The Grocery Reset: Save $600–$800/Month With Rachel Coon's Simple System

Foreign. This is Busy Getting Better, the podcast for women who are committed to prioritizing their own personal growth. I'm your host, Madison J. A mindset and money coach, a first generation wealth builder and a woman on a mission to help you master your finances and live your best life. Money is not all we are covering though, because in order to live your best life, you have to become your best self. So we are diving deep into all things personal development and bringing you the mindset that shifts money, tips and inspiration. You need to go out there, be bold and build the life you can't stop daydreaming about. It's time to get busy, babe. Busy getting better. What is up you guys? Welcome back to the podcast. I am blessed to have Rachel Coons with us today. She is the grocery shopping mogul, I guess you could call her. She is all about helping women and moms specifically. But we're talking to all women over here just around how to be more intentional with your money when it comes to grocery shopping. And I think this is such a fun topic. Selfishly, I am so excited to hear what you have to say today because I am just a family of two. It's just me and my husband over here and I know for a fact we are spending way too much money on groceries and our grocery shopping process is absolutely chaotic. We're probably in the grocery store every other day just trying to pick up little pieces. And something that I love so much about your model is the starting somewhere that is so impactful with helping people start to clear up their finances. And so I cannot wait to get into all of it today. But Rachel, welcome to Busy Getting Better.

Thanks so much for having me, Madison. I'm happy to be here.

So happy to be here. One of the things that I appreciate so much about you is just how down to earth you are. And we have such a similar philosophy on helping women save money and be intentional. But not from a place of scarcity, not from a place of shame, right? Like this is not cut out everything that you love, stop buying your favorite foods, live on rice and beans kind of advice. It's hey, let's put a system of place. Let's do something that is going to make your life easier so you can get back more time. Right? The amount of times I think everybody can relate to the like standing in front of the refrigerator being like, what in the world am I going to eat today? How do I piece a meal together? There's just so much mental clutter with that. And something also that comes with trying to up level your finances, work on your money. Mindset that I talk about often is decluttering your life physically and also mentally. Like how can you clean up more space? I don't know how you feel, but my brain is running on 101 tabs at one time. Like if I could start to close some of these, it would make life a little bit easier. And I feel like that is exactly what you help women with. So let's get into it. You have some crazy fun stats that are actually mind blowing. But can you tell the people how much on average are we all likely overspending on groceries every single month? Because this was mind boggling to me when I heard you talk about it.

Yeah. So the average American family is overspending $800 every single month. So almost $10,000 a year that they are wasting on groceries. So this is on overspending. This isn't just their normal spending.

That's crazy. And you and I know 800 is not chump change. That could help you stop the paycheck to paycheck cycle. That could help you get out of debt incredibly faster. If you're living in credit card debt, that money invested could compound and work for you crazy rates and get you on track to become a millionaire by just reallocating that money. So that's crazy. I feel like I'm this category so I can't wait to figure out how to save more money. But talk to us about your shop model because this is like what you are known for, right? There is a framework that you have put in place. Where does one start to a figure out if they are overspending on groceries and then what's the easiest place to start to shift our grocery buying habits?

There's a lot here. But let me just start with sharing first off, why I think this is so important and why I think any mom who is wanting to get in control of their finances. If you are someone who is trying to pay off debt, if you're trying to invest for your future, there's so many reasons that we have or goals that we have with money. And when someone is jumping into this space or is like I am ready cause I want 2026 to be my that I'm in control of my finances. It's like, okay, I have this goal now. Where do I start? There's so many moving parts to money. My journey started back in 2020 when we were in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and I'm a stay at home mom of four kids. And I'm overwhelmed trying to get life in order. And instead of like trying to track every spreadsheet, look at all the different numbers of our budget. I kind of like ranked our budgets of like, okay, so we have this budget. Our rent is our most expensive budget. Then we have health insurance is the next budget. And our third highest budget was our grocery spend. It was the one budget that I felt like, okay, this is actually one that I probably could do something about. I can't change our rent costs unless we like picked up and moved. I can't change how much we're spending on health insurance. We're already on the lowest cost plan. Groceries are something that I can actually change. And at the time, we were spending twelve hundred dollars a month for my family of six on top of that. And you kind of touched on this earlier, Madison. It was like the mental energy that moms spend, planning what they're going to cook, going to the grocery store to shop, bringing the groceries home, unloading the food, and then spending 90% of their time in kitchen, breakfast, lunch and dinner, getting food on the table. There's so much mental energy with this. And so I was like, you know, this, if I could systematize, if I could streamline one process, one budget, this is going to be it. This is going to be the one that I do. And so I tried a lot of things. Some things worked and some things didn't, and we can talk about what works and what doesn't. But through a lot of trial and error, I was able to cut our spending family of six by $500 every month. And that was without changing what we were eating. That was without eating rice and beans. I have a background in health and wellness, so eating healthy whole foods was really important for us. And through the process, I cut my spending by $500 a month. So we were spending 700, $750 a month. And I felt like feeding my family was easier and less time consuming than ever before. As I went through this process, I was like, holy cow, this changed my life. So I started sharing it on social media and it took off like wildfire. People were messaging me every day. It was like, what are you doing? I want to hear about this. You know, inflation was go crazy with groceries. People were becoming alarmed by how much they were spending on groceries. And so in order for me to help other people, I decided, okay, I need to create some type of system, some type of thing that I can teach from where I can say, okay, if you do this and this and this, this this will get you the results that I've gotten. And so that's where the shot method was created, was in order to help as many people do this. So now we've helped over 20,000 families, and the average family saves between 600 and $800 a month with the shot method.

I did see you say that you've helped over 5,000 families save $3 million on groceries. Totally, yeah, this works, is what we're saying. This works.

And I do want to put, like, first thing people say is, like, okay, but I have dietary restrictions, right. We're gluten free, we're dairy free. We only eat organic, we're vegetarian. This works no matter what you eat. I don't tell families what to eat. We just look at how you plan, shop, and cook for your family differently. And if you can create some changes there, then you can save money. And the first step, right, the first step is awareness to change. We all know that recognize that there's a problem here. And that's my biggest, loudest message for someone who's just coming into my world, is that most people don't even know that they're overspending the amount they are, because it's just how they've lived. Everyone's talking about how much they're spending on groceries at the local barbecue or parties that you're at, but nobody knows that it is possible to spend less. And so when someone comes into my world, I want to empower women to say, no, this is the one area that you need to start with, because it's the one area you're overspending. And we can save you time and money doing it. And so giving someone that potential is the biggest part to get started.

Well, and I think it's like, obviously we talk about money in the lens of being able to live your life more freely, how you want, have more control over your time. And so I love that this strategy hits on all of it. I think what I would love to do is, like, how do we create that awareness? If you're going to the grocery store multiple times a week, like, already, that's not efficient. So I'm assuming that that would be part of getting your time back and probably spending too. So how is someone listening to this conversation going to know, like, ooh, maybe that's me? Or are there some, like, symptoms that you can clear see in people of, okay, you could definitely benefit from improving your grocery shopping strategy?

Yeah. So the first one is, if I were to ask you, how much have you spent on groceries on average, the last three months. If you don't know what that number is, chances are probably you're overspending because you're not tracking that number. Right. Awareness is key. We both teach from a place of, like, no shame, no judgment. And that's the biggest barrier to people not wanting to know that number is because then you're going to feel bad about what you're spending. And I'm here to tell you this, Madison's here to tell you this, that there's no problem with whatever you're doing right now. You're just taking data from what's going on, because then we have a starting point. You can't have a goal number if you don't have a starting point. So if you're not tracking your grocery spending, that's the easiest place to start, is just keep a note on your phone. The next time you go to the grocery store, jot down 150. Next time, you know, I spend 200, whatever. And just bring awareness to that specific budget. It's going to incentivize you to be smarter at the grocery store. It's going to disincentivize you to go to the grocery store. Right. And that's a huge problem is if you are going to the grocery store multiple times a week, I can almost guarantee that you're overspending. Because who walks into the grocery store without swiping their credit card before they leave? I'm not browsing.

We're not window shopping.

I'm not window shopping at the grocery store. Maybe I go to Nordstrom and I window shop and I don't buy anything. But, like, the grocery store, you can guarantee that you're going to spend money and you're going to spend more than you probably plan to spend. If you walk in without a plan or without any real dedication to what you're going to buy.

I want to know, are we talking like hardcore meal prep and planning where every Sunday we're mapping everything out to a tea? Like, are we. You know, because that can feel also quite overwhelming for people when we think about saving money on groceries. That's it, right? Okay. I'm meal prepping so hard. I'm staying in these box. I'm eating the same meal every single day so that I can make sure I'm stretching it. But I think I already answer to that.

No, no, no, no. Again, like, I don't have time. I run a business, I have four kids. I have a crazy life. I don't have time to sit in the kitchen and meal plan or not? Sorry, not meal plan.

Me.

Meal prep for hours. But what I will say is a 30 minute planning session twice a week or every two weeks. So twice a month will get you through. And that's the problem is so many people are running. And you said this earlier, so many people are running on chaos mode. Yeah, right. Where there is no plan. So they're running to the grocery store. Think about how much time you spend going to the grocery store, getting in the car, driving there, shopping, putting it back in the car, driving home, unloading the. Like we're looking at hours every single week. And so we kind of have to front load that idea of like, okay, instead of spending hours throughout the week, I am going to spend a 30 minute section of my Sunday or Monday or whatever. You do it and I'm going to plan out my week. I'm going to a dedicated time to figure this out. So that way my week will run smoother when I do this. And then you need that step by step. Okay, this is what I do. Then this is what I do. And that's the shop method. That's where we create that. Another thing that I think is really helpful for someone just getting started, and it kind of comes from shopping. Often if you can stay out of the grocery store, you're gonna save money. Like we said, I grocery shop for two weeks at a time. So I do my planning session, my 30 minute planning session. I order my groceries and then I don't have to think about it for two whole weeks.

Right.

Nobody likes meal planning. Nobody actually wants to meal plan. So why are we doing it every week? Why not just do it every two weeks and then you can set yourself up for success. I actually also don't even shop in the grocery store.

I was gonna say I needed to ask you about that because you also do delivery, which is something I've been hearing a lot more about when we're talking about saving money, obviously, as a mom too. So talk to us about that because I think that feels so bougie. Like, what do you mean I don't even have to go to the store? You're just gonna grocery shop for me and drop it off? So that is an option for people that don't know that you don't even have to go in the store. So and how does that play into, I'm assuming, right, from like a psychological perspective, you're not being tempted in the aisles. Right. You're not like, ooh, maybe we could do that. Ooh, maybe we could do that or you're like shopping hungry. And you're like, I am buying everything now. So I'm assuming that you're up. You're putting up some emotional boundaries with that and also just saving a lot of time. And I'm wondering, how expensive is this service and is it worth the bang bang for your buck?

Okay. This is one of those things that, like, moms will sometimes give me some pushback on. I don't want someone picking up my produce. I like the grocery store. It's my happy place. All these things. And then they try it and they're like, I don't know how I did this any other way. Like, this is life changing. So here's the thing. When I say grocery delivery, most people think of Instacart. That's the big company that does grocery delivery. I'm not talking about Instacart. Instacart is a very dangerous rabbit hole to go into because they charge more for every single item. Like, you're going to pay so much more money when you use Instacart. And I'm not against it if you need like one or two items, but if you're doing full on grocery hauls through Instacart, put your brakes on. There's so many different ways to go around this because grocery stores now. And we can. Thank you, Covid. Covid was rough for a lot of people, but there was some good things that came from it. And grocery online ordering is one of those things. So there's two options. You can do online ordering for a grocery pickup, and that is usually 100 free. Most grocery stores offer this nowadays where you can go onto their website, they'll shop for you and they bring the food out to your car. You're going to save money this way. Because first off, yes, there's no, none of those, like, random, oh, the chicken's on sale and I'm going to throw that in. Oh, we need random things that we're just throwing in our cart. Also, it really helps if you are setting a goal number. If you're wanting to save money, you are going to be way more intentional about that grocery cart before you hit the checkout button. How many times do we go shop at Costco and like, throw things in the cart and then get to the front and we start to check out and then we're like, this is 500. And I had no idea until I hit the checkout and I'm kind of sol there. I just got to swipe the credit card. But when you're building your grocery cart online, you're watching that subtotal, so there's no reason for you to check out unless you're under what you want to spend. And that's why the system is so important. Because if you know you're only shopping for two weeks at a time or one week at a time or whatever, then we know. Okay, I'm going to shop four times in one month, which means every single time I grocery shop, I should spend X amount of money in order to hit my goal. It's just beginning with the end in mind so that we can be really intentional about the grocery carts before we check out.

Okay, I love that I didn't even think about that as a perk because yeah, you're like, maybe I don't need this. Let me pivot first. To your point. You wrap around Costco. I mean, you've just committed like you spent time in there and now you've waited in line and you've unpacked it all. Like you're definitely just swiping your card. You're not going to be like, oh, hold on, let me. I mean, maybe you are, but how much? You know, let's avoid having to like put stuff back at the checkout counter too. Like just being know, know what you are and remove that stress. And then I would imagine in these apps you can like save your favorites or just reorder things when you set it up. And then it just gets way faster to be like, repeat, repeat. Okay, we don't need more of that. Add this, delete that and can. Exactly. Faster.

Yeah. And then a lot of those grocery stores, those similar grocery stores that have online ordering, you can pay for grocery delivery. And like for my grocery stores that I shop at, I pay for an annual fee. It's a hundred bucks for the year. A hundred dollars. And I am probably saving thousands of dollars. And for me, at this point in my life, the time savings is the most important. I don't have to think about it. It gets delivered to my. Unload my groceries and I'm good to go. So that in and of itself they don't charge more for it. I don't have to pay a tip and it's free with that. With that upgrade varies depending on where you live. I live in Northern California, but it just depends. So researching the grocery stores near you to find out, you know, is there a membership plan where I can get free delivery? Look into it because it is really life changing.

Okay, let's touch on because I'll be so Transparent. My husband does most of the grocery shopping right now. Just like the way our routine is. He it. He hits it all, and I'm already like, how can we make his life easier? I have brought up this online shopping before, and you hit on one of his big pushbacks of picking out the produce, picking out the things that are more fresh, where, like, you want to have an eye for it. You don't want to pick the ones that are, like, overly ripe. Right. If we're all of this. Or just pick out bad fruit, bad vegetables, and just. Yeah. Not come back with quality product. Right. He's a little. He wants the best, which I love that him. But I know that a lot of people also say this is the same thing where it's like, well, I don't. I want the best. So, like, how's your experience been with that? Do you feel like you get good quality products? Is there anything you can do in that experience where, like, if someone does bring you really trash produce, you can, I don't know, return it, get new ones? Something like that? Yeah.

So most grocery stores, if they first off, they're incentivized to give you good produce for the most part. I've had really good experiences with this. And again, I can't speak for every area. I don't know every grocery store, but for the most part, my produce is great. And then if it isn't great, like, one time I paid $4 for a thing of cauliflower. And I'm not kidding, the cauliflower was the size of, like, small avocado. Like, it was. So it was the smallest thing at cauliflower. And I was like, yeah, no, that's not okay. You just like, go into the app and you can chat them and say, hey, this. I am not happy with this product. And they'll refund you. You don't have to return it to the store. Easy refund, no problem, no questions asked. So they are really good. I do have people that feel very strongly about this with their produce, and that's okay. If you are some one of those people, do the rest of your grocery shopping online and then just go in and get whatever produce items that you want to pick out yourself. But I also say just try it. You could try it for a couple times, see how it goes, and you may be surprised at how positive it is.

Yeah, okay. I love that. I love that tip. Something else I want to ask you about because I think also when we think about saving money on groceries, I want to talk about where we're shopping for groceries, different grocery stores, right? Can this work? If you are someone who wants to shop at like a Whole Foods, a sprouts, right? These nicer, whole more organic types places verse like Aldi or Walmart or fries. Like there's just kind of this spectrum and I know everyone's stores are going to be different where wherever you live. But there's like two different types of grocery stores. I feel like, right? There's like we're save money grocery stores and then there's like we're bougie grocery stores. So does the system work no matter where you shop? Do you hate certain grocery stores? Do you love certain grocery stores? Like let's get into the tea on that.

Here's the thing. Nobody can tell you what your priorities are, right? I can't sit here and say you should do this and this and this because then it's not going to set you up for success and you're not going to follow it. So I believe in you creating the rules for your game. You're playing the game, you create the rules. As long as you're intentional, whatever you're doing, as long as it's intentional, doesn't matter. So if intentionally you're like, I only want to shop at Whole Foods and I only want to buy all organic produce, great, you just created the rules for your game. So now we're going to create a system that works for those rules. Does it matter where you shop? Like is it going to affect your spending 100%. We know that we're going to spend more at Whole Foods than we would at Walmart, but you can still save a lot of money. In fact, some of my students, some of the people who have saved the most amount of money have been the organic only families have been the gluten free families have been like the family families that want to shop at these nice stores because they think that the amount that they're spending on groceries is because of where they're shopping. So they've kind of justified, well, we spend $2,000 a month because we only buy organic. And when we create the system then they're like, I could still buy what I need and I can save money because I have a plan, because I'm tracking my spending because I'm doing all of these other things. So yeah, not all grocery stores are equal, but you get to decide what is important for you. And if that means I'm willing to spend a little bit more so that we can have have a nicer store to shop at by all means do that. Just do it smart and do it intentionally.

Yeah, I think that's like so key about anything. And I love that you reframe that of just like, you get to create your own rules. Right. And this goes for any sort of money objective that you were working by. Like, figure out what feels good for you. No one's here telling you to just, like, go live on rice and beans and cut out everything that you love and like, stop spending at these nice places. But to your point, put a system in place, like, be more intentional with it. And of course there's going to be some positive around it. And I would imagine. Right. I think oftentimes when we don't have the intentionality or kind of these like quote unquote rules that you want to live by that feel good for you and for your money and for your life, there's a lot of guilt that might creep in. There's a lot of like, negative emotions around, like, ooh, should I be doing this or should I not? And that's what I talk about often is, like, having these plans removes that because you know what you're going to get out of it. And you're like, no, actually I decided that this is something that I do value and that I would want to spend money on and this is how I want to spend money on it. And that taps into a lot of, like, the emotion that comes with spending, especially in a time in an age where like, let's be real, things are more expensive right now. Right. Like, there is no way around that. That's not like a scarcity thing. We're not fear mongering. Like, facts are facts. Grocery prices are through the roof. Rent prices are through the roof. Wages are not keeping up with that. Like, we need to be more intentional. So, like, have fun with setting your rules and what your priorities are and then start to remove some of that a negative emotion about how and where and when you're spending your money.

Yeah, absolutely. Empowering you to any, any time you feel like someone is telling you what to do or taking your power away, you got to take that power back. And you are in the Dr. Driver's seat. You're in the driver's seat of your finances. You're in the driver's seat of how much you spend on groceries. This is your game. Nobody can tell you what's right or wrong. Nobody can tell you what you should do. You get to choose that for yourself.

I'm curious because obviously I know that you do a lot in your World, aside from groceries too and wanting to help women, how has just focusing, I say just, but like just dialing in on your grocery planning, how have you seen that that positively impact the people that you've had a chance to work with? The members in your community in areas of debt payoff, of saving for dream vacations that they want to take their family on, of investing for goals or retirement, like, what's the impact been on that?

So like I said at the very beginning, when you are just getting started or when you have financial goals, the faster we can get you a win, the faster we can get you in control, the more likely you're going to stay with, with this. So I said, I have a background in health and wellness and I was a personal trainer for many years. And the thing that we always hit on with our clients was the more weight that they could lose in the first 30 days and see the progress, the more likely they were to stick with the weight plan, the diet plan, whatever it was, because they were like, oh, this is working, I can keep doing this. It's the same thing with your finances. We got to get you in and we got to have you have a quick win right away where you feel like, I can actually move the needle on this. So, and then we set up up this foundation for intentional spending, like knowing where your money's going, being in control of that area. And then we can trickle down, then we can see, okay, now that I have 800 more dollars every single month, what am I going to do with that money? Is it paying off my credit card bill? Is it saving for the next family vacation? And then you can go deeper into the whole money world of budgeting for your family, creating investments, creating long term wealth, fixing the money mindset that issues that you may. And so that's, you know, my whole world was created because I started with the grocery spending. I created a community where I helped moms with that. And then I realized we're only helping them with like the top of the iceberg. They need more than this. This isn't fixing. Yeah, it's great if you have $600 a month, but it's what you do with that $600 a month that actually makes the difference. And so I was like, we need to create a deeper iceberg. We need to go deeper than this. And so I think it's the easiest and fastest place to start. But it's not the end point.

Right?

There's so much more work that needs to be done after that as well.

The more I Think about it, the more genius it is, right? Because it is something that is so tangible that you so quickly can feel the impacts of. Like you said, being able to have quick wins when you're trying to change a habit or change something is so important and money specifically is so overwhelming for so many people. And so I love that you said that of like you just start here and then it builds that confidence and then it can propel you in to so many different, different directions with your money so that you can really start to be more in control of these things and start to have the confidence. Because so much of the investing, paying down debt, when you can come to it from a place of confidence, like you're just going to be so much more successful.

Absolutely.

That's so great. Okay, what about like kids, multiple kids? You said you have four kids, right? Like how is planning for that like impacting the time that you get to spend with them? Right. Because I know that that's something that you really talked about is like being intentional with time with them. There's just so much more to this. Like it's grocery shopping, but it's financial competence. And also like you said, you don't have to grocery store shopping. Like I'm sure you've been able to. And moms that in your community have been able to maybe be more present in their kids lives and go to more events. Like there's just so many pros here that I feel like we could talk about from an impact perspective outside of just the bills.

Yeah. And I think the biggest thing for me is as a mom, like I want to show up as a plus Rachel when I'm as a mom. Right. I don't want to be energy exhausted. I don't want to be angry, frustrated, impatient. And so creating as much space as I can in areas that cause me so stress is the most important way to show up as my best self. And so when I think any mom across the board could say 5pm to 7pm is the worst time of the day.

Right.

Like this is just, it's hard. You're exhausted from the day, the kids are usually hungry, you're working on homework and it's just chaos in the house. If we could create a plan so that way you know what's happening for dinner. There's organization that allows me to show up as my best self and my community kids to show up as their best self. So it's not like, ah, the meat's not defrosted. I don't know what we're Cooking for dinner. Everybody jump in the car. We're gonna go drive through Chick Fil A or whatever for dinner. It creates a home that is built on organization, calm, peace, you know, family dinner. The research on sitting down as a family for dinner is so important. Right. So creating that space where we know. Okay, I know 5pm is gonna be a rough time of the day. It still is. I'm not gonna say it's rainbows and butterflies over here. It's not. But if I can up as much as possible and take as much of that energy off of my plate, then it runs smoother and everything runs smoother. When I show up as my best self, my kids are happier, my husband's happier, I'm happier. So it does create just a better environment for everyone when you have that plan in place.

I love that. I also just love the crossover of how you started in health and wellness. I don't know. I feel like there's so much parallels to personal finance and health and wellness in regards to discipline and small habits and like continuously just moving forward and obviously the power of delayed gratification. Right. Like the. All of those things are. So it's like the same baseline lessons applied to different areas. And so often I feel like when people are tackling their finances, it's also tackling their health goals. So like, how much easier is this to spend more intentionally and also eat more intentionally and just make sure that you're hitting on health goals, financial goals, relationship goals with your family? Like, it's also intertwined. It's never just about the money. And so I just wanted to hit on that. Cause I think, think it's like, sure, saving money and all this, but also getting more time back to spend with the people that you love to be more intentional, to feel less cluttered, and to just be able to enjoy time more, I feel like is kind of the foundation of why we both do the work that we do is just be able to enjoy, enjoy your life a little bit more and not be so stressed, you know?

Yeah. And how to be your best self.

Yeah.

Right. It's transformational. How do we walk through life with intention, not letting life happen to us? How do we create a life that we want? It's perfect, what you said. It is. Every area of your life, you get to create, create that life that you want.

Okay, I have a little bit of like rapid fire. Just a few questions here. Okay, so, okay, one grocery habit that you swear by.

The two week grocery shopping. Yeah, I love that.

I honestly can't Even fat. Like, I'm gonna like. Could you imagine a world where we're only going to the grocery store like two every two weeks or not? Let's try this delivery thing.

Yeah.

Okay. What's one thing to stop buying immediately?

Ooh, this might be an unpopular opinion, but the pre made meals from Costco, you know what I'm talking about? Not necessarily the ones like in the frozen bags, because I kind of believe in those sometimes the ones that are like $25 and are like the tacos, like the chicken tacos or the lasagnas or whatever the pasta bakes, those are such a ripoff. They're such a ripoff. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like you could literally buy. Go buy a rotisserie chicken and some taco and some cabbage and a sauce and like you literally have that. You could have like four meals meals for the price of that one meal. And it's just grabbing the ingredients for it.

Okay, that probably is a bit of a hot take. I feel like those are you grab and go at Costco.

Yeah, yeah.

Chickens at Costco.

Oh, I love those. Yes, good.

What do they put in them? Like crack? I don't know.

Not good things. I'm sure there are people listening that are like, yeah, they're terrible for you.

Okay, what's your go to meal that like provides the most for your family? Like the easiest one to make. Provides the most your go to meal.

Okay, so when I again like the pre made meals, I think this is the other going back to this so I can defend my position a little bit more. The reason I am so anti those is there are so many meals that don't take any time or effort that are so much more affordable and can be easier to make. So my family's favorite and the one that like, I know my kids are going to eat. I don't want to have to fight my children to eat. Dinner is instant pot, spaghetti and meatballs. I actually filmed a reel the other day. This is reminding me I need to post it. It literally took me one and a half minutes to get it prepped. It cooked without me doing anything for 15 minutes. And then we ate like a minute and a half to get everything in the. I just dump the crap in the instant pot and then I usually serve it with like steamed broccoli or whatever that I nuked in the microwave and put butter and salt on or whatever. I feel like it's a nutritious meal. We've got the meat, we've got the carbohydrates, the Kids like it. And then we have the vegetable and that's my, that's my go to.

That is like some sorcery. A minute and a half. That is crazy. That is. We should put you in like a world book record or something. Okay, what's the biggest mindset reframe that you think moms need around food and.

Money in general when it comes to money is scarcity. Like we are all, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is scarcity somewhere in your life where there's never enough money. We are not leaning into this abundance growth potential that is possible because a lot of times our pasts have proven differently and so we're letting our past dictate our future. And when you are in a scarcity mindset, when you're thinking of limitations rather than potential, you are cutting yourself off from allowing more into your life. I mean, I see this in myself as well. I very naturally go towards scarcity. And this is one of the issues I have with the budgeting world in general is I feel like it's so scarcity driven. There's not enough money. So you have to, you know, track every dollar. And if I could teach my moms who are trying to save money on groceries, this is not about spending less. Like sometimes I even hate that messaging of like it's all about saving. It is about taking ownership of money that is possible. We do this not because we want to save all this money. We do this because we want to be intentional with our spending. I actually want to ask you the same question. What do you think?

I love that answer. And I will just say I have also rebranded the word budget in my world. So I call it an aligned spending plan because that's really what it is. Like let's get clear on what your own personal values are. What are your own personal goals? Like what do you want? What lights you up today that you want to experience throughout the week and throughout the month? And then like what are we working towards? What are some short term goals that you have and how do we use this hard earned money that you are out there working hard for and make it work hard for you and for your goals. And so I'm in the same boat. I hate the word budget. It feels like a diet for your money. And that's been my whole ick with the personal finance industry is how scarcity based it is. It's. It's so shame driven. It's so scarcity based. It's so fear mongering. It's like time for this, like, rebrand. And I think that there are people, right, like us trying to just switch it to more of, like, this abundance mentality. Like, how cool that you get to. To go and just be way more intentional with your money. And I, I just, again, the conditioning of the scarcity, I feel like, is something that we've got to break away from easy. It keeps.

It keeps you stuck. That's one who is in debt. Like, that is the number one place to look. Where am I showing up with my money and scarcity mindset and building a spending plan.

Build it. Getting more intentional about where you're putting your money for your groceries. Like, it just. It helps you feel in control of where your money is going and kind of get out of this reactive sense. Right? And you can start to be proactive about where your money is going. And it's, like, fun. Like, oh, my God, I can't wait to go on that trip. I can't wait to experience that vacation I've never been on. Like, how do we tie that excitement and enjoyment right to that?

Yes, absolutely.

So I feel like that's probably it too. We didn't even get to talk about, like, you mentioned instacart, but, like, Grubhub, DoorDash, like, all of that, if you're doing that, that's your sample one is get out of that world because those fees are crazy. And. Yeah. Okay, so my last one for you here is just a boundary or a rule that you think saves families the most money.

We didn't even get to talk about this at all. But snacking with kids, I think we can get into a really slippery slope when we just let the kids eat whatever they want whenever they want. And I get it. It's a. It's an energy. It's a. It's hard to figure that out. But decreasing the amount of prepackaged snacks that you have in your house, decreasing the amount of snacking that goes on in general, and focusing on whole foods snacks, you're going to save so much money. And it is a. It's a hard transition because I've worked with a lot of moms who had to make this transition with their kids, especially teenagers, because they feel very strongly. But through that, your children are going to eat healthier foods, you're going to save money, and your home is going to be filled with more nutrition. And so that's a hard boundary to set. Like, no, we're not going to have 30 packs of mini Doritos in the pantry all the time. We're not going to have the goldfish individual packs. You're going to have to grab a Ziploc baggie and pour your own goldfish in a bag. But once you make that transition, it the kids are fine and you'll save a lot of money doing that as well.

Like we said, health goals and money goals. Like, there's so much there of the benefit. So I love that. Okay, if somebody's listening and they're like, I need more, please give me more about the shop method. How can they learn this? How can they work with you? Where can we all send them so that everybody can save money on their groceries in 2026 and redirect that money to more fun and enjoyable things in their life?

Okay, so I've got a couple things you can follow me on social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. It's HeyRachel Coons. I have a free class that you can start where I teach the beginning steps of the shot method. And that's just heyrachel coons.com class. And then I do have a podcast. It's called the Money Mom Podcast. Madison was on it recently in an episode. So you can go listen to our episode. Yeah, those are probably the the best ways to get a hold of me.

And we will link it all in the show notes. Rachel, this has been so fun. Thank you so much for being here. I feel like we could talk time and time again about some of these topics. So thank you so much. Thanks for all the work that you're doing and just helping helping moms be more intentional with their money. Like, obviously you're having such a ripple effect in their lives to be able to spend more time with their kids, get out of debt, invest all of that. So thank you. Thank you for being here and I will see you guys all on the next episode. Thanks, Madison.