Sometimes it can be hard to know where to even begin to budget, especially when you also have to take into account a spouse and kids. One TikToker and mother of two shared her hack for cutting her family’s grocery bill by a whole $1,000/month using what she called the “B.O.R.E.S.” strategy.
Becky Guiles, a.k.a. @freebielady, from Syracuse, New York, regularly posts cost-saving tips and tricks for her TikTok followers, and she certainly has the experience to back her up: after she and her husband went $35,000 into debt, Guiles put in the research and managed to cut their annual spending by $30,000, quickly bringing their family back into a debt-free life.
In her video from March 5, Guiles laid out her method of saving money on groceries.
“This is how to stop spending so much money at the grocery store. Do I know what I’m talking about? We were spending $1,400 a month on groceries and I have cut that down to $400 a month. I recommend that people use what I call the B.O.R.E.S system.”
She elaborated on the handy acronym, saying, “The B stands for budget. Budget $100 per person in your family per month. If you have food allergies or you have really hungry teenagers you might need to increase that by like $50 or so.”
“O stands for Organize. Every time you are not organized its going to cost you more money. Go through your kitchen and get rid of all those things that are expired or that you are just never going to eat. That will give you a clean plate — a clean palette — for everything I’m going to teach you next.”
She went on, “R is for Reuse. I know that sounds kind of weird but here’s some ways you can reuse some stuff.”
Guiles included a helpful list in the text overlay on the video, from turning stale bread into croutons to turning vegetable scraps into a soup broth.
“E is for Eliminate. Eliminate waste by freezing more things… know how to store your fruit and vegetables in a way that makes them last longer,” she continued. “S is for Simplify. Simplify the way you do meals. Simplify meal planning. Simplify everything. Simplify your ingredients. One of the huge ways I have simplified meal planning is that every single day of the week has a theme to it.”
Some themes her family has includes things like Mexican Mondays and Frittata Tuesdays.
“I promise if you do all of those things in B.O.R.E.S, you will be able to cut your grocery bill down significantly.”
