The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Throw Down the Gauntlet => Topic started by: Zikoris on February 26, 2014, 05:13:17 PM
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I don't know about you guys, but I'd like more information than a Mint total on my monthly groceries. I want to know what percentage goes to produce, baking supplies, soy milk, grapefruit juice, the works. So the challenge is: join me in keeping all your grocery receipts for the month of March, and get some numbers!
Has anyone done this already? I couldn't even guess at our breakdowns. It will be interesting to see.
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I'm in! It'll be fascinating.
I usually track total grocery spend and food versus non food, so this will give me a lot more info and, hopefully, insight :-)
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I don't break it down quite like that, but I do separate out food, household, and junk food. Second month in, and I do find myself not buying as much junk, which certainly helps!
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Lentils: 100%
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Has anyone done this already?
In response to that part of your post... I know I've seen people referring to this on other threads. But I can't find them now. So hopefully those peeps will weigh in soon.
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@ Dragoncar: so that automobile of yours runs on methane?
Interesting you should mention this idea OP, I 've just been thinking about it. I track "groceries"…i.e. things that are bought in the grocery shop. But this might include on occasion items like cheap undies and sox, school exercise books, paracetamol and so forth. So this year I'm trying to remember to track such things in the correct category.
But in spite of various techniques like stockpiling on special, buying unprocessed foods to cook from scratch, making my own laundry liquid etc, the food/grocery bill is still higher than I want. After all, this is a weekly spend…if I can lose $20/week = 1000 dollars a year.
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I started a detailed food tracking spreadsheet in the beginning of February, but I plan to do it for 6 months to get more accurate numbers. Too many things are infrequent purchases. I'm not that interested in reducing my spending, but would like to find out where price reduction would count the most, and on what categories we spend the most money. I've also been tracking cost relative to calories, which is turning into an interesting way to rank food purchases.
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I did this in February and it freaking rocked. I learned so much about our habits.
We eat too much cheese. Ditto on the cold cuts. These are getting cut back hard in favor of bean spreads for sandwich fillings.
We eat a lot of frozen fruit and it can be expensive. My kids snack on frozen blueberries for dessert and while we can do this occasionally, it needs to be limited a bit.
Vegetables, rice, beans, peanut butter, and oats are dirt cheap. More of these.
I am never buying cold cereal again. Biggest waste of money ever.
Homemade popcorn with various spices/toppings is hands down the cheapest and tastiest snack item for my family. We love it.
The best thing I learned is that I can cut back without any complaints from my family. They ate everything and not a single whine or moan.
I am going to do this again in March and shave a few more dollars off the food bill.
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I forgot to mention, we're also going to keep a food journal for the month of everything we eat. This project will give us a great picture of what we buy and eat!
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I'll join in -- have been wanting to do this after realizing a few months ago my food spending was off the charts (lots of "comfort food" shopping the past 3 years). Just this week began keeping a pantry again. It was my habit years ago, and I usually ended up as the neighborhood "store" for friends who kept running short.
Also like the idea of the food journal. Thanks for initiating this.
ps: do we get to stock up in the next two days?
:-P
just kidding
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I started doing this last month. I keep an excel spreadsheet and record every item and the cost. I have it set up to subtotal each category (produce, dry goods, condiments, etc.). My grocery spending goal for the year is $1000 or less, so I'm finding it useful to see exactly where my money is going and where I need to make adjustments.
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I started doing this last month. I keep an excel spreadsheet and record every item and the cost. I have it set up to subtotal each category (produce, dry goods, condiments, etc.). My grocery spending goal for the year is $1000 or less, so I'm finding it useful to see exactly where my money is going and where I need to make adjustments.
Ashley, I'm sincerely impressed with your food plan! And your blog too!
I am recovering from a serious case of habitual "food as medication." My wake-up call was adding up grocery receipts a few weeks ago. Though I gave a good deal of food away and bought groceries for some folks, it's not a sustainable way to live. Some months came close to what you've budgeted for a year. ;-(
Good idea, tracking in Excel. I'm also going to give that a shot. So relieved to have these forums for insights and motivation.
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I do this every six months or so to stay on track. Mostly what I need to stay on track of is not spending more than 10% of my food budget on the extras. A few things in my extras: soda, ice cream, chips, cereals, coffee. I want to be careful to keep all these high expense, and generally unhealthy, things a treat in our eyes. We always spend our own personal pocket money on candy and any other treats we want.
Since I have a large freezer and buy from a produce co-op, one month's spending in percentages wouldn't be an accurate picture of what we ate. I tend to buy ridiculous quantities of loss leaders at a time( for example, this month 18lbs of sale butter, should last until summer). So I've also done this challenge through the back door; adding up the cost of all the items we eat as we eat them and taking percentages from there. It's fascinating to see the results.
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I'm so in!!! since finding this forum I've been disturbed by how much my boyfriend and I spend on groceries, and frustrated because I'm not sure how to bring it down. I just started keeping track of this anyway last week with the idea of keeping a price book, so this will be good motivation to keep it up!
I did this in February and it freaking rocked. I learned so much about our habits.
We eat too much cheese. Ditto on the cold cuts. These are getting cut back hard in favor of bean spreads for sandwich fillings.
We eat a lot of frozen fruit and it can be expensive. My kids snack on frozen blueberries for dessert and while we can do this occasionally, it needs to be limited a bit.
Vegetables, rice, beans, peanut butter, and oats are dirt cheap. More of these.
I am never buying cold cereal again. Biggest waste of money ever.
Homemade popcorn with various spices/toppings is hands down the cheapest and tastiest snack item for my family. We love it.
The best thing I learned is that I can cut back without any complaints from my family. They ate everything and not a single whine or moan.
I am going to do this again in March and shave a few more dollars off the food bill.
I'm totally looking forward to having these kinds of realizations... but a little worried that cheese is also going to be one of our big ones :( man, I love cheese.
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Will definitely do this. I'm really curious as this is my first time really doing grocery shopping on my own (was part of a mandatory school meal plan), so I have no idea the breakdown.
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I started doing this last month. I keep an excel spreadsheet and record every item and the cost. I have it set up to subtotal each category (produce, dry goods, condiments, etc.). My grocery spending goal for the year is $1000 or less, so I'm finding it useful to see exactly where my money is going and where I need to make adjustments.
Ashley, I'm sincerely impressed with your food plan! And your blog too!
I am recovering from a serious case of habitual "food as medication." My wake-up call was adding up grocery receipts a few weeks ago. Though I gave a good deal of food away and bought groceries for some folks, it's not a sustainable way to live. Some months came close to what you've budgeted for a year. ;-(
Good idea, tracking in Excel. I'm also going to give that a shot. So relieved to have these forums for insights and motivation.
Thank you! I'm struggling to find interesting things to blog about (how many pictures can I take of my salad?), so I appreciate the kind words.
I totally relate to the "food as medication" thing. Add to that the fact that I LOVE grocery shopping, and things can get out of control. When I'm bored or sad it's very tempting for me to wander into the grocery store. Tracking everything makes me really evaluate every purchase, which is sort of the idea of setting such a strict budget anyway.
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I started doing this last month. I keep an excel spreadsheet and record every item and the cost. I have it set up to subtotal each category (produce, dry goods, condiments, etc.). My grocery spending goal for the year is $1000 or less, so I'm finding it useful to see exactly where my money is going and where I need to make adjustments.
Ashley, I'm sincerely impressed with your food plan! And your blog too!
I am recovering from a serious case of habitual "food as medication." My wake-up call was adding up grocery receipts a few weeks ago. Though I gave a good deal of food away and bought groceries for some folks, it's not a sustainable way to live. Some months came close to what you've budgeted for a year. ;-(
Good idea, tracking in Excel. I'm also going to give that a shot. So relieved to have these forums for insights and motivation.
Thank you! I'm struggling to find interesting things to blog about (how many pictures can I take of my salad?), so I appreciate the kind words.
I totally relate to the "food as medication" thing. Add to that the fact that I LOVE grocery shopping, and things can get out of control. When I'm bored or sad it's very tempting for me to wander into the grocery store. Tracking everything makes me really evaluate every purchase, which is sort of the idea of setting such a strict budget anyway.
You could have a great salad blog. You just need a voice. Think "thug salad"
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I'm in! I'd like to keep groceries to $350 this month, and categorizing the receipts would really help. It should also help me forecast what our monthly spend should be when the veggie garden is really cranking.
As far as stocking up before the first - only if there's a sale to take advantage of. I'm planning to go grab some organic chickens tomorrow since they go off sale at the end of the month. If I'm really lucky, there will be some markdowns, too, but I'll add these to my March budget.
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I am in too! I've way overspent on food over the past few years - I seem to have an irrational panic of running out of food, combined with a "but I don't want fish and vegetables tonight, I want macaroni cheese!" attitude which has resulted in buying ridiculous amounts of crap. I have decided to shop weekly, with £25 cash, a menu plan, a shopping list and a calculator and EAT the food I meal plan ffs! I'll be rich and thin ;)
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This is very timely for me. I tracked "grocery store" spending for the month of February and was appalled to find the total was close to $500. WTF?! This includes non-food items (toilet paper etc.) and wine. And a couple of weekends I was feeding groups of family and such. But still, are you shittin' me?! This challenge could not have come at a better time, something has to give.
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I have been tracking since December. Over that time, here are my numbers:
Produce 32%
Dairy 16%
Eggs 3%
Dry Staples 8%
Bread Products 4%
Dry goods 13%
Beverages 6%
Alcohol 5%
Prepared meals/Convenience food 7%
Baking supplies 5%
It has mostly made me more conscious about spending on prepared food (still working on it, I don't expect zero but would like under 5%) alcohol, and fruit. For reference we are a family of 4, vegetarian, and spend about 500-600 a month (working on being sub-500 all the time, I was 450$ in February, which is the cheapest its been in like 5 years!).
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As two vegans, our tentative categories are: Produce, "Meat"/Tofu, "Dairy", Baking, Condiments, Grains, Nuts/Seeds, Canned, and Other. Hopefully we don't have too much going into "Other", but I imagine there will be a few tricky-to-categorize items. I made up a spreadsheet last night, and we're looking forward to starting!
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This sounds like a good idea for us! I've been slowly cutting back on our grocery bill, but we've stalled a bit. I want to get our budget below $300. I've got to think about categories.
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I don't much want to, but it's probably a good idea. Categories would include:
Peanut butter
Peanuts (will be a considerable percentage)
Vegetables
Fruit
Meat and tofu (also TVP, but that's a biannual purchase)
Nutty bars and sugar-free chocolate (also a noticeable percentage, our respective vices)
Bread/flour/rice/pasta/couscous
Tuna fish lunch packs (his, no micro or refrigeration, and I refuse to send a PB sandwich since he eats PB for breakfast)
Salsa and assorted condiments
Frozen pizza (yeah, I know)
Cereal (to mix with peanuts above - Store brand Chex and Cheerios- and store brand raisin bran for normal eating)
Dairy
Dog and cat food (runs about 30% of total, or did last time I checked)
Think I'll try it and see. Assuming I stick to it -- I'm very much out of the habit of tracking or budgeting.
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I did some major shopping the last couple days (probably bought too much). I'm entering the receipts into Excel, and have the following categories:
Beverages (if I buy alcohol, it will be a separate category)
Meat
Vegetables
Fruit
Seasonings
Staples (flour, other non-perishables)
Dairy
That allows me to sort, and in the next column, I am putting the actual item purchased. Seems to be working well so far.
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In hindsight, I can now see how setting up categories can greatly assist a needed change in spending. Knowing what the culprits are is a huge part of doing things differently. At first, I had believed I would get too bogged down in time-consuming details, that it would be enough if I simply entered monetary totals for daily expenses (yeah, sounds like an excuse to me too now - ha ha ha).
I took time to read receipts from some purchases of the last few weeks -- Wow! No wonder I've felt overfed and very wasteful.
Thanks everyone for your generous ideas. These insights are helping me greatly.
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Im sure this will be illuminating. Im in!
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In hindsight, I can now see how setting up categories can greatly assist a needed change in spending. Knowing what the culprits are is a huge part of doing things differently. At first, I had believed I would get too bogged down in time-consuming details, that it would be enough if I simply entered monetary totals for daily expenses (yeah, sounds like an excuse to me too now - ha ha ha).
I took time to read receipts from some purchases of the last few weeks -- Wow! No wonder I've felt overfed and very wasteful.
Thanks everyone for your generous ideas. These insights are helping me greatly.
Same thing here. I've been pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy it is to enter all the line items from each receipt. Hardest part was recreating my bill from from memory for the fruit stand where I pay with cash and don't receive a receipt.
Also, knowing I have to enter everything in the spreadsheet ought to keep me honest when I'm at the store!
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I find this really interesting right now too. I have been tracking it for three months and am getting a good idea of where this elusive money is going.
My categories are Meat; Produce; Prepared Foods(salad bar, cooked food bar in grocery); Processed Food, Raw Foods (such as nuts, seeds, nori, bee pollen, etc). Now that I am tracking it, my processed food numbers are dropping and the produce numbers are rising.
My goals are to shift the way I use meat/fish in meals so as to reduce the amount I spend on meat; to cut out prepared food altogether; and to reduce the spending per month by 30%.
I do not include pet food or dry goods in my grocery numbers, they are in different categories in YNAB.
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I'm in. I'll be collecting all of my receipts for the month and will report how it goes.
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That's great to hear, Herbert Derp! I have been very curious as to how you keep your grocery bill so low!
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A suggestion for those of you new to tracking- it is much, much easier if you do it throughout the month, rather than waiting until the end. If I put in a new receipt within a day or so of shopping, all the odd receipt codes are still somewhat fresh in my mind and I can piece it together. If I wait until the end, 1. It is an overwhelmingly large task, and 2. I can't figure out what the hell KS Org is (that is Kirkland signiture organic butter at Costco, by the way!).
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A suggestion for those of you new to tracking- it is much, much easier if you do it throughout the month, rather than waiting until the end. If I put in a new receipt within a day or so of shopping, all the odd receipt codes are still somewhat fresh in my mind and I can piece it together. If I wait until the end, 1. It is an overwhelmingly large task, and 2. I can't figure out what the hell KS Org is (that is Kirkland signiture organic butter at Costco, by the way!).
also, you will still know what size/amount you bought of certain things--if you wait too long you will have already used up some items. this has already happened to me once since I started tracking a couple weeks ago... I find that I have to enter stuff in within about 24 hours to make sure it gets done and is accurate.
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I plan on entering data into my spreadsheet weekly - should be about 6 or 7 receipts a week, mostly with one or two items, so hopefully not too confusing to figure out what I bought!
I'm also planning on posting my percentages weekly, as well as what we ate that week. I think it will help me stay on track with the challenge.
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I just started this last month, and plan on doing it for the foreseeable future. We're doing this at the same time as cutting our food budget down, so it's been helpful in not making impulse purchases for things that are overprice/things we don't need. It's also helpful in seeing what's a good price for something -- functioning as a pseudo pricebook.
Since we usually buy things like oil and rice in bulk, I really want to see the monthly and weekly cost for staples.
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So far we're at 19.5% dog and cat food.
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So far: 37% nuts, 45% produce, 18% soy milk.
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I am lost when making a spreadsheet that can do functions (add columns, etc) but Im tracking.
So far Ive shopped twice this month (!) and spent 121$
Dairy: 12 10%
Produce: 24 20%
Meat: 22 19%
Canned: 19 16%
Pasta/dry/bread: 17 14%
Prepared food: 22 19%
The prepared food is high, but that was mostly a 1x a month fried cx splurge :) from the deli counter
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I am lost when making a spreadsheet that can do functions (add columns, etc) but Im tracking.
So far Ive shopped twice this month (!) and spent 121$
Dairy: 12 10%
Produce: 24 20%
Meat: 22 19%
Canned: 19 16%
Pasta/dry/bread: 17 14%
Prepared food: 22 19%
The prepared food is high, but that was mostly a 1x a month fried cx splurge :) from the deli counter
To add a column, you can do =SUM(A1:A13) or you could add each individually (=A1+A2+.....+A13).
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I am also for this challenge; actually never thought to scrutinize our grocery bill even though it is high; will follow for 6 months to make sure it is understood carefully as well as can see if there is any addition due to hosting family/friends.
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I like this challenge a lot. I need to do this because I about fell over at last weekend's whole foods run. Reminded me why we originally decided to go to the farmers market. With two kids who are in a growth spurt and eat more than the adults do AND having to eat gluten free, if you get lazy just for a second! BAM! $280 grocery bill.
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So far, I have spent $49.90 on groceries.
8% Soy milk
24% Produce
33% Nuts
7% Tofu
18% Grains
11% Beans
I was tempted to get some kind of chips, but then I thought--no, I'd have to post that on the grocery thread--better not! And I kept walking!
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OK, I did my subtotals, and meat seemed kind of scary until I remembered that I bought 3 free range chickens, and have two in the freezer for later this month.
Beverages: 15% (facepunch!)
Dairy: 6%
Fruit: 3%
Meat: 39%
Misc.: 7% (this was mostly energy chews for distance running)
Seasonings: 8%
Staples: 2%
Vegetables: 24%
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We've spent $41.46 on groceries so far. There are two of us. "Meat" is the vegan equivalent of meat. The breakdown:
30% Produce
22% "Meat"/Tofu
10% Condiments
4% Grains
31% Nuts
3% Canned
We bought a can of tomato puree, a big bag of hazelnuts, whole wheat pita bread, jam, a huge thing of vegetarian ground beef, bananas, carrots, onions, broccoli, zucchini, green onions, lettuce, radishes, and a grapefruit.
Our meals have been: tofu puff stir fry, one-pot pasta meal (sort of the same idea as hamburger helper, but homemade, whole grain pasta, and lots of vegetables), skillet pasta, deep dish pizza, calzones, curried chickpeas, and pita wraps. The leftovers from those covered our lunches. Snacks and breakfasts were fruit, hazelnuts, bread with peanut butter and jam, carrot muffins, chocolate chunk cookies, and brownies. We drank water, apple juice, grapefruit juice, and soy milk.
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I am thoroughly enjoying this tracking and what it has already brought forth:
1) Provides a snapshot of just how much I had been over-purchasing food. Even if organic and natural whole foods, I used to pick up way too much "prepared" versions of meals I could make at home.
2) Feels like I have more food choices though I'm spending so much less! Sort of like cleaning out a closet, keeping only what you truly love and suddenly finding it easier to put together a variety of outfits :-)
3) I'm savoring my meals. No matter how simple, everything is fresh, delicious and tasty!
So far, the categories are apportioned as:
39% Produce
11% Grains/Beans
25% Protein (Tofu)/Dairy
1% Coffee/Tea/Seltzer
6% Dessert/Snacks
10% Pet foods/Litter
8% Health /Grooming/Household Products
This week, I've been dining on quiche, salads, roasted potatoes and green vegetables, homemade vegetable soup, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, tuna salad sandwich, whole grain pasta with tomato sauce, more salads, saffron rice with peppers, fresh fruit, freshly popped corn (with way too much "budda") red wine and chocolate. I've been enjoying kitchen time and really savoring my meals. For me, this is BIG.
It will be interesting for me to see how (if) the percentages shift - and if the categories increase - as the month continues.
Bon Appetit!
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Okay, this is super interesting so far!
one caveat: according to my spreadsheet, this is since Feb 8th, but we NEVER spend this little in a month (I wish we did!) so I'm thinking I must be missing at least one receipt somewhere. shoot. probably between the 8th and the 16th because we also NEVER go 8 days without going to the grocery store!
| Baking | $13.64 | 5% |
| Beans | $5.44 | 2% |
| Beverages | $25.97 | 10% |
| Bread | $6.06 | 2% |
| Canned vegetables | $1.40 | 1% |
| Condiments | $5.26 | 2% |
| Cooking oil | $13.38 | 5% |
| Dairy | $37.91 | 15% |
| Floral | $6.98 | 3% |
| Frozen | $6.18 | 2% |
| Meat | $26.41 | 11% |
| Non-Foods | $20.73 | 8% |
| Nuts | $5.99 | 2% |
| Produce | $54.28 | 22% |
| Rice/pasta | $4.88 | 2% |
| Snacks | $4.00 | 2% |
| Spices | $12.38 | 5% |
| Grand Total | $250.89 | 100% |
things that are not surprising: high percentage of dairy. god cheese is so expensive!! (and I'm not even talking fancy cheese or pre-shredded cheese, I'm talking store brand blocks of pepper jack)
things that are surprising: produce being the highest category! I mean I'm glad we eat a lot of fresh produce but I guess it's more expensive than I thought? I was worried this would be meat.
I also feel like I have slightly too many categories to be really useful, but some of them I couldn't figure out how to lump together... like, nuts, it's not like we really buy enough nuts for them to be their own category, but what else are they?!
for the record, non-foods were tinfoil, deodorant, and laundry detergent... I bought the fancy detergent which may be why this is so high :)
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So far we have spent 69.58 and breakdown as follows:
Eggs - 6%
Non-food - 7% - dishwasher detergent
Condiments - 4%
Veggies - 20%
Fruit - 12%
Convenience - 10% - this was a box of tortilla chips from which we have made about 8 servings of nachos. Which has kept us from going out and also hitting that comfort food vibe through a higher then usual stressful week.
Grains - 12% - Bag of flour. I actually expect this would be much higher but we are working through some bulk grain purchases.
Dairy - 29% - milk, cheese, yougurt, cream
What we have eaten this week - Nachoes with homemade refried beans, Cabbage stirfried with korean pepper paste over rice, rice pudding made with the leftover rice, Soup made from lentils, barley and homemade chicken stock plus a little meat, stirfired noodles, homemade granola or oatmeal for breakfasts, leftovers + fruit for lunches.
We had two dinner meetings this week, one was a potluck where I made anzac brownies for dessert and the other was at a committee meeting at a local restaurant paid for by our city.
We would really have to do this exercise for a full year to get an accurate idea of what we spent/eat in a month. We live in Northern Canada so stock up on bulk once a year or when we can.
We definitely spent too much on Dairy - we only buy yougurt on sale, and milk we have gotten down to about 4 liters every week and a bit- but it is our biggest single ongoing expense food wise - I usually start the morning with a cup of warm milk and espresso or two, and Hubby likes to have something warm in the evening when he comes home from work. Trying to come up with some alternatives that satisfy the "rich and creamy" aspect of beverages made with milk vs. water but doesn't cost as much. Anyone have any ideas?
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For the hot beverages, have you priced dry (powdered) milk vs fresh? Powdered generally works as well, especially if you're adding something else to the hot drink (chocolate or coffee). Bonus is you can keep it on the shelf as a backup in case you run out of fresh and maybe save a trip.
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For the hot beverages, have you priced dry (powdered) milk vs fresh? Powdered generally works as well, especially if you're adding something else to the hot drink (chocolate or coffee). Bonus is you can keep it on the shelf as a backup in case you run out of fresh and maybe save a trip.
I'll take a look at how much dry milk is local and do the calculations. I remember being horrified at the price last time I looked, but that was because I am used to getting it Stateside (we take a trip down when we go home to visit every year) we do use it for the "Instant Oatmeal" packages I make for breakfasts. Not too crazy about the taste for drinking, it reminds me of the super ultra high pasteurized shelf stable milk you get in Turkey. I could get over it though if it made sense economically.
I have been trying to drink more tea that is helping a little bit.
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For the hot beverages, have you priced dry (powdered) milk vs fresh? Powdered generally works as well, especially if you're adding something else to the hot drink (chocolate or coffee). Bonus is you can keep it on the shelf as a backup in case you run out of fresh and maybe save a trip.
I'll take a look at how much dry milk is local and do the calculations. I remember being horrified at the price last time I looked, but that was because I am used to getting it Stateside (we take a trip down when we go home to visit every year) we do use it for the "Instant Oatmeal" packages I make for breakfasts. Not too crazy about the taste for drinking, it reminds me of the super ultra high pasteurized shelf stable milk you get in Turkey. I could get over it though if it made sense economically.
I have been trying to drink more tea that is helping a little bit.
Yeah, I can't drink it straight, either, or at least not cold. But it's okay in coffee.
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Ok, here is my spending from the farmers market today:
$50.25 for grass fed beef straight from the farmer (steak, fajita meet, beef sticks)
$19.50 free range boneless skinless chicken breasts -- straight from the farmer
$28 for local raw honey (should last a LONG time)--straight from the beekeeper
$85 for fruit and veggies (includes a box of 150 bananas which we freeze for smoothies and banana ice cream)
This is for two adults and two kids that eat more than the adults. The meat should last two weeks, the produce for 7ish days aside from the bananas, and the honey for months.
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I am in too! I've way overspent on food over the past few years - I seem to have an irrational panic of running out of food, combined with a "but I don't want fish and vegetables tonight, I want macaroni cheese!" attitude which has resulted in buying ridiculous amounts of crap. I have decided to shop weekly, with £25 cash, a menu plan, a shopping list and a calculator and EAT the food I meal plan ffs! I'll be rich and thin ;)
I love Mac and cheese. I cook one cup of elbow macaroni, cook until it has just one or two minutes left, drain, put in milk and cheddar and let it finish cooking while the milk heats and cheese melts. I also add broccoli (frozen, so i put it in the water and let it boil with the noodles) and have cheesy broccoli mac and cheese,. I think its cheaper than getting the processed boxes, and I actually know what's in it. You can make one bowl of it if that's all you want to eat.
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Math done:) My apologies for the mashup between metric and imperial, that's how my brain works.
Locally, I can get a 2kg bag of milk powder for $34.90. That is approx 29 cups. A quick search suggests to make 4 liters of milk I would need to use 5 1/3 cups so just about 5 1/2 4 L batches.
I can get fresh milk for 5.59 for 4 L. the equivalent to dried for 30.74 or for each 4L of dried milk it is 6.34....
So I had a feeling dried milk bought locally wouldn't save me too much...but didn't expect it to actually cost more:(
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updated: for march 8. went to costco today and got some bulk items. unfortunately I still need pasta, milk, and possibly some chicken to get thru this week. maybe some more greens, too. ugh. dont feel like Im doing that well so far this month!
Dairy 42 16.54%
Produce 24 9.45%
Meat 64 25.20%
Canned 65 25.59%
Bread/Dry/Pasta 21 8.27%
Prepared food 38 14.96%
Total 254
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Math done:) My apologies for the mashup between metric and imperial, that's how my brain works.
Locally, I can get a 2kg bag of milk powder for $34.90. That is approx 29 cups. A quick search suggests to make 4 liters of milk I would need to use 5 1/3 cups so just about 5 1/2 4 L batches.
I can get fresh milk for 5.59 for 4 L. the equivalent to dried for 30.74 or for each 4L of dried milk it is 6.34....
So I had a feeling dried milk bought locally wouldn't save me too much...but didn't expect it to actually cost more:(
Ah, well. It was an idea. Dry milk is more expensive here than it used to be, too. I'll have to price it, but then I think I'll run the numbers, too. And perhaps I'll check Amazon while I'm at it.
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March- Total So Far (for 2 adults) $107.
We usually ring in at around $190 per month, so I'm interested to see how we end up doing. I have gone as low as $104 per month in the past, when I have had to, but this feels much more luxurious and still reasonable spending wise. I'm happy with it!
Frozen Seafood ($20) 18.69%
Dry Pantry Goods ($57) 53.27%
Fresh Fruit and Vegetables ($30) 28.03%
Cheese & Eggs ($15) 14.01%
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Produce 21.56 25.58%
Grains/Beans/Bread 4.56 5.41%
Meat 10.09 11.97%
Dairy 15.36 18.23%
Beverages 2.97 3.52%
Desserts 5 5.93%
Convenience/Snacks13.96 16.57%
Paper Products 2.94 3.49%
CRV 0.3 0.36%
Delivery Fees 3 3.56%
Peanut Butter 3.98 4.72% <---Yes, PB deserves a category in our household!
Tax 0.55 0.65%
Eggs 4.28 5.08%
Total $84.27
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As an update for the two of us, we're up to $101.74 for the month. Our breakdowns right now are at:
Produce - 27%
"Meat"/tofu - 11%
Baking - 9%
Condiments - 9%
Grains - 9%
"Dairy" - 18%
Nuts/seeds - 13%
Canned - 3%
Non-food - 2%
Since the last update, about a week, we bought shortening, cocoa powder, salt, cleaning wipes, tomato sauce, tofu puffs, eggplant, a bag of avocados, broccoli, green onions, a bag of red peppers, a grapefruit, 10kg flour, soy milk, almond yogurt, raspberry jam, non-dairy cream cheese, udon noodles, two cauliflowers, cilantro, and a lime.
Our meals over the last week-ish have been stir fry, vegetable pot pie, yakiudon, burritos, kung pao, and leftovers from those. Breakfasts and snacks have been bananas, hazelnuts, bran muffins, chai muffins, peanut butter and jam with toast, guacamole, and blondies. We've been drinking water, apple juice, grapefruit juice, and soy milk.
My boyfriend had one meal at a restaurant, but it was a company event and he didn't pay for it.
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I know it says "all March!" in the thread title, but I'll join in partially, if I may - I started counting from Monday the 3rd of March. I'll do it until at least this upcoming Sunday, for two weeks total. Later next week my boyfriend is visiting from interstate, and then after that we're travelling, so I'd rather just keep it simple.
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Here's where I am, after spending a total of $80.29:
26% nuts
18% grains
17% produce
7% soy milk
7% beans
6% bread
6% canned Chili (Amy's)
4% tofu
4% eggs
4% cheese
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I am lost when making a spreadsheet that can do functions (add columns, etc) but Im tracking.
So far Ive shopped twice this month (!) and spent 121$
Dairy: 12 10%
Produce: 24 20%
Meat: 22 19%
Canned: 19 16%
Pasta/dry/bread: 17 14%
Prepared food: 22 19%
The prepared food is high, but that was mostly a 1x a month fried cx splurge :) from the deli counter
To add a column, you can do =SUM(A1:A13) or you could add each individually (=A1+A2+.....+A13).
Another handy command is =SUM(A1:A) That will add up the whole column, so you don't have to worry about changing your formulas if you add additional stuff.
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March Update- I'll do the percentages at the end of the month, but here are my totals so far:
Frozen Seafood ($20)
Dry Pantry Goods ($65.41)
Fresh Fruit and Vegetables ($43)
Cheese & Eggs ($15)
Spices & Herbs ($8.28)
Total: $151.69 (for two adults)
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Total spend so far for March is $312.36 (for two people).
Bakery (bread etc): 6%
Baking supplies: 5%
Beverages (so far, just coffee to use at home): 3%
Dairy (butter, milk, cheese): 15%
Fruit: 3%
Paper and plastic (newspaper, toilet paper): 4%
Personal care (vitamins, floss, sanitary products): 18%
Protein (eggs, meat): 8%
Sauces and flavourings (so far, just honey!): 2%
Snacks: 2%
Treats: 3%
Vegetables: 12%
Dry goods (pasta, rice, flour, cans of baked beans): 6%
Stationery (card for a wedding): 1%
Household and cleaning (dishwasher tabs and rinse aid): 11%
Personal care and household and cleaning are both artifically inflated by massive sales on items in those categories, meaning we stocked up and thus spent a lot under those headings. Should be lower in a 'normal' month. Dishwasher tabs are a major expense, but I've tried several homemade recipes and they haven't worked at all, and our choices for the tabs in the shop are limited because of allergies. Still looking for a solution there.
Protein was artifically deflated as we started the month with a kilo of red meat already in the freezer.
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Produce 33.58 20.68%
Grains/Beans/Bread 4.56 2.81%
Meat 24.5 15.09%
Dairy 17.83 10.98%
Beverages 4.97 3.06%
Desserts $5 3.08%
Conveience Foods/Snacks 27.91 17.19%
Paper Products 2.94 1.81%
CRV 0.5 0.31%
Delivery Fees 6 3.69%
Protein 20.82 12.82%
Tax 1.61 0.99%
0.00%
Personal Care 9.94 6.12%
Household 2.24 1.38%
Total $162.4
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I did this in 99, down to the items, and it was the most habit-changing thing I've ever done. I could tell you what I spent on Yoo-Hoo that year.
I like your categories, 4alpacas!
Will redo this myself, perhaps April, since I'm late to the game!
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I did this in 99, down to the items, and it was the most habit-changing thing I've ever done. I could tell you what I spent on Yoo-Hoo that year.
I like your categories, 4alpacas!
Will redo this myself, perhaps April, since I'm late to the game!
Thanks! I got category inspiration from all of the other posters. I broke the categories down by how I want to eat. I want to eat more protein from non-meat sources (which is why protein and meat are separate things), more produce (I'm happy to see that it's the highest), and eat less desserts (the $5 was a box of Girl Scout cookies...and they were AMAZING!!!).
If I did item by item, I think I would go crazy!!! I'm hoping to work on getting our monthly grocery bill below $300 (including delivery fees, taxes, personal care, household products, paper products, etc.). The ultimate goal is under $250.
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My weekly update! We're up to $154.88 so far (2 people).
Percentages:
Produce: 27%
"Meat"/Tofu: 8%
Baking: 12%
Condiments: 6%
Grains: 4%
"Dairy": 25%
Nuts/seeds: 8%
Canned: 2%
Non-food: 8%
This week we bought toilet paper, baking powder, broccoli, green onions, red cabbage, a tomato, carrots, bananas, sweet potatoes, tofu, shredded non-dairy cheese, onions, zucchini, a green pepper, lasagna noodles, and soy milk.
For snacks and breakfasts we had PBJ toast, hazelnuts, bananas, corn flakes, peanut butter cookies, raspberry muffins, banana muffins, and raisin bran muffins.
For dinners we had ratatouille, blueberry strawberry pie (it was Pi Day! Give me a break!), lentil stew, lasagna, breakfast for dinner, fried rice, shepherds pie, and thin crust pizza. Lunches were leftovers from the above.
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I'm in! We save our receipts each month and I usually just add up the grocery total but I'm going to do the breakdown this month. Our groceries are getting out of control. I used to feed all of us on $400 a month and we just raised it to $500 and we are set to go over this month and it's making me crazy! I used to have such a handle on this. Hopefully doing a breakdown for a couple of months will show me where I'm going wrong.
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For dinners we had ratatouille, blueberry strawberry pie (it was Pi Day! Give me a break!), lentil stew, lasagna, breakfast for dinner, fried rice, shepherds pie, and thin crust pizza. Lunches were leftovers from the above.
Zikoris - You're vegan, right? I'm trying to move that direction for myself (I'll let the rest of my family make up their own minds) and would love a good vegan lasagna recipe. Mind sharing?
We went to Costco over spring break and stocked up. Also bought a Vitamix (on sale for $375, less the $199 Costco Amex rebate plus I sold my ice cream maker, Ninja and food processor, so I didn't end up being out of pocket for it), so we spent A LOT. I'll come back this weekend after we've done our grocery run and update with totals.
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Sure! For sauce, I used leftover ratatouille that I made in the slow cooker a few days earlier (crushed tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, onions, garlic, carrots, thyme, sage, and a bit of pepper and vegetable stock), but regular tomato sauce would work fine as well. The filling was fried up onions, garlic, zucchini, veggie ground round, green pepper, oregano, and paprika (secret Hungarian ingredient!). I use regular lasagna noodles, and Daiya non-dairy cheese (it's made of arrowroot). It took about 25 minutes at 350 to bake. It was really good, the only thing that might have improved it a bit would be adding toasted bread crumbs to the cheese topping.
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I crashed and burned with this challenge. Too much going on, didn't get around to recording two receipts, lost them. I think we'll come in under $250 for the month, but I don't know and won't know exactly how it breaks down.
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I am fascinated by this idea! I've never tracked my food spending any more closely than "grocery" and "dining out".
I pulled out all my grocery receipts for the year-to-date (to get a better idea than just one month). I also counted up that I've been traveling for about 21 days this year (where I either ate out, mostly on company $ or had food provided when I was visiting friends and family). Since today is the 21st, the sum of my grocery expenses for the year should be about the same as two months of non-traveling (I did have some small grocery purchases while traveling, but this provides a rough idea).
Leaving out non food items ($11) and sales taxes ($12), I've spent $330 over this period (for one person), so about $165/month).
Here's my breakdown by category:
beverage 7.4%
bread 4.9%
can veg 1.1%
dairy 37.4%
dry goods 2.4%
frz veg 2.3%
meat 6.8%
prepared 24.4%
produce 13.4%
Yep, dairy is my number one food category! Milk/cheese/yogurt are staples for me. I do better when I buy large tubs of yogurt and flavor/portion them out myself, but I haven't been doing that lately. So a daily yogurt at about $0.75 each adds up!
If I sub-categorize dairy, it looks like this (portion of total food)
yogurt 8.0%
cheese 11.6%
milk 16.0%
other 1.7% (three items so far: eggs, sour cream, butter)
Prepared foods is the next largest category, and I really need to work on this one. I've counted individual yogurts in dairy rather than prepared, so this isn't even a true picture of how lazy I am. My typical breakfast on the three days per week that I go to the office is: a can of V8 (beverages), a yogurt (dairy), and a food bar (prepared). I really need to start making frozen breakfast burritos again instead of food bars. They taste better and cost less.
Also big in the prepared foods: hummus, which I need to start making myself, and salsa or pico de gallo, which I do make when I have in-season produce, mostly from the garden. In winter, I just buy it in tubs. Two more sub-categories of prepared foods are meals (just heat and eat - I do this about one meal per week) and snacks (chips, trek mix, etc). Here's the sub-category breakdown of prepared foods:
bar 7.4%
hummus 3.3%
salsa 3.6%
meal 6.6%
snack 3.5%
For a full picture of my food spending, I've also spent $108 on non-travel dining out over this modified two-month period, which covers one super-fancy meal and a few casual meals.
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I know it says "all March!" in the thread title, but I'll join in partially, if I may - I started counting from Monday the 3rd of March. I'll do it until at least this upcoming Sunday, for two weeks total. Later next week my boyfriend is visiting from interstate, and then after that we're travelling, so I'd rather just keep it simple.
Alright, I said I'd do 2 weeks but I decided to stretch it to 3 weeks, so that's good! Leaving for a trip in a few days, so I won't be tracking any further, and will post my results now.
3/3/14 – 23/3/14 (3 weeks of Mon-Sun inclusive)
Meat / Tofu / Other Protein: $16.8 (20.5%)
Vegetables: $15.50 (18.9%)
Dairy: $15.3 (18.6%)
Fruits: $12.70 (15.5%)
Sweet and Savoury Snacks: $9.4 (11.5%)
Supplements: $7 (8.5%)
Nuts / Grains / Legumes / Related Products: $3.85 (4.7%)
Household / Non-Edibles: $1.50 (1.8%)
Total: $82.05 for 3 weeks
Actual items bought in the above categories:
Meat / Tofu / Other Protein: lamb sausages, lamb mince, canned tuna, chicken thighs
Vegetables: baby spinach, lettuce, rocket/arugula, eggplant, zucchini, mixed salad greens, bok choy, okra, green beans, potatoes
Dairy: yoghurt, cheddar
Fruits: papaya, bananas, oranges, rockmelon/cantaloupe
Sweet and Savoury Snacks: bacon cheese snacks, hazelnut chocolate, spicy potato chips
Supplements: vitamin D
Nuts / Grains / Legumes / Related Products: puffed corn thins
Household / Non-Edibles: laundry pre-wash stain remover
Notes:
- My spending on food has been unusually low because I've been striving to eat more of the things I already have, especially staples like rice, noodles or pasta.
- Over the 3 weeks, I have also spent $27 on eating out, which is also less than what I normally spend. (Apparently I don't eat out as much when my boyfriend isn't around.) This includes a small seafood stew at a food festival, 3 scoops of fancy gelati at one of my favourite shops, a work lunch takeaway of sashimi on rice, and dumplings.
- My boyfriend flew over a few days ago and has treated me to a couple of meals out, but I've also been feeding him at my apartment out of my own pocket.
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I hope it's alright if I join you all. I've been tracking food spending since March 9. For reference, I only cook for myself, so these numbers are for one person only. I thought that two weeks of spending would be enough to make my first progress post. Both pre-sales tax and post-sales tax percentages are included since grocery sales tax is quite high in Kansas (and even higher in my county and city). I have discovered that sales tax is .25% points higher in the city where I live than in the city where I work (from a school bond a few years back).
Category Spending % of After- Sales Tax % of Pre-Sales Tax
Produce $22.35 51.3% 55.8%
Beans $1.29 3.0% 3.2%
Grains - - -
Meat $13.69 31.4% 34.2%
Dairy - - -
Eggs $2.75 6.3% 6.9%
Pantry - - -
Alcohol/Coffee - - -
Prepared - - -
Sales Tax $3.49 8.0%
Total $43.57
Meals Cooked: Red Beans with Sausage and Cornbread, Asparagus and Mushroom Risotto, Egg Noodles in Mornay Sauce, Corned Beef and Vegetables, Waldorf Salad
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I really need to start making frozen breakfast burritos again instead of food bars. They taste better and cost less.
You can do homemade bars, too. I've done a couple batches of these Kind bars and they're better than store-bought:
http://www.theyummylife.com/Homemade_KIND_Bars
I need to plug my receipts in and see where we're at. We'll be getting our rental property spiffed up to sell next weekend, so grocery shopping is probably done for the month. What I know already, is that we spend quite a bit on meat - it's 75% wild caught/grass fed/free range, so I need to do some thinking about the quality vs. quantity thing (not that I'm going to go for less quality, just need to decide if the proportion of budget is reasonable).
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Here is our March breakdown so far:
Drinks 20.05
Sweeteners 16.37
Oil / Butter 13.08
Dairy 18.04
Canned 5.05
Produce 53.27
Premade Snacks 9.77
Baking 9.68
Nuts / Nut Butter 21.33
Pasta / Noodles 1.29
Grains 1.72
Total 169.95
This is for my husband and me, and we are vegetarians. No surprise that Produce is our biggest spending category.
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You can do homemade bars, too. I've done a couple batches of these Kind bars and they're better than store-bought:
http://www.theyummylife.com/Homemade_KIND_Bars
Fantastic, thanks! I had KIND bars for the first time last month while visiting friends and they are delicious! More expensive than my usual Luna/Clif, though, so I've only bought a few. (Any tips on replicating a lemon Luna?)
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Already went over my $200 budget for the month by $23! For the first 13 days, I was way under budget. Then had company and all bets were off :-)
I am so glad to be participating in this challenge because the categorizing has revealed where the waste has been in my grocery spending. After reviewing receipts against an Excel spreadsheet created for tracking, I find I still spend way too much on coffee, seltzer and wine.
Currently, I'm on a "no-Internet-at-Home" challenge (typing this from the Library). I am now considering a challenge for April 2014 of not purchasing coffee, tea, seltzer or wine.
Thanks everybody for your input - I'm learning a lot.
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Ok, here is my spending from the farmers market today:
$50.25 for grass fed beef straight from the farmer (steak, fajita meet, beef sticks)
$19.50 free range boneless skinless chicken breasts -- straight from the farmer
$28 for local raw honey (should last a LONG time)--straight from the beekeeper
$85 for fruit and veggies (includes a box of 150 bananas which we freeze for smoothies and banana ice cream)
This is for two adults and two kids that eat more than the adults. The meat should last two weeks, the produce for 7ish days aside from the bananas, and the honey for months.
I AM SO MAD AT MYSELF! I accidentally threw away my Costco receipt. Grrrr.... My daughter helped try to recreate it, but still.
Costco on 3/12:
$387
Not counting the Vitamix, household or medicine items as they belong in a different category.
$43 for bottled water, juice boxes, coconut water for kids' and husband's school/office lunches that will last the rest of the school year (end of May)
$344 for rice (12 lbs), olive oil (2 of the ginormous bottles), quinoa (10 lbs), organic sugar (10 lbs), 3 loaves GF bread, GF Flour, GF crackers, cheese, eggs, milk, almond milk, frozen strawberries, watermelon, raspberries, coffee, coffee creamer, yogurt, oats, Nutella and whatever else I forgot.
Farmers Market 3/23:
$145.50
$32.50 - 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast, 2 chicken quarters, 2 dozen eggs
$113 - all produce (case of bananas - 40lbs, flat of mangos, the rest were a wide variety of fruits and veggies)
Total to Date: $715.25
Ouch.
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OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS AND EMBARRASSING.
| Category | Total | |
| Baking | $5.78 | 1% |
| Beans | $3.54 | 1% |
| Beverages | $76.25 | 16% |
| Bread | $15.90 | 3% |
| Canned vegetables | $6.49 | 1% |
| Condiments | $8.98 | 2% |
| Cooking oil | $2.99 | 1% |
| Dairy | $48.05 | 10% |
| Floral | $6.98 | 1% |
| Frozen | $19.06 | 4% |
| Meat | $97.45 | 20% |
| Non-Foods | $45.95 | 10% |
| Nuts | $3.49 | 1% |
| Produce | $79.64 | 17% |
| Rice/pasta | $21.42 | 4% |
| Snacks | $21.50 | 4% |
| Spices | $4.88 | 1% |
| Misc Pantry | $4.55 | 1% |
| Dog Stuff | $3.00 | 1% |
| Prepared Foods | $2.50 | 1% |
| Grand Total | $478.40 | 100% |
and the month isn't even over yet!!! I guarantee we will crack $500. and this is for TWO ADULTS!! I mean we eat a lot (both runners, and pretty high metabolisms) BUT STILL.
also, last week before I entered the last few receipts I commented to my boyfriend on how we were already at almost $400 and "isn't that A LOT?!" and he didn't think it was! maybe after he sees the final month's total he will be appalled? I sure hope so because I definitely can't control this spending without buy-in!
some thoughts before you facepunch me TOO hard:
- yes, I already plan our meals. we have made dramatic improvement wrt only grocery shopping 2-3x per week (usually 2 planned-out ones together, and then he will make one or two random stops after work)... we used to go more like 4-5x.
- no, we don't buy frozen/premade lasagnas-stir fries-what have you... everything that is cooked is cooked basically from scratch. since I got my stand mixer for Christmas, this includes pizza dough and usually bread (just bought a loaf of French bread on Monday for the first time in over a month due to laziness/lack of planning, it was $1.79).
- we don't usually buy organic/grass fed/etc. once or twice a month we splurge on meat for one meal at a local butcher we like to support, and when the summer farmer's market comes back next month I will buy eggs there and they are more expensive (but this month, only cheap eggs :))
- I took advantage of two sales on chicken breasts, so we are STOCKED with more than we'll eat by the end of the month... we also have some salmon that I bought on sale but haven't eaten yet.
- we probably eat 1-2 vegetarian dinners per week (leftovers are then rolled over into lunches)... I would LOVE to improve this to more like 50%. also, it just occurred to me that maybe cooking enough dinner so that both of us can have delicious leftovers for lunch is NOT as economical as I had assumed... maybe finding some kind of cheap, easily repeatable lunch food would be better?? hmmmm.
I will cut myself off here before I try to make this thread all about me, but I think I'm going to do a serious groceries case study/ask for help at the end of the month... because DAMN.
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OscarsMom - I thank you because I was feeling shocked by our grocery tab this month.
I had a major moment of weakness yesterday and went to Whole Foods before lunch and after a mammogram. Not a good idea. I bought more than the three items I went in for. Including sushi and a ginormous chocolate bar. Which I ate. All of.
Adding the $77 (!!!) tab for that, our monthly total was pretty bad. $792. For 4 people.
As my college roommate would say, "Fuck a duck."
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Second to last update - nearing the finish line!
We're at $210.30 (2 people). The actual dollar amount we've spent is only $157 due to various store credit/gift cards we've been using, but we're recording for the challenge as if we were paying the full amount.
Produce - 29%
"Meat"/Tofu - 13%
Baking - 14%
Condiments - 4%
Grains - 5%
"Dairy" - 19%
Nuts - 6%
Canned - 2%
Non-food - 6%
Other - 2%
This week we bought: Lime, cilantro, pears, bananas, butternut squash, cauliflower, green onions, green pepper, radishes, zucchini, oranges, a bag of avocados, broccoli, pita bread, 10 grain hot cereal blend, margarine, cooking oil, apple juice, tofu puffs, hummus, and vegetarian frozen chicken breasts.
Breakfasts and snacks have been hazelnuts, peanut butter cookies, bananas, pears, raisin bran muffins, 10 grain muffins, blondies, Hungarian orange-hazelnut muffins, toasted pita bread with hummus and guacamole, and toast with avocado or pbj.
Dinners have been stir fry, dhal, casserole, tofu fried rice, "chicken" stew, breakfast for dinner, thin crust pizza, and a skillet pasta meal. Lunches were leftovers from that.
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I went way over my goal of $160 this month. Total is $215.41 plus tax.
Here are the percentages:
7% soy milk
21% produce
23% nuts
3% tofu
8% grains (quinoa, kamut, oatmeal)
6% beans
2% bread (as a rule, I do not buy bread)
1% eggs (as a rule, I do not buy eggs)
2% cheese (as a rule, I do not buy cheese)
13% prepared food (mac 'n cheese, chips, and Clif products for traveling and camping; 2 cans Amy's chili because they are good and they were on sale)
6% tea
2% cinnamon
6% coffee
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OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS AND EMBARRASSING. . . .
[and the month isn't even over yet!!! I guarantee we will crack $500. and this is for TWO ADULTS!!. . groceries case study/ask for help at the end of the month... because DAMN.
RIMH,
Similar grocery spending for ONLY one adult (and one kitty) brought me to these forums! One month, I was close to equaling a rent payment! So thankful that is no longer my habit.
Soon after I began earnestly reading MMM, my grocery bills were cut in half -- it was painless. Now, I'm in the process of tweaking it more.
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Although I threw my hat into the ring, I just didn't do it. I'm still interested in the whole idea though. Realised a week ago it wouldn't be that hard since I'm currently doing YNAB. Will try April.
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Although I threw my hat into the ring, I just didn't do it. I'm still interested in the whole idea though. Realised a week ago it wouldn't be that hard since I'm currently doing YNAB. Will try April.
I expected it to be a lot harder, but once you get going and have a system it's pretty easy - we have an envelope that receipts get dumped in immediately, and I've been updating our spreadsheet once a week. I actually think the meal planning initiative we've started is a lot more work.
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We (meaning my family) sucked wind in March. But, I'm going to try this again in April. This is definitely a line item in our budget that can and should be optimized.
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Hi all, I just saw this thread because we were away so I've lost half the month. But here's my breakdown so far. Looking forward to doing this for April too! We usually spend about 800-1000 a month so I'd like to cut down. Family of 4,
22% Eggs, poultry, beef, fish - and we don't even buy the organic, grass fed stuff :(
17% Fresh produce
10% Coffee, tea (coffee was on sale so I shopped with my middle finger)
8% Snacks - not the healthy kind (uh oh)
8% Milk, yogurt, cream (two growing kids)
7% Dessert (I made old school tiramisu. Happens a few times a year.)
5% Cheese (bought a big chunk of Parmesan)
5% Orange juice (only because we're sick)
3% Condiments
3% School lunches
3% Baking supplies
3% Nuts
2% Frozen/can produce
2% Cold cereal
1% Grains
1% Bread
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I've made my last grocery purchase for the month. I should have gone shopping today (~$200 at the regular market and Costco), but ran out of time, so I'm done now for the month. My normal budget is $500.
This is for a family of 5 (2 adults, 1 teen, 2 kids). There were some sales on household consumables, grooming products, and soda, so I stocked up. Our bread spending was down because I've been baking sandwich bread for the last two weeks. We had a month-end breakdown in meal planning, so our junk spending is up.
Good exercise.
Total $289.01
Household consumables $36.60 7%
Produce, Fresh $34.98 7%
Sweets/Desserts $31.88 6%
Grooming $29.39 6%
Meat/Eggs $27.00 5%
Snacks, Junk $21.06 4%
Protein, Plant $17.21 3%
Dairy $15.95 3%
Condiments $12.69 2%
Beverages, Soda $12.65 2%
Breads & tortillas $10.34 2%
Baking $10.21 2%
Pasta & Sauce $7.30 1%
Disposables $6.59 1%
Whole Grains $4.62 1%
Kitchen tools $4.39 1%
Cereal $3.29 1%
Spices $1.89 0%
Produce, Frozen $0.97 0%
Beverages, Coffee $- 0%
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Hmm, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing a receipt, and there is some junk food DH purchased that is not accounted for here, but I'm coming in at $335, with the following breakdown:
Meat:38%
Vegetables: 26%
Dairy: 8%
Beverages: 7%
Fruit: 5%
Treats (ice cream): 2%
Staples (flour): 1%
Seasonings: 4%
Nuts: 3%
Misc.: 4%
I think I will do this again in April, as this is not a very typical month. I am also doing the eat everything in the house challenge, so have not been buying the usual non-perishable stuff. We eat more towards the paleo/primal side, but obviously not religiously. We also have chickens, so eat lots of eggs, which aren't accounted for. It will be interesting to do this again in July or August when there's lots of produce coming out of the garden.
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Eye opening for sure!
Meat - 43.65 - 17.87%
Dairy - $78.41 - 32.11% - includes cheese, milk, yogurt
Canned - $2.19 - 0.90%
Grains - $7.99 - 3.27%
Convenience - $49.21 - 20.15%
Fruit - $11.56 - 4.73%
Vegetable - $39.43 - 16.15%
Condiments - $2.59 - 1.06%
Other - $4.79 - 1.96%
Eggs - $8.56 - 3.51%
Total 244.22 for two adults in Northern BC
Thoughts: Our Convenience category is high this includes everything we could make at home - Buns, Bagels, Taco chips as part of meal and and some snack foods. In the case of a lot of the baking on sale, I can't buy the ingredients cheap enough to make them here - but I could make them myself, so they are in the convenience category. On the bright side, there is nothing in this category that wasn't on sale.
Our Dairy is really high. Hubby takes yogurt and homemade granola as part of his lunch every day. We go through an average of 4 L of milk a week. Even basic cheese is expensive here, but we could probably work on using less.
The numbers aren't really representative because we have been working through our freezer and pantry - and buy a lot of our grains and other purchases in bulk. I'm not quite sure how I want to break these down yet. As an example we did spend an extra 207.00 this month on our 2x yearly chicken order. We got our year supply of honey, 6 onth worth of chickens and a crate of eggs - not sure how long those will last yet. At the easiest breakdown, of dividing the total into 6 months it adds an extra 35.00 to this month's grocery bill for a total of just under $280.00.
Last year our grocery budget was $600.00 a month. Current budget is 310.00 so coming in at $280 I am pretty happy with, still see a bunch of fat to trim so this challenge was awesome!
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It's been an interesting month - I just put up a blog post with my detailed numbers, meal plan, and discussion since we're finished shopping for the month now. We were actually pretty accurate in our predictions - we each wrote predictions on the back of the receipt envelope at the start of the month.
We finished the month at $235.62 "fantasy dollars", 181.04 "reality dollars" due to a few gift cards and store credit.
Produce - 29%
"Meat"/tofu - 14%
Baking - 15%
Condiments - 4%
Grains - 6%
"Dairy" - 17%
Nuts - 8%
Canned - 2%
Non-food - 5%
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Hello, I'm Kestra and I'm a fruitaholic.
I won't be posting my March tracking cause we were on vacation and it wouldn't be very accurate, but I will post my monthly averages once I finish my 6 month tracking project around August. Just amazed at other people's low amounts for fruit. Both my husband and myself eat so much fresh fruit, about half organic and/or as local as possible, which isn't that cheap around here, so our fruit alone will probably be around $100 per month or more. Luckily we can afford it as I do love my fruit. We both eat about 4 pieces of fruit per day. Next summer maybe I'll try our local fruitshare organization (www.fruitshare.ca) again since I have more time and storage space now. I'd love to have land with fruit trees but it's not in the cards at the moment.
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We eat quite a bit of fruit, but due to location and availability most of it is dried and we have been working through our storage supply. We still have a ton of rhubarb in the freezer and huckleberries (Rhubarb was free and Huckleberries foraged) Dried organic fruit does make up a pretty large portion of our bulk orders as we eat it for snacks, use it in baking, in our instant oatmeal packages and in Tajines.
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I am going to do this for April. Anyone else in?
My grocery bill continues to be higher than I'd like.
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I am going to do this for April. Anyone else in?
My grocery bill continues to be higher than I'd like.
I'll join you - I'd actually love to do this for the rest of the year to get a fully accurate idea of where the grocery $ goes.
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I am going to do this for April. Anyone else in?
My grocery bill continues to be higher than I'd like.
I'm in.
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I'm in for the rest of the year as well. I need a larger time frame to capture my grains spending, amongst other categories. Here are my 22-day totals (one person):
Category Weekly Change Total Percent
Produce $ 9.43 $31.78 40.0%
Beans $ 6.52 $ 7.81 9.8%
Grains - - -
Meat - $13.69 17.2%
Dairy - - -
Eggs - $ 2.75 3.5%
Pantry $ 1.99 $ 1.99 2.7%
Alcohol/Coffee $14.99 $14.99 18.9%
Prepared - - -
Sales Tax $ 2.91 $ 6.40 8.1%
Total $24.84 $79.41
Meals Cooked: Chocolate Pave Cake (yes, that's a meal; breakfast usually), Falafel Pita with White Bean Hummus, Lentil Stew with Carrots and Fenugreek, Black Bean Enchiladas with Red Pepper Sauce and Guacamole
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Total expenditure: $122.79
nuts 17.0%
fruits 15.4%
coffee/tea 14.4%
meat 13.4%
oil/butter 9.1%
vegetables 8.5%
beer 7.7%
legumes 4.0%
chocolate 2.4%
grains 1.6%
My expenditure doesn't really match up with my consumption because I purchased bulk vegetables, rice, etc. in previous months and share some food with my roommates.
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Weird month for me. I spent $75.27 total.
Produce: 12%
Bulk and dry goods: 54%
Spices/oils/condiments: 13%
Restaurants: 21% (fail!)
I will do better next month.
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I will also do it next month. I am thinking of doing a nut-free April.
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I'm in for April! I'm still shocked at how much higher my spending is than many here so I obviously have a long way to go! in some categories I am curious whether people just eat way less than us or whether costs are lower/I'm not taking good advantage of sales, etc.
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@rocksinmyhead: Since I have fairly low food spending (about $100/month), I looked back over my spreadsheet and totaled up amounts to give a better perspective on how much I bought in each category I tracked in March. Since I haven't yet gone to the grocery store in April, here are my 23-day totals for one person:
Category Price Amount
Produce (Veg.) $20.77 20.16 lbs. (9.16 kg) various plus 1 cucumber, 2 avocados, 1 bunch of celery, 4 bell peppers
Produce (Fruit) $11.01 4.59 lbs. (2.1 kg) various plus 2 lemons, 2 limes, 1 cantaloupe
Beans $ 7.81 3.5 lbs. (1.6 kg) various
Meat $13.69 3.975 lbs. (1.8 kg)various
Eggs $ 2.75 18 large eggs
Pantry $ 1.99 3 oz. (85 g) chocolate bar
Alcohol/Coffee $14.99 12-pack of beer
Sales Tax $ 6.40
Total $79.41
It looks like fruits are relatively more expensive than vegetables. There are some grapes for >$2.00 per pound in the various category there driving the overall cost up. The cantaloupe was only $.88 for a big fruit, so there may be significantly more pounds there than included in the various category. The meat was more expensive per pound than I usually buy since I decided to indulge in corned beef ($3.45/lb.) for St. Patrick's Day.
My kitchen scale finally has batteries again, so I plan to weigh all produce going forward.
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I am going to do this for April. Anyone else in?
My grocery bill continues to be higher than I'd like.
im in too, was there a spreadsheet you guys were using for tracking? how about the categories?
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2wakefulFlea, here's mine (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-12XB4cD12GQWVNbUV1NTFGS0U/edit?usp=sharing), check it out and use it if you want! (hopefully that link works)
also, if anyone has advice on things I can cut, I could really use it!! I started a thread here:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/please-help-me-scrutinize-my-grocery-bill!/ (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/please-help-me-scrutinize-my-grocery-bill!/)
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2wakefulFlea, here's mine (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-12XB4cD12GQWVNbUV1NTFGS0U/edit?usp=sharing), check it out and use it if you want! (hopefully that link works)
also, if anyone has advice on things I can cut, I could really use it!! I started a thread here:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/please-help-me-scrutinize-my-grocery-bill!/ (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/please-help-me-scrutinize-my-grocery-bill!/)
WOW! this is very detailed, im not very excel savvy, so where do i plug in the info on sheet 1? i tried to delete everything on sheet 1 but i cant also find any dropdown options for categories? looks like ive deleted everything?
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oh I guess it's not that fancy haha! I don't have any drop down categories. I just type in my categories and if I can't remember exactly how I worded something, I just look up above on the spreadsheet. someone more excel-savvy than me probably has one with dropdown categories, though!
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cool! ill start using this! thanks!
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Ok, we are in April. No food purchases yet this week. But I am happy to report that as I stood in the kitchen contemplating what to make for dinner, I swatted away the siren call to order takeout. Instead I put together a breakfast casserole made from corn tortillas, eggs, shredded cheese, GF multipurpose flour, pork sausage (direct from the farmer) and 8-9 eggs (direct from farmer), salt, pepper, paprika and cumin. I layered all the ingredients and cooked them for 30 minutes. I served it with fresh fruit and homemade salsa. It was delicious. And a heck of a lot cheaper than ordering food in.
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Alright, here is my grocery total for the month of March. Looks like my spending is quite similar to the rest of you. I still have half the chicken thighs and all the chicken tenderloins, I expect that to last me for the rest of April.
Carbs
$2.00 3 lbs bread (2 loaves)
$8.80 10 lbs pasta
$1.78 1 lbs saltine crackers
$12.58 Total
Meat
$35.94 18 lbs boneless skinless chicken tenderloin
$24.98 13 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
$60.92 Total
Vegetables
$2.34 3 lbs green beans
$2.34 3 lbs broccoli
$4.68 Total
Dairy
$2.92 24 large AA eggs
$7.96 4 lbs Velveeta
$10.88 Total
Junk Food
$5.00 30 pop tarts
$5.00 Total
Other
$0.34 hot sauce
$1.62 barbecue sauce
$1.49 honey mustard
$3.45 Total
$97.51 Grand Total
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Ok, we are in April. No food purchases yet this week. But I am happy to report that as I stood in the kitchen contemplating what to make for dinner, I swatted away the siren call to order takeout. Instead I put together a breakfast casserole made from corn tortillas, eggs, shredded cheese, GF multipurpose flour, pork sausage (direct from the farmer) and 8-9 eggs (direct from farmer), salt, pepper, paprika and cumin. I layered all the ingredients and cooked them for 30 minutes. I served it with fresh fruit and homemade salsa. It was delicious. And a heck of a lot cheaper than ordering food in.
that sounds SO delicious!!! nice kitchen improvisation!
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Ok, we are in April. No food purchases yet this week. But I am happy to report that as I stood in the kitchen contemplating what to make for dinner, I swatted away the siren call to order takeout. Instead I put together a breakfast casserole made from corn tortillas, eggs, shredded cheese, GF multipurpose flour, pork sausage (direct from the farmer) and 8-9 eggs (direct from farmer), salt, pepper, paprika and cumin. I layered all the ingredients and cooked them for 30 minutes. I served it with fresh fruit and homemade salsa. It was delicious. And a heck of a lot cheaper than ordering food in.
that sounds SO delicious!!! nice kitchen improvisation!
Thanks! I made a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish's worth and this morning? GONE. I think my husband had a late night snack. And my picky eater LOVED IT. Whoo-hoo!
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Here is my tally for First 3 months this year, not groceries only, but still face-punching. So scared to post.
I enjoyed tracking the expenses and was very unhappy with the totals. 2 Adults and 1 kinder gardener. Also was away most of Feb 2014 on vacations:
Jan 2014 - 648.78 includes $50 birthday cake for kiddo, $13 gift for birthday of family, $29 camera case, bottle brush etc
Feb 2014 - 121.54 including $17 hostess gift
Mar 2014 - 537.70 including $14 jeans, $40 kiddo shoes (she grows out of them in 5 months)
Here are the percentages:
Dairy - 10.10%
Juice - 2.25%
Veggies - 15.02%
Bread - 1.65%
Egg - 2.20%
Rice and Staples - 9.30%
toiletries - 6.47%
Dry stuff (paper goods etc) - 5.71%
Fruits - 3.11%
Snacks - 11.22%
Medicines - 6.55% (only payment after insurance payouts)
Lottery (only vice of hubby) - 4.05%
Cleaners - .55%
kiddos - 7.49%
Others - (camera case, bottle brush, hostess gifts etc) - 11.02%
Tax - 3.29%
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I just saw this thread and wanted to participate... BUT I checked my online bank transactions and I'm already at 2 transactions totaling 58.31 to Target, and I can't find my receipts :( They were both technically purchased in March and not posted till today.
I do know the last purchase was crest white strips (for my wedding in 2 weeks), brownie mix (terrible impulse purchase) and bread flour. I don't know the individual totals though.
So I will keep track of what I actually spend in April, not paying attention to the dates posted to my account. Hopefully this will give me some accountability and I will make fewer dumb purchases, knowing I have to explain myself publicly :D
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I just saw this thread and wanted to participate... BUT I checked my online bank transactions and I'm already at 2 transactions totaling 58.31 to Target, and I can't find my receipts :( They were both technically purchased in March and not posted till today.
I do know the last purchase was crest white strips (for my wedding in 2 weeks), brownie mix (terrible impulse purchase) and bread flour. I don't know the individual totals though.
So I will keep track of what I actually spend in April, not paying attention to the dates posted to my account. Hopefully this will give me some accountability and I will make fewer dumb purchases, knowing I have to explain myself publicly :D
Congrats on the pending nuptuals!
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Thought you guys might be interested to know, at the end of March I did a blog post about my challenge results, which created a lot of discussion online and spawned two news articles, including the cover story in yesterday's Province (province-wide BC paper)!
Here are the links:
http://www.theprovince.com/business/Young+living+cheaply+Vancouver+bring+Freedom/9692666/story.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/03/cheap-vancouver-rent_n_5084899.html?1396551687&utm_hp_ref=canada-british-columbia
And here's the blog post that spawned it all:
http://incomingassets.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/grocery-tracking-one-month-results/
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Congratulations on making the news! Great article, it sounds like you really have your priorities in order.
It is interesting to me that there are many single people on this thread who seem to come in at or below $100 for the month, but with a couple the food bill seems to more than double. Anyone else notice this? Is it possibly due to wanting to cook nice meals to eat together, or due to cumulative constraints on meals both halves of the couple enjoy? Or are the single people eating out or at other people's houses more frequently? There are some lower-cost meals I would probably eat more frequently if I was single, but maybe I spend more by trying to accommodate my husband's preferences when shopping, but I'm not sure.
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Congratulations on making the news! Great article, it sounds like you really have your priorities in order.
It is interesting to me that there are many single people on this thread who seem to come in at or below $100 for the month, but with a couple the food bill seems to more than double. Anyone else notice this? Is it possibly due to wanting to cook nice meals to eat together, or due to cumulative constraints on meals both halves of the couple enjoy? Or are the single people eating out or at other people's houses more frequently? There are some lower-cost meals I would probably eat more frequently if I was single, but maybe I spend more by trying to accommodate my husband's preferences when shopping, but I'm not sure.
I think once you are part of a couple it becomes less socially acceptable to eat the same thing for two weeks at a time. Or you make the same things, but because there are two people eating it it goes twice as fast.
Also lifestyle changes usually happen as well. Life gets a lot busier when your trying to accommodate two or more schedules and tastes - and there is definitely more thinking about the other person.
Cooking together is also one of our main hobbies and we are usually rushed through dinner on a way to a meeting 4-5 nights a week - so we do spend a little more on good ingredients on the weekend as we can cook and relax and get a jump on the prep for the upcoming week.
Also, the grocery budget (at least ours) is slightly bigger while entertainment has dropped since we are doing more "having people over" which usually includes some sort of snacks/meals.
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I think once you are part of a couple it becomes less socially acceptable to eat the same thing for two weeks at a time.
Oh this, for sure. Because of mine and my fiance's opposite schedules, I'm often home alone at dinnertime and will eat *whatever* - scrounge something out of the corners of the fridge, call a handful of chips & salsa a meal, or even not eat anything. But when he's home, I can't stuff a handful of something in my face when I feel hungry, that'd be rude! If one of us is hungry, we should sit down and eat a proper meal.
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Congratulations on making the news! Great article, it sounds like you really have your priorities in order.
It is interesting to me that there are many single people on this thread who seem to come in at or below $100 for the month, but with a couple the food bill seems to more than double. Anyone else notice this? Is it possibly due to wanting to cook nice meals to eat together, or due to cumulative constraints on meals both halves of the couple enjoy? Or are the single people eating out or at other people's houses more frequently? There are some lower-cost meals I would probably eat more frequently if I was single, but maybe I spend more by trying to accommodate my husband's preferences when shopping, but I'm not sure.
I think once you are part of a couple it becomes less socially acceptable to eat the same thing for two weeks at a time. Or you make the same things, but because there are two people eating it it goes twice as fast.
This really depends on the person. I'm single with a low grocery budget, but I almost always eat a proper dinner, and I usually cook whatever looks interesting on foodgawker, so I'm never eating the same thing for two weeks. Leftovers last only two or three days. Also, in this community I would expect less deference to social propriety!
Why do all of you assume that "nice" ingredients or "nice" meals are expensive? Are you referring to grass-fed beef, organic produce, and imported cheeses? If so, then that's your answer. I never buy high end meat nor organic produce (unless it costs less than the non-organic variety). Last night I made a beautiful dish, homemade cavatelli pasta in a tomato and pea sauce with sauteed garlic and thyme and porcini pork sausage. That's three ingredients for the cavatelli, and four ingredients for the sauce. Cavatelli is a relaxing pasta to make with someone else since it's hand rolled, and all of those ingredients are pretty cheap except for the sausage which is used as a small ingredient rather than a star. Each serving comes to about $1.40 before tax.
I think if you lived alone for an extended period you would find that eating alone does not lead to eating chips and salsa for dinner, for example, very often. You might only eat that way when your significant other and/or children aren't around, because you want a break from cooking. Perhaps you spend money more on cooking with or for your significant other because you feel like you can justify the added cost if you're spending quality time together. That's fine, but it's healthy to acknowledge that spending more in that case is a choice, not a necessity for nice meals.
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This really depends on the person. I'm single with a low grocery budget, but I almost always eat a proper dinner, and I usually cook whatever looks interesting on foodgawker, so I'm never eating the same thing for two weeks. Leftovers last only two or three days. Also, in this community I would expect less deference to social propriety!
Why do all of you assume that "nice" ingredients or "nice" meals are expensive? Are you referring to grass-fed beef, organic produce, and imported cheeses? If so, then that's your answer.
There are a TON of factors when it comes to grocery shopping and they multiply when you are in a partnership. For example, if it weren't for my husbands job, we would NEVER have come to live where we are, where bare bones groceries are so, so much high and "nice" groceries consist of produce that may be six weeks old, but at least haven't started to dry out/or mold.
While living by myself, I had the flexibility to live wherever I wanted, and had a much lower food bill. Also I found that personal tastes play a HUGE roll and it gets trickier when a partner has allergies and food issues. So do you make two separate meals, one using higher priced ingredients because it is necessary, and another cheaper meal for yourself?
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Before my boyfriend and I moved in together, we each ate much more repetitively by ourselves (chicken breast with frozen veggies for him, or maybe noodles with canned tuna and frozen veggies; pasta with fresh veggies and a little cheese for me), and I'm willing to bet those meals are cheaper than what we usually cook now together. I don't think either of us could tolerate eating the other's "single person meals" for long.
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I am going to do this for April. Anyone else in?
My grocery bill continues to be higher than I'd like.
I'm in for April! March was very helpful.
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My goal is to spend no more than $160 in April. It's just me. My average for Jan - Mar was $183 per month. I really want to get that down.
Here is what I have spent so far in April
non-dairy milk $6.24 15%
leafy greens $3.18 8%
other produce $15.66 38%
grains $8.08 20%
molasses $4.29 10%
tofu $3.58 9%
total: $41.03
My goal is to spend no more than this:
Non-dairy milk: $15
Leafy Greens: $30
Other produce: $60
Tofu: $15
Grains (quinoa, kamut, oatmeal): $20
Beans: $10
Coffee: $10
We shall see!!
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Wow- i am absolutely floored and inspired by the low grocery bills here! We're a family of 4 (two small kids) and 1 large grocery trip is already in the books for April where we spent $143.15! Plus another $61.33 this past week on a couple of trips out. Facepunch.
This thread has inspired me to stem the tide so to speak, and see if we can kick ass for the rest of April. I'll start tracking here as well.
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Summary category percent
bread 15.25 11%
canned goods 3.59 2%
condiments 5.03 3%
kids snacks 9.16 6%
meat 27.42 19%
packaged food 9.97 7%
produce/fruit 16.26 11%
produce/veg 5.70 4%
rice/pasta 23.28 16%
snacks 14.43 10%
deli 2.34 2%
non-food 1.40 1%
frozen 5.48 4%
bulk 4.57 3%
total
Grand total $143.88 100%
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I've updated March - yikes!! I'm going to try measuring price per serving per Budget Bytes, see if it helps modify the way I put meals together.
Total: 936.95 for a family of 4. Here's the breakdown from mid-month. Count me in again for April.
25% Eggs, poultry, beef. Fish
18% Fresh produce
7% Coffee, tea
7% Snacks
9% Milk, yogurt, cream
5% Dessert (homemade tiramisu for a special treat)
5% Cheese
4% Orange juice
6% Condiments
2% School lunches
2% Baking supplies
2% Nuts
1% Frozen/can produce
2% Cold cereal
2% Pasta sauce
1% Grains
1% Bread
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Here's my (almost) half-month totals:
Dairy
3.69 Cottage Cheese
3.99 2% Milk
3.99 2% Milk
2.58 1/2 Lb Smoked Cheddar
5.16 1 Lb Shredded Mozzarella
3.99 1 Lb Extra Sharp Cheddar
Subtotal: $23.40
Produce
1.48 Lettuce
1.04 Yellow Squash
0.50 Lettuce
1.52 1.03 Lb Fresh Green Beans
1.38 1.08 Lb Roma Tomatoes
Subtotal: $5.92
Protein
2.99 Eggs
Subtotal: $2.99
Starches
1.69 Hot Dog Buns
1.49 Taco Shells
1.88 Mexican Rice mix
Subtotal: $5.06
Other
1.99 Salad Dressing
0.95 Taco Seasoning
Subtotal: $2.94
Fast Food
6.87 Hardee's
Subtotal: $6.87
Non-Food
3.17 Shampoo
Subtotal: $3.17
Grand Total: $50.35
We have a good amount of meat in the freezer, so I haven't needed to buy any. Wow, HALF my spending so far has been dairy? I knew we liked our dairy, but wow!
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Happy tax day fellow Americans (and happy 15th of April to everyone else)! Last week I had one of my trice annual Costco trips for dairy, pantry staples, and household products (the latter is not included in my totals below). I also picked up 10 lbs. of onions for $5.99 since onions have been running at $1.12 per pound at the grocery store for the last two months according to my tracker spreadsheet (thanks of the inspiration, Zikoris and everyone else here!). One onion was moldy on the bottom, but I was able to save about half of it by cutting it immediately when I got home and using it, cooked, in a dish that evening. The other onions appear unaffected, but I’m watching closely for any signs of spoilage. 9 lbs. of usable onions for $5.99 is $0.67 per pound, much better than the grocery stores’ best prices lately.
I try to run under budget in the three months preceding a Costco trip, and this trip was paid for with reserves built up in January, February, and March, but in the spirit of this thread I’m going to try to finish out April with only $20 for the next two weeks. It should be a fun challenge. To help me get there I just bought a 10 lb. bag of organic carrots for $6.99 plus tax (not included in the totals below). What better way to celebrate the Easter season than by eating ten pounds of carrots in two weeks? I look forward to my mother’s concerns over my jaundiced complexion. I’m planning the following meals (six servings each, all carrot based):
Carrot and corn soup garnished with lemon and cilantro with pitas on the side
Stir fry scallion sesame noodles with caramelized carrots and soft boiled eggs
Chickpea korma with carrots and peas over rice (I might change the rice to quinoa for more protein)
Thyme roasted carrots and corn on the cob (10 for $2 next week) with rolls and honey butter
Apple and carrot ravioli in sage brown butter (I might need a side for this, the plate seems skimpy, suggestions?)
The produce necessary for the above that isn’t already in my fridge plus the carrots should cost around $16. I shouldn’t need anything else, but I have $4 to play with if the produce runs out before the end of the month or if I need eggs, and I have a few pantry meals up my sleeve if need be as well (linguini in pesto from the herb garden, egg drop soup, “ramen”, spiced lentils in pitas, parathas, etc.). I also have a few beers left in the fridge and some bourbon on the counter; when I drink I’m less hungry.
My birthday is next week, so I guess I’ll make a chiffon cake frosted with the excess strawberry buttercream from my mom’s birthday cake made last month. For cake flavorings I’ll use chocolate, rosewater, and almonds. I already have all the ingredients I need for that.
Here are my totals for the first half of April. I’m single, so these are one person, 15 day totals:
| Category | Cost | Percent | Pounds | $/lb. |
| Produce | $17.46 | 18.1% | 17.1 lbs. | $1.02/lb. |
| Beans | $ 1.17 | 1.2% | 0.6 lbs. | $1.98/lb. |
| Grains | $ 7.69 | 8.0% | 20.0 lbs. | $0.38/lb. |
| Meat | $ 4.00 | 4.1% | 1.0 lbs. | $4.00/lb. |
| Dairy | $35.04 | 39.4% | 11.0 lbs. | $3.19/lb. |
| Eggs | - | - | - | - |
| Pantry | $23.48 | 26.4% | 6.0 lbs. | $3.91/lb. |
| Alcohol/Coffee | - | - | - | - |
| Prepared | - | - | - | - |
| Sales Tax | $ 7.50 | 7.9% | | |
| Total | $96.43 | | 55.7 lbs. | $1.73/lb. |
Meals cooked:
Cavatelli and thyme porcini sausage in peas and tomatoes
White bean soup with cooked kale, rosemary sausage, and garlic crostinis
Apple bourbon sausage over garlic mashed potatoes with green beans and bourbon mustard sauce
Linguini with pesto
Tomato and zucchini tian with quinoa tabouleh
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Heart of Tin, your menus sound absolutely amazing!!! My mouth is watering :)
netskyblue, I was really shocked at our dairy spending too. This is definitely an eye-opening challenge!
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Heart of Tin, your menus sound absolutely amazing!!! My mouth is watering :)
netskyblue, I was really shocked at our dairy spending too. This is definitely an eye-opening challenge!
Thanks! It helps that I have only myself to please, so I can experiment freely. My goal is to be really good at cooking by the time I need to feed others daily.
Dairy is ridiculously expensive. Apparently it's an effect of rising dairy exports and maybe rising feed costs, see: http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/marketing-outlook (http://extension.psu.edu/animals/dairy/marketing-outlook). I have personally compensated by cutting everyday milk consumption. As of last fall, I no longer keep milk in the fridge.
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Heart of Tin, your menus sound absolutely amazing!!! My mouth is watering :)
netskyblue, I was really shocked at our dairy spending too. This is definitely an eye-opening challenge!
Thanks! It helps that I have only myself to please, so I can experiment freely. My goal is to be really good at cooking by the time I need to feed others daily.
I think you're there! :)
Recipe please: Stir fry scallion sesame noodles with caramelized carrots and soft boiled eggs
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We've been pretty consistent at the 800-900/month grocery spend since I started tracking expenses 4 years ago. I'm starting to watch prices more and shop around. I am basing my meals around what's the cheapest thing that week. This weeks the kids are scarfing down sweet potato pie in little cupcake servings. They think they're getting a fancy dessert but it's just a pumpkin pie recipe with no crust and a few tablespoons of honey rather than sugar.
Fortunately, all the grocery stores around here price-match each other so I only need to go to 2 places (one for the best produce, one for the best fish & cheapest milk/eggs) and bring a handful of flyers. I cycled this week! Half an hour one way and a heavy trailer back, but I feel empowered :) I still have to drive half an hour to the ethnic store for stocking up on grains and fermented milk stuff, but I only go every other month.
Mid month total $403.11
16% 63.77 Milk, yogurt, cream
13% 53.82 Coffee, tea
11% 45.44 Grains, pasta
11% 42.81 Condiments
10% 39.86 Fresh produce
10% 39.51 Eggs, poultry, beef. Fish
6% 25.3 Cheese
5% 21.86 Snacks
5% 20.49 Nuts
4% 15.27 Baking supplies
4% 14.68 School lunches
2% 9.95 Wine
2% 6.59 Juice
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It's really greasy, but delicious! You can cut the grease by stir frying a veggie mix quickly instead of caramelizing the carrots. Also feel free to substitute any noodles you like in place of homemade. Marinating the egg is optional.
Stir Fry Scallion Noodles with Caramelized Carrots and Soft Boiled Egg
Makes 6 servings.
Ingredients
1/2 c. water
1/4 Tbsp. soy sauce
1/4 Tbsp. mirin (sweet rice wine, substitute dry sherry or white wine with sugar added, I use sweet vermouth)
1 Tbsp. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda baked for 1 hour at 275 F (baking is optional, but will yield a chewier noodle you can also use baked soda to make pretzels and Chinese buns)
1 c. hot water
4 c. flour
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
enough oil or butter to caramelize the veggies
carrots, cut as either matchsticks or angled chips
onions, chopped, about 1/3 the volume as the carrots
salt
Chinese 5 spice powder
2 Tbsp. sesame seeds
1/3 c. neutral oil like peanut or canola
1 Tbsp. garlic, minced
1 bunch scallions chopped, reserve a few Tbsp. for garnish
1/2 c. vinegar
1/3 c. soy sauce
scant 1/4 c. sesame oil
2 tsp. sugar
Method
Soft boil and season the eggs.
1. The night or morning before, combine the water, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
2. Soft boil 3 eggs by adding the eggs to a pot of boiling water for 6 minutes. The exact boiling time will depend on your elevation. Immediately run the eggs under cold water until they are no longer warm to stop the yolks from cooking. Peal the eggs.
3. Place the marinade and eggs in a small baggie. Remove as much air as possible so that the eggs are covered in marinade. Place in the fridge for about 8 hours. Do not marinade for longer than 12 hours. The whites will get rubbery and the yolks, grainy.
Mix the noodle dough.
1. Add the baked soda to the hot water. Stir to dissolve.
2. Add the flour, salt, and egg to a big bowl. Mix in the water, and stir to combine with a wooden spoon.
3. The dough will be shaggy. Resist the temptation to add more water. You will probably need to switch to using your hands instead of the spoon. Continue kneading until the dough comes together. If absolutely necessary, add 1 tsp. of water at a time. It takes me 5 - 10 minutes to mix this dough.
4. Cover with a kitchen towel, and let rest at least 20 minutes. The flour will continue to hydrate as it rests, and the protein structure will relax so that the dough is easier to work with.
Caramelize the carrots.
1. Heat oil or butter in a very large skillet over medium heat. Add the carrots and onions once the oil is hot. Salt to taste. The salt draws out the sugars in the carrots and onions, so don't skimp. Add Chinese 5 spice powder to taste. (Chinese 5 spice powder is cinnamon, star anise, pepper, fennel, and cloves if you DIY spice mixes).
2. Cook "low and slow" for about 45 minutes, stirring to ensure even cooking. Don't rush the cooking or you'll end up with burnt or bitter carrots instead of sweet carrots. At the end of the cook time you can turn up the heat to finish them for added color.
Make scallion oil.
1. Heat a small pan, dry, over medium heat. Add the sesame seeds. Toast until golden. Set aside.
2. Return the small pan to the burner, turn the heat to low. Add 1/3 c. oil. When oil is warm, add garlic and scallions. Cook until the scallions turn brown and crusty, about 15 minutes.
3. Stir together the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar in a separate bowl. Set aside.
4. When scallions are cooked, reserve 4 Tbsp. of oil, and add remaining oil to the vinegar mix.
Cook the noodles.
1. Fill a large pot with water. Add salt to season. Bring to a boil.
2. Divide noodle dough into workable quantities. I divide into 6 pieces. Run through a pasta machine to a medium setting or roll by hand as thin as possible; if rolling by hand, rest the dough for 10 minutes anytime it becomes too springy to work with covering with a towel to avoid drying out the dough. Cut into thin strips. (You can freeze the noodles after cutting. Coat well in flour, and freeze individual servings in baggies. Add directly to boiling water when ready to eat.)
3. Boil noodles for about 3 minutes until firm and chewy. Immediately rinse thoroughly in cold water.
Stir fry.
1. Heat the 4 Tbsp. of reserved scallion oil in a large pan. Add noodles. Fry until heated through. Add remaining scallion oil mixture. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the noodles are cooked to your liking. At the last moment, fold sesames seeds and carrots into the noodles. Remove from heat. Garnish with reserved chopped scallions and half a soft boiled egg.
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Here's where I am:
non-dairy milk: $12.81_______11%______($15 budgeted)
leafy greens: $9.54_____8%______($30 budgeted)
other produce: $35.42______31%______ ($60 budgeted)
grains: $22.57____20%_____($20 budgeted)
coffee: $3.79 ________3%________($10 budgeted)
molasses: $4.29_______4%_______($0 budgeted)
tofu: $10.14_______9%_______($15 budgeted)
beans: $11.65_______10%_______($10 budgeted)
tea: $2.5_______2%_______($0 budgeted)
Total (with tax): $116.29
I have overspent in the grains and beans categories, and also bought molasses and tea, which I didn't anticipate. In planning for next month, I will bump up the grains category, as I continue my love affair with kamut!
The most exciting thing for me is that I may be able to keep the grocery bill under $150 or even $140 this month. Yay! (For comparison, in 2012, I spent an average of $272 per month, and in 2013, I spent an average of $233. Just on groceries--which for me is just food and beverages. Yikes.)
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Haven't tracked, but groceries are stupid this month. I think I've spent $407, plus whatever my husband spent at CostCo and random Fred Meyer stops. At least it includes a giant spiral ham and 5 chickens that will await in the freezer until next month, but also some facepunch worthy crap. Getting lettuce and radishes out of the garden, but looking forward to having it produce much, much more than that.
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aren't all these little revelations fun?
I'll post at the end of the month, we'll probably have to do 1 more little shopping trip because we have a potluck at our house this weekend for a board meeting. Hoping to use mostly what I have on hand, but seems like the "Eat up all the food in your house" thread is stating to finally show.
The biggest change other then being conscious with spending came about via Hubby. We were in the store and he said he feels like chips...I shot back with "Well then you get to be the one to put it in our grocery spreadsheet" I was (mostly) kidding.
He stopped, pondered and said "well you know, this probably shouldn't come out of grocery money. We don't need it, it doesn't offer any nourishment, maybe if we want "junk" we should take it out of our fun money."
So that's what we have decided to do, we really don't buy junk food that often, but it is a really good way to make us stop and think if we really need it, or why we think we do.
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I'm setting up a spreadsheet right now! I have an old one with a few receipts entered in for working out cost per serve of each meal but I've gotten lazy in the last few months.
This place is great for motivation!
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Okay, I considered this challenge in March, and then again in April, but I just wasn't ready to commit. See, DH does the shopping and cooking, but he does not do much of anything with our finances. I am always careful to criticize our food spending, because I think he sometimes takes it as a personal criticism. He's a great cook, and he loves to cook, so I do tread lightly.
However, I think our food spending is just too high! In March, our groceries were $979 and our restaurant spending was $284. So far in April, we've spent $754 on groceries and $318 on restaurants. We are a family of four.
So, I'm going to try to categorize things in May, and see where we can cut back.
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I hope to not buy any other groceries for April. With that assumption, here are my April numbers:
$15.00 budgeted: non-dairy milk $15.40 (12%)
30.00 budgeted: leafy greens $12.72 (10%)
60.00 budgeted: other produce $48.38 (33%)
20.00 budgeted: grains $26.16 (20%)
10.00 budgeted: coffee $3.79 (3%)
0.00 budgeted: molasses $4.29 (3%)
15.00 budgeted: tofu $10.14 (8%)
10.00 budgeted: beans $11.65 (9%)
0.00 budgeted: tea $2.50 (2%)
$160.00 budgeted total spent: $138.69 (including tax)
This is the first time in 28 months that my grocery spending has been under $140 in a month.
For comparison, in 2012, I averaged $272.08 per month, and in 2013, I averaged $232.72 per month. Just for groceries. For just me. So far, this year, my monthly average is $171.94. Wow--that's $100 less than what I was spending in 2012!! Yay!!
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Did a small shop at the market today, picking up meat and veggies: $24.74 for the coming week. Pretty happy with that, especially since I got home and had a day of cooking! Chili con carne ($1.95 per serve, made 7 serves) and pastitsio ($2.54 a serve, makes 6 serves I think, it's still in the oven).
With a bunch of these fellas (http://www.theyummylife.com/Refrigerator_Oatmeal) in the fridge ($0.37 per serve) I'm in pretty good stead for the near future! Looking forward to seeing my stats for next month.
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Anybody ready to do this for May? I certainly am! I did 2/3 of my May grocery shopping today, and hope to keep the budget set at $400 for a family of 4 (well 4 and one on the way, but not counting yet!). This is the first I have come across grocery budgets broken down by category. I'm predicting that our high % will be on dairy and produce...
I usually shop at Costco, Trader Joe's and Fred Meyer.
Trader Joe's: Total Spent $69.43
Bakery : $ 1.99 - corn/flour tortillas 2.86%
Baking supplies: $ 9.75 - baking powder, coconut cream, peanut butter chips 14%
Breakfast: $13.96 - cereal for the month 20.1%
Condiments : $0
Dairy: $ 4.48 -buttermilk and unsweetened almond milk 6.4%
Meat : $ 15.26-beef, turkey, chicken and soy chorizo 21.97%
Pantry: $ 8.46 - veggie, chicken and beef broth. 12.18%
Produce :$ 10.05 -corn, arugula, peas, limes, lemons 14.47%
Random: $ 1.19 - unbaked pizza dough. I've always wanted to compare to my homemade. 1.17%
Breakfast,meat and produce were the highest. I'm surprised at how much the cereal added up too! The kids are hooked on peanut butter puffins right now! I'm also a bit annoyed that I spent nearly $9 on broth. In the past I have made it myself, but the idea of it is gross to me at the moment (pregnancy hormones I guess!) I know the Costco receipt was mostly dairy, meat, veg and random things like chia seeds and headache medicine.
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Prices are in KRW / USD.
2014 04
Total 441,190 $427.95
Baking 18,900 $18.33 4%
CSA 351,000 $340.47 80%
Dairy 19,760 $19.17 4%
Drinks 6,900 $6.69 2%
Fruit 4,300 $4.17 1%
Meat & Eggs 9,100 $8.83 2%
Packaged 5,920 $5.74 1%
Pantry 14,970 $14.52 3%
Veggies 10,340 $10.03 2%
Well, that certainly looks odd! I paid for 13 weeks of CSA this month. Let's look at it with only 4 weeks of CSA included:
2014 04
Total 198,190 $192.24
Baking 18,900 $18.33 10%
CSA 108,000 $104.76 54%
Dairy 19,760 $19.17 10%
Drinks 6,900 $6.69 3%
Fruit 4,300 $4.17 2%
Meat & Eggs 9,100 $8.83 5%
Packaged 5,920 $5.74 3%
Pantry 14,970 $14.52 8%
Veggies 10,340 $10.03 5%
These numbers are very interesting to me because I just started opting into the organic CSA. I really like the idea and want to support it, but yeesh that's a big chunk of change! I've also been buying antibiotic-free eggs and milk that hasn't been ultra-pasteurized. My quality of life has improved through these choices, I'm eating healthier, and I feel better--until I look at the numbers. I'll think on my choices over the next couple months; I can probably find a balance between my desire to save more and my love of my new eating habits.
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My total is coming down each month :)
Major changes I've made are preparing my own bread, not buying cold cereal, making more bean-based meals, and using the local flyers to get the best prices.
I was hoping to calculate meal costs per serving, but it's too much work right now.
19% Fresh produce
16% Eggs, poultry, beef. Fish
15% Milk, yogurt, cream, butter
9% Snacks
7% Wine
7% Condiments
6% Coffee, tea
5% Grains, pasta
5% Baking supplies
3% Cheese
3% Nuts, seeds
2% School lunches
1% Pasta sauce, can soup
1% Juice
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This month’s grocery spending includes a Costco trip for things like flour and cheese, so the Pantry and Dairy categories are inflated, and my monthly total is over the $100 per month that I budget for. However, I had saved a total of $30 for a Costco trip in February and March, and I only spent $115 total in April, so I actually finished $15 under budget for February - April. I’ve only spent $19.38 since 4/15, meeting my goal! I guess this calls for a stop at the liquor store for a celebratory 6 pack (just kidding – it’s already in the fridge, and it’s only a 5-pack now).
For context, I’m single, and I only include food in my grocery spending. These are numbers for one person only and include all food spending except for my birthday dinner in April, paid for by my dad, and a “thank you” lunch in March for a friend that helped me build some planters on my apartment balcony, paid for by a different budgetary category (Gifts).
| Category | April | 2-mo. Total | Average % | 2-mo. Amount |
| Produce | $ 31.78 | $ 59.26 | 31.9% | 67.1 lbs. |
| Beans | $ 3.76 | $ 11.57 | 13.1% | 5.0 lbs. (dry) |
| Grains | $ 7.69 | $ 7.69 | 3.3% | 20.0 lbs. |
| Meat | $ 4.00 | $ 17.69 | 10.3% | 5.0 lbs. |
| Dairy | $ 35.04 | $ 35.04 | 15.1% | 11.0 lbs. |
| Eggs | $ 5.19 | $ 7.94 | 4.0% | 3.5 dozen |
| Pantry | $ 23.48 | $ 25.47 | 11.4% | 6.2 lbs. |
| Alcohol/Coffee | $ - | $ 14.99 | 9.4% | 12 beers |
| Prepared | $ - | $ - |
| Sales Tax | $ 9.18 | $ 15.58 | 8.0% |
| Total | $115.81 | $195.22 |
Those beans look expensive. I had garbanzo beans twice, so that’s pushing the unit price up since those tend to be pricy around here. Does anyone have a substitute for dishes where you want a big starchy bean with some bite to it? Garbanzos are my default bean when I need a good “backbone” to add to a dish. For instance, I use it in Korma to replace chicken and add a contrasting texture to the vegetables.
Also, what is up with egg prices lately? None of my grocery stores have had a worthwhile egg special since early March, not even for Easter! I was tempted to go in for the 5 dozen at Costco since the price per dozen beats my average lately even though it was pricier (about $2/dozen) than the deals I’m used to. If this keeps up, I’ll need to switch over to egg-less noodles which aren’t as filling.
Now onto May! It’s off to a good start; my spending is 92% alcohol at this point. I’m looking forward to visiting the Farmer’s Markets which really get going around here at the tail end of April.
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I fell off the wagon hard in April (ouch), mostly due to a week of work-related travel. My sweet boyfriend did manage to save most of his receipts during that time, but I was just lazy and stopped entering things. Time to get back on it for May... I have a few receipts already so I better do them tonight so I don't forget!!
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I did pretty well in May. My housemate is having a lot of trouble with money so a lot of extra meals were donated to his cause, but on the other hand I bought a lot more fast food than I usually do, so the amount of meals cooked was probably about average.
The Misc category was strangely high, since I had to stock up on a few different tea types and some mustards/sauces for cooking. Meat is high as well, although in Australia it's a lot more expensive than the USA to buy meat, but I still think I can take that down.
May total: 214.49 (one person, Australia)
Goals for June:
- Eat less junk food!
- Try to cut back on meat, buy more veggies instead
- Go to the market more often, instead of being lazy and hitting the supermarket near my house
- Make more bread