Grocery shopping and cooking look different during this era of social distancing. I’ve embraced these shifts using what I already know: not so much about cooking, but about the You Need A Budget software.
Y’all know I’m a YNAB evangelist. I love ensuring my finite amount of dollars satisfies my many needs and wants each month without guilt, stress, or debt. These days, I’m ensuring the finite amount of food in my home meets my needs while I cook more and shop less.
The key to thinking about “budgeting” my groceries is to purchase versatile basic ingredients that can be used in a wide variety of ways, the same way a fungible dollar can be budgeted towards any expense. A can of diced tomatoes can be “budgeted” towards pasta sauce, chili, salsa, guacamole, moambe, and/or tikka masala. A Lean Cuisine can only be a Lean Cuisine.
As a YNAB zealot user, I follow four rules for money, and now, for groceries.
YNAB Rule 1: Give Every Dollar a Job. Don’t just have a pot of money called “Checking” and another pot called “Savings.” Allocate every dollar to a specific expense well in advance.
In the kitchen, I’m assigning every ingredient a job. I don’t just have “stuff in the fridge” and “stuff in the pantry.” Every item has a role to play in some future meal(s). I’ve assigned the ground beef to do double duty in tacos and bolognese. The spinach will go towards a salad and a casserole, plus it’ll get a cameo in fruit smoothies.
If I can’t think of a job for some food item, I consult the internet. My “how to use up cream cheese” query led to both creamy mashed potatoes and delicious spicy bean dip, which will be in my meal rotation forever more.
YNAB Rule 2: Embrace True Expenses. If we have an annual expense like an insurance premium, we can either pre-pay it by reserving a windfall for that bill, or we can set 1/12 of the total aside each month for the whole year.
I’m “pre-paying” for meals by buying large quantities of those items I’ll cook little by little. I use butter and garlic in plenty of recipes, so I pre-paid for many weeks of cooking with two jars of minced garlic and, ahem, ~numerous~ sticks of butter.
I’m also trying to set aside a bit of prepared ingredients each time I cook for a meal down the road. Over a couple days of cooking different meals, I reserved some chopped onion, some roasted carrots, some frozen peas, some browned beef, and some of the aforementioned creamy mashed potatoes to become a “fully-funded” cottage pie.
YNAB Rule 3: Roll With the Punches. Our budget is agile and adaptable. If an unexpected expense pops up, then we can reassign our dollars to cover the overspending.
Rolling with punches in the kitchen means I’ve made a thorough meal plan AND I’m going with the flow. When my potatoes got a bit sprouty, I cooked them in place of the quinoa I’d planned to cook that day. When I accidentally scarfed all of the chili at breakfast because #pandemicrules, I adjusted and got on with cooking the next meal in the queue for dinner.
I don’t treat a small hiccup in the plan as an excuse to throw in the tea towel and eat all of my “emergency fund” of frozen pizza, order take-out three meals a day, or bop over to the store during peak hours.
YNAB Rule 4: Age Your Money. We avoid debt (paying for yesterday with tomorrow’s money) and instead strive for a nice cushion (paying for today AND tomorrow with yesterday’s money).
For me, Rule 4 now means cooking for as long as possible with food purchased once a month.
I plan meals based on the inventory already in my fridge, freezer, and pantry. I prioritize cooking perishable items first, and I’ve strategically frozen fresh ingredients and leftovers to extend their use. I’ve adapted recipes, halving the amount for items I‘m running out of (chicken) and doubling the items I have in abundance (rice). I’ve used items past their overly-cautious sell-by dates but well within their true expiration dates. And when my fresh and frozen foods are depleted in a few days, I’ll grab a dusty can of tuna and those slightly stale crackers if it means delaying a shopping trip for another day.
These Four Rules of YNAB always give me a sense of control, and I’ll take all the control I can get these days.
P.S. Absolutely Necessary Privilege Check: I’m still employed, and I’m teaching and meeting with organizing clients from the relative safety of my home. I’m healthy enough to head to the store and financially stable enough to stock up once I’m there. This is not the case for many, many others. I try to stock up courteously, e.g. getting 5 different kinds of beans rather than clear the shelf of all 5 remaining cans of black beans, leaving the next customer with zero. This way I can be one fewer vector of disease in the grocery store without hoarding resources my neighbors need, too.
If you’re experiencing food insecurity, please take advantage of the two new Pop-Up Pantries in Patterson Park.