How to find thousands of dollars in your household budget
The food and grocery budget is the largest consumer budget in Danish households, second only to clothing and shoes. According to Statistics Denmark, the average Danish family consisting of two adults and two children spends just over DKK 7,000 per month on food and groceries, or approximately DKK 85,000 per year.
A significant part of the budget is due to impulse purchases and poor planning. In other words: You can save thousands of dollars if you organize your shopping differently. And it doesn't have to be at the expense of the quality of the food you eat at home at the dining table.
Find inspiration online
Most people are familiar with the challenge: the inspiration that fails to materialize even when you stare at the supermarket's refrigerated counter. The result is often expensive, ill-considered purchases that may even lead to unnecessary food waste. The problem is that inspiration rarely comes out of the blue - and certainly not five minutes into the middle of a busy workday. You need to know what you want - before you enter the supermarket.
Take a trip around the web. There are plenty of blogs and websites that focus on tasty, cheap and healthy food recipes, and many of them also have suggestions for weekly meal plans. See for example www.madforfattigroeve.dk, www.sundpaabudget.dk or www.juliebruun.com
Some of the sites are subscription-based. But it's worth investing a few hundred dollars for an annual subscription. It gives you access to a treasure trove of recipes for tasty, cheap and healthy dinner dishes.
Only one shopping day per week
Decide on a weekly shopping day. Not only will it make your life easier, you'll also be able to control exactly what you need and where to buy it. At the same time, it effectively blocks all kinds of unnecessary impulse purchases.
Make a shopping list
Based on a meal plan, you should make a detailed shopping list that covers all necessities for a week ahead. This also applies to cleaning and care products, of course. The point is to base it on your specific needs and not on what the supermarket has to offer.
Look for this week's offers
Once you've made a shopping list that covers a whole week, it's a good idea to check the week's offers. You can do this at https://minetilbud.dk/. In this context, you should consider whether it's worth it to go for all the offers, especially if it requires many different visits or longer drives.
Cook for two or more days
Multi-day meals are cheap food. You can often save money by buying larger quantities of different foods and it's also easier to portion out individual meals. This helps you avoid food waste. If you have access to a freezer, you can freeze ready-made meals for even greater savings. What's more, it's easy and convenient to take a ready meal out of the freezer and heat it up.
Don't shop on an empty stomach
Hungry customers are good customers. Studies show that people with low blood sugar levels tend to shop with their stomach and not their brain. Not only will they put more in their shopping cart, they also tend to favor unhealthy foods. So don't shop if you're hungry.
Bad habits
Most of us are burdened by bad habits: a snack dog at the train station, a chocolate bar at the supermarket checkout or a pastry at the gas station. If this is a recurring buying pattern, you might want to consider a little self-reflection. It's a habit that is both expensive and unhealthy. The next best thing is to recognize that there are certain things you can't live without - and make those same things a permanent part of your weekly shopping list.
