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Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge (week 7)

How to Identify What’s Keeping Us Stuck (with Megan Hyatt Miller)

52 Weeks of Organizing: The silverware drawer & stair walls and carpet

Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge (week 7)

We’re kicking off the year with an 8-week Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge. I’ll be sharing a weekly post here every week with a task or challenge for you to complete/focus on to help you tweak, improve, or overhaul your grocery budget.

My hope is that we can all work together to crowd-source new ideas and fresh inspiration to be more thoughtful and intentional in our grocery budgets + hopefully save some money and instill some practices and principles and habits that will continue to save us money throughout the rest of the year.

It’s February and we’re starting week 7 of the Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge. How is it going for you? Here’s what we’ve covered in this challenge so far…

In week #1, we talked about setting up a grocery budget. That’s the most important first step in cutting your grocery bill.

In week #2, we discussed why you need to recognize potential roadblocks. Be sure to read through the comments here to hear about others’ roadblocks. I think it will encourage you to know you’re not alone.

In week #3, I challenged you to commit to change one thing for three weeks. You can see the comments on the post for ideas of what others picked.

In week #4, I encouraged you to check in on your progress to see how you are doing, what you are learning, what’s working, and what’s not working.

In week #5, we talked about evaluating your options when it comes to stores in your area.

Last week, we checked in on the commitment we made three weeks ago.

Week #7: Challenge Yourself to Go Cash-Only

If you’ve made it this far, I’m so proud of you! And I think you’re ready for a big challenge — trying the going cash only for a few weeks.

What do I mean by this? Well, I mean actually only bringing real cash with you to the store for a few weeks. Leave your debit and credit cards (and checkbook, if you still have one of those!) at home. And just shop with cash!

You see, when you shop with a credit or debit card, you can have your budget in your head and you can do the best to stick with it when you check out, but it’s so much easier to go just a little bit over here and there when you’re swiping. You can justify that $2 you went over your budget to buy something which was a “great deal” when paying with your card.

$2 might not seem like much, but if you spend $2 to $3 more on groceries every week, that’s adds up to around $130 in extra spending over a year’s time!

Paying with cash forces you to stick to your budget.

When you know all you have to pay at the store is your grocery budget envelope, you better believe you carefully evaluate every impulse purchase or great deal you come across: “Do I really need this?” “Is this in the budget?”

If you find yourself struggling financially and wishing you could figure out why your grocery budget is so high, can I challenge you to take a Cash-Only Challenge for 3 weeks and see if it impacts your grocery spending over the course of a three-week period?

Take the Cash-Only Challenge!

Here’s how the Cash-Only Challenge works:

1) Commit to only spend what is in your grocery envelope for the next 3 weeks.

2) Go to the bank and withdraw cash in the amount of your pre-determined Grocery Budget. Put this cash in an envelope and keep it in a safe place. For more on cash-only shopping, read The Envelope System Experiment.

3) Leave your credit/debit cards/checkbook at home and only bring your cash envelope and a calculator with you to the grocery store.

4) Calculate your purchases as you add them to your cart. I mentally add up how much I’ve spent as I add things to my cart, rounding up for tax. You can also keep a running total on your phone’s calculator. This will motivate you to carefully evaluate all purchases, will make you aware of how much items actually cost, encourage you to look for the best deal, and force you to get creative if your list is longer than you have room for in the budget.

5) Pay with cash when you checkout. This three-week experiment will likely teach you some things and challenge you in good ways… and you may end up decided to go cash-only for a few months, or even longer!

Are joining us for the Cut Your Grocery Bill Challenge? If so, I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell us if you’ve ever tried using cash only. If so, how did it work for you? If not, would you be willing to try it for 3-6 weeks and see what you learn from the experience?

I had planned to go to Kroger and Aldi on Thursday, but then there was a severe storm warning, so I stayed hope and then planned to go on Friday and a bunch of unexpected things came up. I finally just did a small Kroger pickup order this weekend to tide us over (I’m traveling Sunday and Monday for book launch media stuff.)

I hope to finally make it in-person to Kroger on Tuesday, but we’ll see what this coming week brings! At any rate, we spent $29 on the above items at Kroger.

Need some practical ideas for ways to cut your grocery bill? Be sure to sign up for my free cheatsheet with 10 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill by $50 This Week!

How to Identify What’s Keeping Us Stuck (with Megan Hyatt Miller)

I have a lot in common with this week’s podcast guest — and we have many mutual connections! Author of Mind Your Mindset: The Science That Shows Success Starts with Your Thinking (which she co-authored with her father Michael Hyatt) as well as C.E.O. of Full Focus, Megan Hyatt Miller joins me this week to share about how our mindset impacts all areas of our life.

She talks about how she got into her business, what it’s like working with her dad, and the story behind this book and how personal it was. She shares about her struggle with false beliefs surrounding public speaking and how this held her back for years and took her on a journey to ultimately discovering that the stories we tell ourselves can either propel us forward or hold us back in a big way and keep us stuck.

Megan not only discusses her own story, but also how to stop listening to a story that could keep your stuck, how to recognize if you’re believing a false narrative, how to help our kids (especially teenagers) when they say things like, “I’m terrible at xyz!” or “Everyone else is so much better at xyz!). I loved the very relatable illustration she shared from parenting her son recently when he was really frustrated in a situation in his life.

This episode has a lot of takeaways that we can apply immediately to: (1) identify the story we’re believing, (2) interrogate the story to see what’s true or false, and (3) imagine a new story. We talk in-depth about what each of these steps entails and how to walk it out practically — and how it can change your life!

In This Episode

[00:35] – I am excited about today’s guest, Megan Hyatt Miller!

[01:52] – Megan shares a little about her background and her family.

[04:37] – I asked her about working with her dad.

[11:53] – How did Megan identify her false narrative around public speaking?

[13:16] – How do people identify their false narratives?

[17:12] – Megan touches upon how we can help teenagers mind their mindsets.

[20:50] – The three-step process for minding your mindset.

[21:33] – How do people get from realizing that something isn’t working to identifying their story?

[26:49] – Megan addresses interrogating your story with someone else.

[29:46] – Megan explains how to imagine a new story.

Links & Resources

Full Focus
Mind Your Mindset: The Science That Shows Success Starts with Your Thinking by Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
10 Days to Be a Happier Mom
Sign up for the Hot Deals Email List
MoneySavingMom.com
My Instagram account (I’d love for you to follow me there! I usually hop on at least a few times per day and share behind-the-scenes photos and videos, my grocery store hauls, funny stories, or just anything I’m pondering or would like your advice or feedback on!)
Have feedback on the show or suggestions for future episodes or topics? Send me an email: crystal @ moneysavingmom.com

52 Weeks of Organizing: The silverware drawer & stair walls and carpet

I set a goal for 2023 to spend 5 minutes every day decluttering/organizing. I’m sharing 5 minute projects on Instagram each week day, if you’d like to follow along. For those who don’t have Instagram or miss some of my stories, I thought I’d do a recap post here each week with a peek into the organizing/decluttering I did this past week.

I first tackled the silverware drawer. How do all those random crumbs get in there?

I got rid of a few things we no longer need/use.

And in just a few minutes, it looked so much better! (And in case you’re wondering where all the silverware is… it was in the dishwasher! It has also been disappearing recently — I think the teens are confiscating it somewhere?? — so we are running low on everything but knives right now! Should I buy more or hope it’s going to magically reappear soon??)

Speaking of magic, I kind of feel like that’s what this Clean Angel Cleaner is! I bought it during a Small Business Saturday sale in November and it has been one of my best purchases in the past few months! I’ve used it on carpet stains, stains on our white couch, and stains on laundry! It’s not cheap, but it works SO well and has gotten so many stains out that it is 100% worth the price!

I used it to spot clean some set-in stains on the stairs.

I also cleaned the stairwell wall. There were so many little fingerprints as both Kierstyn and David always hold onto the wall when walking downstairs.