A mom of two crushed by her grocery bills decided to take matters into her own hands. She devised a money-saving method with a handy acronym, and when it saved $1,000 for her family on groceries every month, she shared it with the world.
Becky Guiles, 42, is a mother and entrepreneur from upstate New York. She and her husband, Jason, have two children together: George, 8, and Colden, 6.
Guiles told The Epoch Times: “Our grocery costs were increasing at a rapid rate. Some months I was paying $1,400 or more for our family of four! It was killing our budget, I had to do something.
“I did hours and hours of research ... I needed a plan that didn’t take me hours a week in planning, coupon clipping, or running to a million different stores chasing sales.”
Guiles then came up with the BORES method, a five-step action plan for saving money on groceries that is easy to remember and follow.
The BORES method states: B=Budget (Guiles recommends $100 per person, per month), O=Organize (check the pantry before you shop), R=Reduce/Reuse (such as using pickle juice for fast-perishing foods and vegetable scraps for broth), E=Extend (freeze items such as milk), and S=Simplify (everything!).
According to Guiles, there are some common mistakes most people make while grocery shopping. The three significant ones include not setting a budget, not planning meals, and buying pre-prepared food.
She said: “If you buy a bag of onions, it is more expensive than buying single onions and putting them in a bag yourself. Also, cheese that is already cut into cubes is more expensive than a brick of cheese.”
Guiles also recommends grocery shopping online to avoid the impulse of buying from a store.
The frugal mom thinks every step of the BORES method is equally necessary in order to make massive savings. But speaking from her own experience, her most significant savings in both time and money happened when she simplified her family’s meal plan; they choose five to ten of their favorite meals and eat them on rotation.
“I am not a super-organized money nerd who is disciplined; if I can do it, anyone can,” Guiles said. “When we dug ourselves out of debt, the crippling stress I was feeling about money went away. From there on out, it has been my mission to help other women and mommas change where they are with money so they can no longer feel the stress, shame, and anxiety.”
Apart from using the BORES method to save on grocery costs, Guiles has suggested four other areas where costs can be cut down.
1. Insurance: Call your insurance companies and ask them if there is any way you can lower your rate. If they say no, call three or four other companies and tell them you are looking to lower your rate.
2. Cut cable: Nowadays there are tons of places online you can get free cable.
3. Switch to a low-cost phone carrier: There are tons of cell phone companies now that don’t have buildings. They are online but use national cell towers. Many are very inexpensive.
4. Cut subscriptions: Most of us have subscriptions that we don’t even know we have, and that we are wasting money on monthly, even weekly.
“Change doesn’t happen unless change happens,” Guiles said, adding the caveat, “Remember you can’t do it all, all at the same time. If you try to save money in every aspect of your life, you are going to get burnt out and give up quickly ... [concentrate] on one area of your life, like grocery shopping, get great at cutting down there, and then move on to another area.”
