I'm taking a poll, dear readers.
What is your weekly (or monthly) food budget? And can you stick to it?
Please post a comment!
That is the biggest chunk of our credit card expenses (we eat out a lot), but after reading this article recently I really started to think about what we could do to improve our spending in this area.
3 comments:
When I average everything out - and this includes diapers, wipes, laundery detergent, TP, paper towels - We spend about $200/week.
I always use my Ralphs card...and sometimes coupons if I am on the ball. We also buy all our big items at CostCo at the beginning of the month - Chicken, Salmon, Ground Beef, Steaks (and all the above mentioned paper goods) And then I plan meals around that. So weekly I just have to buy dairy and fruits and veggies.
I plan all the meals for the upcoming week on Sunday night. I try to plan using things I already have on hand -so as not to be wasteful. And then I make a list for just the things I need and really try to stick to it. I also limit the pre-packaged snacks for the kids b/c those really add up!
I shop Monday AM's when the girls are in school (or late Sunday night after all the kids are asleep!)
$800 sounds like a lot - even to me! But that's for 5 people and we eat 3 meals a day at home. Matt takes his lunch to work. So that's 450 meals a month! Which works out to be $1.77 per meal per person.
We allow ourselves to eat out once a week, but we try and limit it to cost less than $30 to feed all of us - so that means Wahoo's, pizza, or Ruby's and the kids share.
Crazy Crazy Crazy - I would love to hear what other's have to say! I may even post this same thing on my blog b/c I am always looking for ways to improve!
We have two budgets - grocery budget and eating out budget. The way we justify having two budgets is that we both work at home so we eat ALL our meals here. Since paying for a sitter adds up, dining out is one of our cheaper forms of entertainment.
The only way I've ever been able to get our grocery budget under control is to post our starting budget on our fridge every month. Then every time we go to the grocery store, we write it on the fridge so we always know how much money we have left each month.
When it's the last week and I see we have $50 left, I know to plan meals to eat as much out of the pantry as possible!
We plan all our meals ahead of time to take advantage of sales. Our CSA fruit and vegetable delivery is on Tuesdays and then weekly grocery flier comes out on Wednesdays. After taking the boys to school, I match up coupons with sales and take stock of what we have in the house. Then I plan out our meals for Wed-Sat. I go through the same process again on Sunday mornings because by then we usually need more fruit and veggies anyway.
I ALWAYS buy meat on sale. We bought a deep freeze specifically for this. Over the course of 3 months, our grocery store puts every meat on sale at Buy One Get One Free (BOGO). When ground turkey or chicken goes on sale, I stock up since that's what we eat most. Our freezer paid for itself within 2 months.
Like Erin, I also buy sundries at the grocery store when it's a good deal. Vice versa, some things are cheaper to buy at Target than any grocery store (Newman's Own Coffee, for example).
Our eating out budget is $250 a month. $60 a week covers lunch for me and Jon once a week + dinner once or twice, depending on if we get sushi or Chipotle.
Our grocery budget is $550 a month, but again that includes all organic fruits, vegetables, cheeses, milk, ice cream, and anything else we can get organic. And it does include sundries.
At the same time, I probably have $500 worth of groceries sitting in the house right now. Every 6 months we do a freezer clean out where we try to eat everything out of the pantry and freezer. Usually my grocery bill that month is $200.
Thanks for all the tips! That is helpful.
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