How I’m Saving Our Family Money as a Homemaker

Every Dollar/sticking to a budget

First and foremost, before you move on to how you can save money, you have to know how much money you’re spending. I would HIGHLY recommend making a budget for your family even if you think you know where your money is going. I thought I knew where all of our money was going, but it wasn’t until my husband and I sat down to do our budget that I realized I was WAY off on our expected expenses.

You can use the free app “Every Dollar” by Dave Ramsey, use a Google sheet template, or even just a sheet of paper. Look through your bank accounts and credit card statements and log every single bill and purchase you’ve made in the last month.

It’s eye-opening, trust me. You will realize all of the things you are spending money on that you really don’t need to be and I really believe if you give your finances over to God, He will help you be a better steward of your money.

From there, figure out where you can make cuts. One that I wanted to cut down on was groceries.

Now, I’m pretty particular about the groceries I buy and there were just some things I wasn’t willing to budge on — like organic fruits and vegetables. The problem is, though, those things are EXPENSIVE.

So that leads me to the second thing you can do to save money.. gardening!

Gardening

I grew up in a family who has a quarter of an acre sized garden. I took gardening every year to the 4-H fair and helped my parents with planting, harvesting, weeding, watering, etc.. To be honest, I remember when I was younger thinking it was silly that my parents had a garden and put so much time and effort into it. I mean, they could just buy the produce at the grocery store, right?

Now, as a homemaker who really is trying to cut back on spending, stick to a budget, and also eat mostly organic foods, I get it. A garden is a way to know exactly how your food was grown and what products were used (or not used… cough, cough.. pesticides…) on your food.

But does a garden actually save money? That was a question my husband had when I told him I wanted to grow all of the produce we usually buy at the store. He had the same thought that I did when I was growing up — is this really worth all the time and effort? Can it really be saving that much money?

I’m going to show you a breakdown of exactly what fruits and veggies I buy every single week and compare it to how much it would cost if I grew my own produce instead.

Below is the food and cost of each produce (weekly) compared to seeds:

That brings my totally monthly SAVINGS to a whopping $168.17 per month!

That amount of money could be a monthly car payments, doctors bill, student loan payment, or even an entire grocery bill for you and your family!

Gardening is a great way to save money for your family for at least half of the year. And, if you have space for a bigger garden, you could plant even more plants so you can make spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, etc.. that you will be able to can and eat all year round! Unfortunately, my family doesn’t have the space in our backyard to have a big garden but hopefully in the future we will!

Speaking of space.. you may have to get creative with how you grow plants. For example, I plant carrots, lettuce, spinach, and bush cucumbers and zucchini in pots and use it on tables and as pretty greenery in our backyard.

To learn more about how to plant a garden, see my post “Step-by-step guide to a beginner-friendly garden (even in small spaces)” if you’re ready to get started on your own garden!

Baking Bread

Baking bread is another great way to save money. It doesn’t save near as much as gardening BUT it does save about $15-20 per month and has much better ingredients than loaves you buy at the store.

We typically go through one loaf of bread per week (maybe a little less than that). At the store, it costs about $4.99 per loaf (and comes with lots of preservatives to make it shelf stable for a longer amount of time). But to make a loaf of bread, it costs me about $1.05 and has six simple ingredients.

That saves us just over $15 per month on bread alone! Again, it doesn’t seem like that much, but it’s something AND the ingredients are so much better for you!

Use Cashback Apps

Ibotta and Fetch rewards are AMAZING and easy ways to earn money back.

Ibotta allows you to choose the retailer you’re going to shop at, then redeem offers prior to purchasing. Once you upload your receipt with qualifying offers, you will have literal cash back in your account withing 24-48 hours!

If you want to try Ibotta, use this link and get a welcome bonus!

Fetch Rewards is probably my favorite cashback app. It allows you to scan literally any receipt you have (gas, groceries, clothes, Amazon, etc..) and get points. Then, you can redeem points for gift cards.

While it’s not necessarily cash, you have hundreds of places to choose from, so we like to redeem our gift cards for grocery stores or Amazon since we are going to be making purchases there anyway!

Library

If you are a reader, like movies or tv shows, or even play board games — the library is your friend. You can save so much money by not shopping at the bookstore, getting an Audible audiobook, or streaming services and just getting those things at your local library.

Practice Contentment

This one is simple, yet takes the most work… If you desire less, you buy less. I know this is hard in our world of social media influencers. You constantly have people trying to convince you to buy things on Facebook, Instagram, etc.. But before you give in, ask yourself — do I really need this? Do I really need another Stanley cup or this pair of shoes or whatever it may be?

Honestly, the answer is probably “no”.

I’ll be honest, I struggle with this. So much so that I decided to delete social media for awhile so I could stop falling into the materialism trap and learn to be content with the things and home that God has blessed me with.

It’s hard to learn to be content, but you CAN do it. You just have to get rid of the outside noise and temptations.

As a homemaker, it’s your duty and job to care for your home — and that includes finances. It’s your job to make smart decisions for your family present day and also for their future. It may take extra effort on your part, but the reward will be SO great.

If you have any questions, please reach out to me! I want to walk alongside you and encourage you in this, because this is SUCH important work.

Until next time,

Love,

Kaitlyn