[Music] well hey you guys so according to a recent study 80% of Americans say that they have felt a noticeable increase in grocery costs in the recent years and 80% it's a pretty big number and I totally get why so many people are feeling this way because it is more expensive and we've been seeing major increases to essential cost for a while now a fox business article recently reported that over a quarter of Americans are admitting to skipping meals in order to combat High Grocery and food costs you guys that is a drastic response right to to completely skip a meal but also this is a very real issue that we're all dealing with when it comes to spending money on just basic necessities so today I want to take a deeper look into this Trends let's look at the numbers look at the why and most importantly I want to offer some alternative options if you are in this point of feeling this amount of pain and before we get into some practical tips let's first look at where this problem has led us so onethird of Americans 32% to be exact say that they are spending more than 60% of their monthly income on essential expenses and this is stuff like bills rent and groceries because of this 53% of Americans find themselves in another unique predicament saying that they earn too much money to qualify for government assistance like food stamps or welfare but don't have enough to afford basic necessities for themselves and if you're someone who has noticed the shrinking middle class in the recent years this is probably because all of this sounds very familiar and all too often this is how the cycle of debt starts when real people are stuck with no margin and nothing to fall back on they feel like they have nothing else to turn to but that's never the actual truth so I really do want to dive in when it looks like hey I am earning money I want you to know that you have options so next let's talk about what this actually looks like because the first thing I want you to do is create a budget and I cannot stress this enough and you hear me talk about a budget all the time but it's just true this is an important place to start because this is a plan that says hey this is where my income's going and it's going to actually light up some of your problem areas as well when you start to see and look at percentages thinking oh my gosh maybe we have too much house gosh maybe we are going out to eat way too much it may actually reveal some of the problems which is a great things that's going to help with the solution of where to cut back because again without a budget you have no idea where your money's going you don't have guidelines or guard rails so to make this process easy and effective I really recommend downloading every dollar so go to Every doll.com Rachel and you can create your first budget there for free and I'm hearing now they they're getting it down to like 4 minutes for your first budget so it is amazing what can happen though if you have your numbers you plug them in and you actually can see visually where your money is going and then you're able to focus and determine on hey where are my priorities in life so where are the things that have to be covered and that is food which is the whole point of this video right you want to make sure that you have food shelter make sure rent and your mortgage is taken care of utilities keeping your lights and water on and transportation making sure you have your car insurance paid uh gas in the car or if you use public transit make sure you have enough money to cover that so all of these things again are really really key and then I want you to look at other areas of your budget that maybe you can adjust because remember if you cut things out nothing is permanent this is not going to be your lifestyle forever and ever so maybe it's a season that you say hey we're going to cut out streaming services we're going to cut out subscriptions we're going to cut out going out to eat like we're going to cut out these places in our budget so that we're able to have margin when it comes to our money now listen you can't control a lot in life let's just be honest you can't control inflation or mortgage rate but you can control your spending and you are able to say Hey What Can I Do I mean even like you know looking at your housing situation I just mentioned this and this could be a big drastic one but if you are spending 40% of your income 50% of your income on rent or your mortgage at this point you probably have too much house because when all of that is being eaten up you only have you know 60 50% left to cover everything else in your life and so looking again at either drastic Cuts like your housing or or looking at you know maybe uh streaming services like I mentioned earlier or subscriptions you know whatever that looks like or even I would say look at you know what your kids are doing is there extracurricular activities maybe they're doing three of them and you're like Hey we're going to maybe cut you know one or two of these out like whatever it is you have to get creative but creating that margin is so key so when it comes to cutting back on food I don't want you to cut out meals okay maybe this is things like drawing boundaries around maybe grocery shopping right so meat for inance is going to be expensive and yes having protein in your diet is really key but maybe for a week you're like we're not going to do meat in our pasta sauce we're just going to do marinara and noodles and that's going to be our dinner you know whatever that looks like there's small ways and small cuts that you can do even lowcost family meals like planning ahead and just saying okay we're going to do taco night grilled cheeses one night you know soups and salads one night we're going to do breakfast for dinner when night like finding cheap meals and again your nutrition I understand is important yes and amen but also cutting out a meal is not always worth the nutrition part of this right so maybe it's not shopping organic for a season maybe it's shopping you know not at the organic grocery store like whatever it is that you need to do to make sure that you have three meals is what is so key and there are ways to cook meals that are cost-effective but that does take some planning and intentionality now there's a lot of the stuff around food that I think is really important and if you've never used my grocery savings guide make sure to do that so I will leave a link to make it really easy for you to check out now I have a few more tips I want to share but first I want to tell you about a faith-based alternative to health insurance that can make Healthcare more affordable and that's Christian Healthcare Ministries so chm allows members to share each other's healthcare costs and it's as easy as one two three step one choose the healthc care provider you want step two submit your eligible bills and step three get reimbursed chm members take care of your eligible medical bills and with no networks and the freedom to choose your healthcare provider chm is the best option for Christians who want to take care of their families and help other believers so find out more at chministries.org budget now the fifth thing I want you to do to get strategic is about where you shop for your groceries so I mentioned this maybe the organic grocery store you know goes on the side for a little bit so looking at where you shop is really really key and while you're shopping ask some of the employees about daily deals going on so you can get the most bang for your butt all right you guys I know this is a really challenging time and again I feel like inflation has just been talked about so often and since Co really I just feel like prices continue just to rise and we just feel this High Cost of Living and so what I want you to do though is to be able to feel in control because again there's stuff that we can't control but we can control our spending and when it comes to our four walls and making sure things that we actually need are covered so let me know in the comments which of these tips that you're going to try or maybe you have another solution that's been helpful for you would love to hear that and if you haven't already be sure to check out my episode with Jade warshaw on 10 ways that you've been grocery shopping wrong all right you guys remember to take control of your money and create a life you love
