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64. Grocery Budgets and Personal Finance with Samantha Gollup: A Guide to Mindful Shopping and Financial Planning
Struggling to navigate grocery budgeting and personal finance? You're in luck, because we've got Samantha Gollup, the brilliant mind behind Anti Diet Mama, helping guide us through grocery shopping in our latest episode. As a registered dietitian, she shares her tips for mindful shopping, offering practical tips to avoid decision fatigue and align your cart with your wallet.
Samantha's also completed our Personal Finance Workbook and we discuss the things she learned and the changes she made after working thorough our guide.
Tune in and transform your financial conversations from dreaded talks to empowering ones! We share how empowering it can be to simply discuss your financial goals and make a plan for your family. This is an episode for everyone!
Samantha Gollup, MS RDN
Instagram: @anti.diet.mama
Website: www.antidietmama.com
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Yes, yeah, and I think, just as moms and as business owners too, like the decision fatigue around meal time is so huge and like just feels so heavy and sometimes we just end up throwing our hands in the air and being like I'm just going to make a convenience food or we're going to go off for fast food or we're going to order in, which again, I think is fine once in a while, but if we're working on budgeting, maybe we budget for just going out once a week, but if we have all this decision fatigue around, it ends up being two, three, four times a week instead of just one.
Speaker 2:Welcome to what your CPA wants you to know.
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Speaker 2:I'm Carson Sands.
Speaker 3:And I'm Terrin Sands.
Speaker 2:I'm a CPA with over 10 years of experience helping people start and grow their businesses.
Speaker 3:And I'm an MBA with a specialization in marketing and entrepreneurship. Taxes suck and we want to make sure you don't pay more than your fair share.
Speaker 2:We're here to share everything your CPA wants you to know.
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Speaker 3:Let's do it. One topic that you all seem to really enjoy is personal finance. Those episodes are some of our most listened to episodes, so today we're going to cover personal finances in the home with Samantha Gallup. Samantha is a registered dietitian from Madison, wisconsin, and the owner of Antidiot Mama. In this interview we discussed her business and why she started it, and she also shares some really great tips with us about budgeting for groceries, and I know we can all use that right now. Samantha and her husband were some of the very first people to use our personal finance workbook, so we also talk about how they use the program and what important things came from that. Without further ado, here's the episode from Samantha Gallup. Sammy, could you start by introducing yourself to our listeners and tell us about how you started your business? Antidiot Mama.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1:I love talking about groceries, so I am a registered dietitian. I originally went to school thinking that I wanted to work in eating disorders, and kind of long story Very short. I ended up working in surgical weight management, so people that are getting gastric bypass or gastric sleeve to lose a significant amount of weight, and through that I ended up working with a lot of people with eating disorders or at least a history of eating disorders, and that kind of opened my eyes to this intuitive eating world and wanting to help people improve their relationship with food and their bodies. And so as I was kind of in this transition from working in a clinic in surgical weight management to Antidiot Mama, I thought that I wanted to work with kids in schools to kind of educate them about nutrition. But then when I got pregnant I was like no, I think I really want to work with moms because they have usually like the primary say of what is being fed in the house, how food is being talked about, how bodies are being talked about, and so this kind of came the birth of Antidiot Mama.
Speaker 1:Antidiot is kind of a term that encompasses non-diet, non-restrictive eating and kind of this diet culture idea of wanting to eat to look a certain way or wanting to cut things out to be a quote unquote healthier, when that maybe is causing some disordered eating patterns. So really working with women in general to help improve their relationship with food and their bodies by eating for nourishment, eating for enjoyment, eating for adequate nutrition to fuel their bodies, to feel more energetic, and really working on mindful eating through all of that and more intentionality behind eating, and then therefore, women are modeling that for their children as well, instead of their children seeing. You know, this is my mom is on this diet to shrink her body, and that's what I should be doing too, because we know that girls as young as four and five years old are already having that intention behind eating and that's really sad and scary. So we want to work away from that. So that's what I do in my current job now and why I created an anti-diat mama.
Speaker 3:I absolutely love what you're doing. I know this is a business podcast, but I think that every single person listening can relate to that in some way, shape or form. And then now, being a business owner and a mom, there are even certain situations where I have to make sure that I'm feeling my body properly because I got too busy being a mom. So I love what you're doing and I'm so glad you're able to share that on the podcast. We are going to focus today on personal finances and specifically budgeting for grocery shopping. So I know you share a lot about this on your Instagram and this is also one area that people often blow their budget. We know that from the personal finance workbook, but that's a very tough category. So first, I really want to know why do you think this is such a hard thing to do to stick to a budget when you're buying groceries?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, there's so many factors that go into this, but what I know from the people that talk to me about groceries is that they're often going into the grocery store without any sort of plan or any sort of idea of what they already have in their fridge. They're going to the grocery store kind of on a whim. They're seeing what looks good, maybe they're hungry, so that causes us to buy even more, and groceries are expensive. You know, I think that it's food has gone up what like 10% at least.
Speaker 3:At least yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think it's really easy to overspend when we don't have a plan, and then we end up wasting food as well. So not only are we buying more than we need, we don't have an idea of what we're actually going to be putting together to make meals to fuel ourselves.
Speaker 3:I think that is exactly what the issue is in my family, because I saw you do a little fridge sweep before you're making your meals and our family Carson's want the one that orders groceries and plans meals. So I was telling him hey, you never do that, you never look and see what we already have before. And he's like you're right, because I'll buy something we already have and then we might have two bags of chicken nuggets and French fries all the things that we're just stocking up on that might not go bad. So he actually did that last time because of you and it made such a big difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, I just did a little meal planning challenge with my community also so people could sign up for four weeks of email support. But the first thing that I got them going with is just doing an inventory of what they have in their homes already, and I know from experience I used to have, you know, we have a fridge and a freezer in our main kitchen and then in our basement we also have another fridge and freezer, and then we used to also have a deep freeze and we're just a family of four. I have two toddlers and they don't eat that much, and so I was like why do we need a whole deep freezer when we don't need to be freezing this much?
Speaker 1:I was finding myself kind of going through it and just throwing away a lot that I just was never going to eat. I was saving more like leftovers and things like that that I knew that I was never going to go back to. So I think, taking that inventory and just taking that step, maybe it takes 45 minutes the first time that you do it to really go through your pantry and your fridge and your freezer. But as you get to know what you have and you start to whittle down what you have as well. That can be so helpful in just already using what you already have and then going from there, instead of always buying new things or having just this huge backlog of food that you're never going to get to.
Speaker 3:Right and, like you said, a lot of it goes bad and then you throw it away because at the very bottom of your pile, yes or it's all freezer burned or it's expired, yeah, and I think it can be a little challenging to get creative with what you already have to sometimes.
Speaker 1:So I really encourage just like trying to categorize things. So, looking at, okay, what proteins do I have Meats, dairy products, eggs, nuts, nut butters, seafood, all of those things to kind of create the meal around. We know, maybe, that we need protein each time that we eat to keep us full and satisfied. Then we can look at, okay, what fruits and vegetables do I have in canned or frozen or fresh that I need to use? Then, looking at, what kinds of carbohydrates do I have Rice, pasta, beans, all kinds of those types of things that are going to give us that kind of quick energy.
Speaker 1:And then anything else that we have is it leftovers, is it salad dressings? We have all of these other things that kind of contribute to a well-balanced and tasty meal that we're forgetting about or we're not utilizing because it's shoved way back in the fridge that we're never going to get to, absolutely yeah. So if we can kind of start there, we can look at these different categories of food and then we can start to make a meal. Okay, I have chicken. What can I make with chicken. I can put it with my carrots and celery and make a chicken soup. You know, we can kind of build from there and maybe once or twice a week you're looking at what you have from the grocery store or from your fridge or pantry and then you can try to kind of create a meal based on what you already have, instead of trying to go out and buy something new.
Speaker 3:I think that's such a brilliant thing that, like you said, it takes such little time, but it really does make a difference on the amount you end up spending for your groceries, because we did it just one time and we saved a lot of money compared to what we were spending the week before. So I think that's brilliant and it's kind of like one of those things no brainer right, but we definitely weren't doing it before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I worked with a couple clients too who they were going to the grocery store almost every day because they didn't have a plan. I know because they didn't have a plan.
Speaker 1:They weren't. They were just kind of flying by the seat of their pants and going by like what sounded good that day or they had the time to do that. But that's going to create a lot of waste too. And then you're never using whatever's in your pantry. She had a couple freezers full of meat that they had. They bought like a quarter of a cow and like a pig and things like that, but they were never using it because they were just buying fresh stuff all this time at the grocery store, so she was giving it away or throwing it away and just creating all of this waste around food, which no shame, I think it's really.
Speaker 1:These are learned skills and I think, as dietitians, a lot of times we take it for granted that we just kind of know how to do these things and put things together. But it's something that is going to give you a lot more peace of mind and a lot less decision fatigue If you can just spend one hour, maybe two, on your weekend to look at the week ahead, look at what you have, plan a couple meals from that and then build from there, and then you're buying so much less at the grocery store.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I also love that you write down those meals and have them out on your little board, because for me, when I'm going to get a meal at say, for lunch, my mind is full of business stuff, kids stuff, and I just like looking at that list and not having to even think about it. So the decision fatigue is one of the main reasons that I like to do it. I don't have to think about what is in the fridge or the freezer, I just know that we have things for burritos and I'm going to make one, so that not only saves you money but it also saves you time.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I think, just as moms and as business owners too, the decision fatigue around mealtime is so huge and just feels so heavy, and sometimes we just end up throwing our hands in the air and being like I'm just going to make a convenience food or we're going to go off for fast food or we're going to order in, which again, I think is fine once in a while. But if we're working on budgeting, maybe we budget for just going out once a week. But if we have all this decision fatigue around, it ends up being two, three, four times a week instead of just one. So we can save a ton of money that way, just by planning ahead a little bit.
Speaker 3:I totally agree. That happens to us too, and writing it down was just a huge game changer for sure. Hey there. Have you ever thought of setting a meeting with your CPA to discuss personal finances? If you have, we have the perfect thing for you. We created a four week workbook to walk you through everything your CPA wants you to know about personal finances. So we're going to dive into personal finances with budgeting, savings, retirement, calculating what you have now and what you need to get you where you want to go, setting financial goals and life insurance. This also includes four weeks of email support from us when you buy the workbook, because we want you to pick it up and hit the ground running. Check the show notes for the link to purchase and use code podcast when you check out for a discount.
Speaker 3:Now back to the show. So this question is a hard one, I know, and it comes up all the time. I see this on mom groups, on our Instagram page and anytime I post about groceries. But I want to know what do you think a reasonable budget is for groceries For families? Does it depend a lot on the number of people you have, your family size, what do you think about this question.
Speaker 1:It's so tricky, this question is so tricky and before we started recording here, we talked about this a little bit and like what does Dave Ramsey recommend as far as percentage goes, and I think it really just comes down to your lifestyle. One thing that helped us kind of come up with a number was using your guide to look at what did we spend over 12 months. And even before we used your guide, we did that again a few years prior and I think we only. Maybe when we did this, I only had one kid who maybe wasn't even eating yet Our groceries. Without going in with a plan, without really having a lot of structure around it, we ended up spending $1,600 a month on groceries yeah, which I was blown away by. With just two people, I felt like a lot of guilt around that. I decided I'm going to cut that in half. Then our goal was about $800 a month. I thought that sounds really realistic for us because that could include one big grocery shop a month at Costco and then going each week to buy just the more perishable things that we need, like fruits and vegetables and meat. We ended up doing that.
Speaker 1:I think that it depends really on what you're buying as well. Are you following particular diets that you need to go gluten-free. A lot of gluten-free things are more expensive. Are you choosing to have everything be organic? That is going to be significantly more expensive as well.
Speaker 1:It really depends on your values around this how often your kid is eating at home, how often you're eating at home. If everybody's working from home, then you are going to be consuming a lot more groceries versus going out. If kids can take advantage of eating at school, that's going to help your grocery costs come down as well. My husband travels for work, so he's gone 50 percent of the time, so I'm only feeding one adult human instead of two. It's really variable, but what I would recommend, per your recommendation, is going and looking at what has my spending been for groceries over the last year, or even six months, maybe, if that's more realistic for you, and start to extrapolate from there and then see what you can get down. I really loved in the beginning of when we were budgeting for groceries to just have cash in an envelope. We did that. Is that the Dave Ramsey method? Yes, we did the same thing.
Speaker 3:It's so helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is helpful it was a little anxiety provoking for me because I was like, well, if I need the broccoli, I'm going to buy the broccoli, I'm just going to use my credit card. But it does help you plan a lot more and it helps you to just see where you're at. I think if you're going grocery shopping every day, it's really easy to lose track of how much you're spending, versus if you're just going once a week. You can look back and say, okay, I spent $200 last week, I have $200 to spend this week, so I need to rein it in a little bit. Or maybe I'm not choosing organic this week and last week I did.
Speaker 1:You can play with it a little bit and see what works best for your family. I also recommend looking at what your meal plan was for the week and what you used and what you didn't use. Take tally and take note of what you ended up throwing away. Or if you planned seven meals for dinners last week but you only made four of them, maybe you only plan for four meals next week so that you're not wasting a bunch of food. That can help bring down your grocery bill costs as well.
Speaker 3:One thing that we've done since day Ramsey, so we don't use the cash anymore, though that was very, very helpful all those years ago when we did it.
Speaker 3:We found a common ground what's a good grocery budget for us, and we stick to that. We find it very helpful to when we're ordering our groceries, we can see the total. That really helps us not cut out something that we absolutely need, like milk or bread something. But maybe we're not going to buy topochicos that week because we're like oh man, that kind of puts us over that weekly budget because it's easy to get your monthly one. Then, if you go to the grocery store once a week, then break that into a weekly budget. We can see yeah, we wanted to get all of these snacks, but if we cut out these two, that will make sure that we stay under that number. I know not everybody can do grocery pickup or anything, but it is free at Walmart so you're not adding any additional expense. You can see that total before you check out so that you're not having any of those impulse buys. That's something that's definitely helped me, because I definitely am an impulse buyer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am too, especially when we're going to Costco or something like that. What has really helped me there is not necessarily doing the grocery pickup or the delivery, because for Costco it is significantly more expensive. What I will do is I'll use the Instacart app to start making my list and looking through and see what we need. Then I'll just really do my best to stick to the list. If you have a grocery list and you can stick to it. One recommendation there is to make sure you're not going to the grocery store when you are hungry or famished, because food is going to look so much more alluring. You're going to really want the snacky foods, you're going to want the fast fillers and things that probably aren't on your list. So just think about that next time you're going to the grocery store. I make sure to always have a little emergency snack in my car, like almonds or a beef stick or something like that, so that I'm never hungry or starving when I'm going to the grocery store.
Speaker 3:Isn't that such a game changer? And then the funny thing is to learn as adults Like we would have never thought of that before. But now we're adults running households and kids and you better eat before you go to the store or you will not be sticking to that grocery budget. Yeah Well, I want to pivot a little bit and talk about our personal finance guide, which is all about sticking to a realistic budget. So, sammy, since you are one of the very first people to go through our budgeting workbook, I wanted to know your thoughts on it. What did you find was most helpful or eye-opening as you worked through the workbook?
Speaker 1:Oh boy, Okay, so just a little background with me and my husband. My husband is the one that makes the most money, but he's always been a very frugal spender and I've always been the one that, like, I am the one doing the grocery, shopping and buying the things for the family and just like things. So I'm the spender and we have tried kind of time and time again to like work from a budget and to, you know, have monthly finance meetings and things like that, and it's always just kind of fizzled or we've had a month where it's been like irregular spending and then we just like kind of ignore it and carry on. So the book, the workbook that you guys have really forced us to sit down, look at a year of what we've been spending, and now we are meeting bi-weekly at the start of this year to kind of do our budgeting review, look at what we spent, look at how we're doing towards our goals. But it also kind of forced us to define what our goals are.
Speaker 1:You know, we've always been putting money towards life insurance and 401k and Roth IRAs, but kind of without any real goal. We're just like, yeah, $100 a month, you know, like that sounds good, but we never thought about like do we want to pay off our house early? Do we want to pay off our car so that we're not paying that interest? Do we want to? How much should we have in like our kids' education funds or Roth IRAs for them? So it really helped us define our goals and then kind of work from there. We were also able. We work with a financial advisor as well, which has been really helpful because they can help us look at like the projection of all of those things. So we made an appointment with her and sat down and talked about what this is all going to look like in the future and that just really brought us a lot of peace of mind because, you know, we have just been kind of like what's the word Plailing, yeah?
Speaker 2:just kind of planning.
Speaker 1:You know, we really haven't had much of a plan and everything has been working out for us. So it was kind of like, well, do we really like need a plan or a budget? And now we just feel so much more freedom because we know that we're saving enough. We know that like if something were to happen to us, our kids would be okay financially and you know there's there's so many like questions out there and what ifs, and this really forces you to sit down and actually look at that and plan for it. So I really loved that the first week you're really looking at what are our financing Financial goals and that I think it really just helped our relationship too, because we were like, yeah, like we want to pay off our house and we got really excited about where we are financially to be able to do something like that together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that you said that, because the first thing when you say budget, people kind of have a bad taste in their mouth automatically. But what is the reason for the budget? The reason is because you have goals and those are so different. It's not just getting out of debt or doing it day Ramsey's way or whoever's way. It's what is your goal? And I think that's what I wanted to stress in the workbook was that that could be anything to you. Do you have a goal that you don't get your house cleaned now, but maybe you really want to and you just aren't there yet? Or do you have a goal that all of your kids are going to college and you have to save? And sometimes we forget to have those conversations. What are our goals? So just sitting down to figure that out is step one, and that's going to be different for everyone.
Speaker 3:We're not here telling you what those goals are, and I think that it came from a conversation that Carson and I had about retirement once our business got up and running, because we paused all retirement while we were just pouring into this business and we kept saying we'll pick this up at some point, and he kept telling me like we really need to start saving again to retirement, like we're getting older and all this and I kept putting it off. Well, once we did sit down and he ran the numbers, I couldn't believe what he was telling me. I was absolutely shocked, of course, that we immediately made all of these changes. But think about if we didn't have time to have that conversation and run through those numbers. So we were having the financial meetings, we had got out of debt, we were in a great place I'm not saying we weren't, but just the fact that we were not working towards where we want to be. So it's a very proactive way to look at it, and I think sometimes people forget to be proactive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, we had had those conversations-ish before, but not in the structured way that the workbook forced us to really just sit down and write out our plans. We had talked about it and like, yeah, of course we want to save for our kids' college or whatever they end up doing after school, but, yeah, never really just sitting down and hammering it out and looking at what that's going to look like and then working towards it. And I think that's maybe why a budget never really worked for us, because we didn't have a goal. We were spending what we were making and we're putting away money kind of willy-nilly, and that was working for us. But I think if we, 10 years down the line, hadn't done this workbook and really looked at what our goals really are, we would not be in a good place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and time is on your side and it's easy to let five years just jump by and not have these important conversations. And also, the guy just makes sure that you check off important things like life insurance, because you could need that tomorrow. Hopefully you don't, but at least you've made a decision. Whether it is you don't get it, because you've had some other plan if that were to happen. But at least having the conversation is very, very important today. Yeah, yeah, I want to know what was the most surprising thing or interesting thing that you learned about your finances when you were going through the personal finance workbook. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a lot of. It was super surprising to us. But just how much we spend in like a category of shopping in general Not even like extreme, like buying a bunch of clothes or whatever, but I do most of the shopping for the children and for the household so it looks really unbalanced and it looks like a really big chunk of what we bring home every month.
Speaker 1:So we're always thinking about ways to like whittle that down and also like how do we Categorize some things like that? Because, you know, is it discretionary spending or is it necessity? And you know a lot of discussions of how that can kind of come out either way, and like we were talking about before. But there's, there's always something that comes up each month. You know, I think we look at December spending for the holidays and then we're like, okay, well, january we're like not gonna spend anything. You know it's gonna be really different, but then it ends up being a big hit because then we bought plane tickets for, you know, going to Florida as a family and and put a down payment on our VRBO. So you know, every month there is just something that's maybe not Expected, which I think you do a really good job at looking at, like those hidden budget items throughout the year and Got us thinking a lot about that and how. How are we gonna have extra padding for that within the budget If it's just kind of coming out of nowhere or we're not planning for it? So having extra money in our savings or in our checking in or in a High-yield savings account has been really helpful for that too.
Speaker 1:Our incomes are kind of lumpy, with my husband getting bonuses for his job, so we also try to like figure out how are we gonna stretch that money. So those are just interesting things to talk about. Not necessarily surprising, but I think if you are on a really fixed budget, you really do need to think about what are those hidden things that come up each month? Is it, you know, valin, the Valentine's Day things, or is it spring break or you know what? What are you allowing yourself to do Versus what do you need to kind of rein in a little bit more?
Speaker 1:So yeah, that that was kind of a big thing. And then also just looking at what our monthly expenses are now like with childcare we have two kids and pre-k program that we have to pay for, and then daycare as well, and it's just looking ahead and being like okay, we're, what are we gonna do with this money that we're spending each month? That is a significant portion of our take home that we can allocate elsewhere and what are we gonna do with that? So that was kind of a fun thing to think about. Is like okay, is starting in fall, we're gonna have X amount more money to put towards either our goals or for, like, fun things and travel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's so important that you are planning ahead for it, instead of just getting there and letting that absorb into your fun money or Just mindless spending. You've already talked about your goals, you know what they are and you know, hey, I'm gonna have this amount Extra that can go toward those goals because, as we both know, if you don't have those conversations, it sure can creep up on you and that money could be spent on things that don't even really matter to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Well, I absolutely loved this episode and I know everyone else will too. Our personal finance Episodes are some of the most downloaded episodes because it can be so tricky, and I think today you shared so many like just really Realistic tips to do, realistic tips for your grocery budget, and that's what so many people struggle with, so I'm excited for this episode. Thank you, sammy, so much for joining me today. I would love if you could tell our listeners where they can find you, connect with you or even work with you in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm most active over on Instagram at anti diet that mama and a ma, and my website is anti diet mama dot com, so you can reach out to me there. I have courses where we talk about this. I have a free meal planning guide that you can download as well. I'll give you that link for the show notes. And yeah, I'm, I'm around, so come say hi make sure to check that out.
Speaker 3:She has a lot of really great content that I was talking about earlier in the episode and I will make sure to put all of those links in the show notes so you can easily find those. And and. Until next time. Thank you so much for listening to what your CPA wants you to know, podcast.
Speaker 2:This podcast has intended to provide accounting and tax information for educational purposes only. All tax situations are unique and should be handled with the assistance of a tax professional.