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After she realized how much money her family was spending on groceries in a month, Yellowknife mom Kassandra DeFrancis decided to challenge herself and find ways to slice her budget.
It all started when she noticed how much food her family was wasting.
“Stuff would get buried in the freezer, in the back of the fridge, or I’d buy a very specific ingredient that would just end up rotting after I used it for one little piece,” said DeFrancis.
“It just started to bother me.”
She looked back at her family’s grocery spending and calculated that they were shelling out an average of $1,700 each month for her family of four.
That was an “eye-opener,” she said, and it prompted her to see how she could bring those expenses down. She set a budget of $500 for groceries for the month of June.
She said she did her research before shopping, using flyers and comparing prices.
“I felt like my grandmother,” DeFrancis said. “I ended up getting a raincheck for meat because they were sold out, and I’m like, ‘who am I?’
“But it was at a really good price point!”
DeFrancis spoke to CBC’s The Trailbreaker host Shannon Scott when there were two days left in her month-long challenge.
“The fridge is looking very bare,” she said.
Her fridge had a few veggies and some meat, and leftovers. She had eggs from a trade she made with a friend.
“I have a girlfriend who brought me eggs from her chickens and I exchanged it for bread that I had made,” DeFrancis said. “That was fun and that cost me nothing. It was stuff I had in my pantry already and we got eggs out of it.”
Shoppers balk at cost of groceries
DeFrancis is far from alone as she struggles with the cost of groceries these days.
Ray Brazeau said he spends about $500 for groceries per month for his household of two people, and that’s without buying much fresh produce.
“We have a tower garden in the house, so we grow a lot of vegetables in the house,” he said.
He estimated growing vegetables at home saves up to $400 on their monthly grocery bill.
Ray Brazeau said his household spends about $500 per month on groceries, for two people. They grow some of their own vegetables which saves them some money. (Julia Parrish/CBC)
“There’s not much you can do [about the cost of groceries],” Brazeau said. “If you don’t like it, you don’t eat … it’s not good.”
Saif Sarhan moved to Yellowknife from Ontario a few months ago and was surprised by “just the staggering price of everything, and not just groceries.”
He says he usually spends between $200 and $400 a month on groceries, which is more than he spent in Ontario.
“Thankfully I have a pretty high income, so for me it’s not as much of an issue as for other people,” Sarhan said. “Even with the higher income, I still feel the impact of it.”
Saif Sarhan moved to Yellowknife from Ontario in the spring. He said his grocery bill has grown significantly since moving north. (Julia Parrish/CBC)
Beth Rasmussen, also in Yellowknife, said she spends up to $1,200 a month on groceries for two people, and said she mainly chooses organic fruits and vegetables.
“The stuff that’s not cheap to get,” Rasmussen said.
She said in the summer they try to grow as much food as they can in their yard, and she buys ingredients to make food at home.
“[I] watch for things to be on sale as best as possible, and if it’s something that can be stored and it’s on sale, we’ll buy it in bulk and freeze it,” Rasmussen said.
Beth Rasmussen says she spends about $1,200 a month on groceries for her household. She tries to buy in bulk and freeze foods when they’re on sale, and grows some vegetables at home during the summer months. (Julia Parrish/CBC)
As for DeFrancis, she didn’t quite make it through the full month on her $500 budget. She said they had a lot of food in the freezer starting out, which helped.
She expected to be about $40 over budget at the end.
“I’m still pretty happy with that,” DeFrancis said.
She’s said she also plans to continue to challenge herself to save money at the grocery store.
LISTEN | Shannon Scott’s interview with Kassandra DeFrancis:
The Trailbreaker11:56Yellowknife mom challenges herself to chop grocery bill
A lot of people in the N.W.T. are familiar with some staggering grocery bills. Kassandra DeFrancis is a Yellowknife mom who challenged herself to reduce her family’s grocery bill. CBC’s Shannon Scott checked in with her at the end of her first attempt.