Hi reader,
A few years ago, when my family and I did the Whole30, we stopped buying cow's milk for our coffee and gave almond milk a try. (We had already ditched conventional creamers and sweeteners years ago.)
My husband was a fan right off the bat. Me… eh, not so much. I thought almond milk was too watery and I didn't like the taste of it either.
Instead I tried coconut milk instead and fell in love! It had the perfect amount of sweet with the perfect amount of "cream" that I liked in my coffee.
The only downside to both almond milk and coconut milk is the cost. The best price I could find for both of them is $2.97 for a half-gallon at Walmart (that's 5¢ per ounce for Silk or Almond Breeze. Some other brands were cheaper at other stores, but they also had additives that aren't good for you, including carageenan.)
Since you can't have any dairy on the Whole30, we found ourselves reaching for the almond milk and coconut milk fairly often for recipes.
Combine that with daily cups of coffee and we ended up going through a carton of each kind of milk, every week… that added up to $24 spent on non-dairy milk every month!
Now I know you can make your own non-dairy milks… I even have recipes on the blog for homemade almond milk and homemade coconut milk and homemade peanut milk and homemade rice milk… but when you're on the Whole30, you feel like you live in the kitchen as it is.
You spend A LOT of time cooking or cleaning or prepping… every day.
Buying non-dairy milks was one of the small conveniences I allowed myself in order to make it through that challenge with my sanity in check – ESPECIALLY when we had to cut out nightshades too!
We felt good when the Whole30 was over and we kept some of the same dietary habits, including drinking non-dairy milk. Almond milk for him; coconut milk for me.
Fast forward a couple months and I realized that almond milk was available in 3/4 gallon jugs for $3.79 (at Walmart), which was cheaper than the half-gallon cartons!
I know the savings isn't huge (about $1.33 per month), but every penny counts and it was adding up quickly!
At the same time, I wanted to give almond milk another try…
- I knew it was cheaper than the coconut milk.
- We already had almond milk on hand (so it would be one less thing to buy and keep up with having in the fridge).
- I knew that if I could stop drinking coconut milk, I'd save us roughly $12 every month.
And wouldn't you know it, I kind of liked it! My taste buds had evolved and I no longer needed the sweet that comes with coconut milk… so I quit drinking it!
By cutting out coconut milk, we cut our non-dairy milk expenses from $24/month to less than $8/month.
And that's just ONE change!
But it's changes like this that allowed to us to keep our grocery spending low to pay off our debt, to pay cash for a house and to remain debt-free to this day.
Tell me, reader, - is there any small change you could make this month that might save you a few dollars? I'd love to hear what it is. Hit 'reply' and share it with me!
♥ Tiffany
PS: I'm always amazed at the results my Grocery Budget Bootcamp students have when they start to incorporate changes like these into their routine. Collectively, they have saved over $2 MILLION!
The best part of GBB is that it's not a one and done deal. Students continue to save year after year because they learn a system that keeps their grocery spending within their budgets.
We'll be opening up a class in Spring 2023 and I am SUPER excited to help new families start saving on groceries. You can sign up for the waitlist here to be notified when class opens up!
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