The way, I manage my daily consumption expenditures is minimalism at its finest. With my guidelines I avoid spending any more money than needed and I save up all the calculating-in-your-head-while-shopping-idiocracy.
Some of my strategies are unconventional, some are old but gold.
But most important of all: It’s easy:
1.Make a shopping list and stay a slave to it!
This eliminates the urge to buy something, that is price reduced but of which you don’t have any need for. A lot of people leave a lot of money in this field!
2.Stay healthy and eat clean!
Cooking for yourself saves a lot of money and often is very healthy as long as you buy mostly unprocessed food.
It’s almost impossible to mess up your diet this way, if you know at least some nutritional basics.
Potatoes, Rice, Oatmeal, whole grain bread, onions, apples, (soy-)milk, seeds, nuts etc. are usually not expensive and for most people quite healthy.
Combined with some fresh vegetables, tofu, meat and so on you are quite possibly on the right track.
The shopping list should only contain the stuff you really need, don’t even put sweets and such on the list or keep it to one item per purchase!
3.Don’t buy superfood!
Superfoods are pure PR, it’s overly expensive food to which regional alternatives for significantly lower prices are almost always available!
Not only are your "normal" alternatives at least as good, when it comes to nutritional value but often superfoods take a big journey until they are at your place, which is also bad for the environment!
4. Don’t rely on the big brands!
"No-name" products can be just as good as brand products! Oats of company X are often not better than their “noname” alternatives.
Also: who isn’t annoyed by advertisements and food scandals?
With this strategy you also don’t support monopolies which helps to create a more competitive and more diversified market and while big companies spend a good deal of their budget to annoying advertisement, the smaller, less known ones focus on the important stuff, which is their product and its quality!
5.Pay by card or phone!
This is very much in contrast to the general wisdom of paying only in cash. But the two steps above make sure, you don’t spend money on unnecessary stuff and only on the things you really need for a living. This frugality is what I need to live, so there can’t be a debate over whether I can afford it. I don’t pay too much attention to what the price is, since it’s crucial to my survival!
Every now and then I check my receipt checks, to see where I spend the most money on and then try to rearrange my shopping list accordingly.
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