? Here’s a few starting places:
1. Food
2. Cell phone provider
3. Cable TV provider
4. Pharmacy
5. Medical insurance
6. Auto Insurance
7. Home Insurance
8. Banking: Debt and Investments—are you getting the best bang for your buck?
This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazette