We've been about two weeks behind in our grocery budget for several months now. It all started in late October when we used a big chunk of it for our Halloween party, but it's been slipping gradually ever since then. I allocated more money last month, but we absorbed it and stayed where we were: dipping into the next pay period's amount. While this is usually OK, I don't always have that much float money in the checking account, so it's occasionally caused us to skate along the edge, almost dipping into our overdraft (which was my first debt paid off and I want to keep it that way!)
We have a very generous grocery budget: $900 per month (was $840 before I reallocated some funds). Granted we roll all household goods including beauty supplies, food and drink for entertaining, and some medicines into it, but it's still a healthy amount for three adults.
We've got three different diets and a love of fine foods, but still, we'd been trying to plan only frugal dinners to pull even with our budget. I didn't itemize everything; just hoped it would work itself out. Now we've used over half of our Feb. 16-29 grocery money and we've got a party to buy treats for this Friday, so we finally sat down to try and figure out what we could do to catch up after that.
We didn't even have to look at receipts. Once NT started writing everything down it was brutally obvious what we needed to cut back on. Our favorite meals are actually really cheap; the most expensive one is homemade pizzas, which can cost approximately $12 for three people, or $4 apiece. It was mostly the little things we'd throw into the cart on impulse, plus a few things that we considered basics but can easily do without or with less of.
I'm almost embarrassed to write down the things we're going to cut out temporarily, but it does point to how you can have a real blind spot in your spending:
Ice cream and soy ice cream
Fancy olives
Sushi from the deli counter
Wine
Bottled juice (we'll buy concentrated)
Baking supplies (cutting down--should be good for our waistlines too!)
Paper towels (cut down; use rags and sponges more--better for the environment too!)
Cheese and soy cheese (cutting down--we're very generous with our portions)
At least for awhile, we're regarding the above as treats and luxuries--if anyone wants them they have to buy out of their own money.
I feel very silly that I didn't think this through before, but at the same time relieved that it should be easy to correct our budget with these relatively painless cutbacks.
Assessing grocery spending
February 13th, 2008 at 08:51 pm
February 14th, 2008 at 12:19 am 1202948360
Try shopping alone, with a list, and stick to the list.
February 14th, 2008 at 07:44 am 1202975090
basically, our biggest saver came to going to the markets every week. it pretty much halved our fresh fruit and veg grocery bill, so that for two adults we are now spending about $40-$50 a week on fruit and veg, and about $30 on other grocery items. We used to spend about $150-$170 on a weekly shop.
Also, our markets have many people who make their own olives, which are delicious, and a lot of other gourmet treats which are all a lot cheaper.
anyway. hope i helped!
February 14th, 2008 at 02:19 pm 1202998772
That's a very interesting idea to have people buy "treats" out of their own money.
I agree with nance about separating out the food only in the budget. I have 4 food & bev categories:
- Groceries, except (see below)
- Alcohol, Coffee, Soda (kept separate, because completely unnecessary)
- Dining Out
- Garden
The other items you mentioned would go in one of the following:
- Household operation (cleaning supplies)
- Medical, Etc. (medicines)
- Grooming (toiletries)
Keep up the good work!
February 14th, 2008 at 04:00 pm 1203004827
Nance: It's for 3 personal pizzas. It's just a rough estimate, but we tried to factor what it would take if we were out of all ingredients and our favorite toppings. We think it's a high estimate because some of these toppings we already have extra in the house from making something else, but cooking some vegan and some with dairy does tend to add up, as we buy two of the things the dairy people can't live without: cheese/soy cheese, eggs/tofu. Other things that they can stand the vegan versions of--sour cream, cream cheese, soymilk, margarine, mayo--we just get one kind; but it's more expensive than the conventional dairy versions of those products.
reflectionite: Great point. One hopeful thing we came up with during our discussion was that summers are a lot cheaper: We've prepaid for a CSA share from a local veggie farm, and the fruit at the weekly farmer's market is much cheaper than the storebought stuff we have to get during the winter. (Fruit is the one thing on the "expensive" side of our list that we are not going to skimp on, because it's so important nutritionally. Tastewise I could take it or leave it, but NT both loves and needs it, so that seals the deal.)
Thanks again, and I'll be sure to report our progress (or failure) in a couple weeks!