So, I went grocery shopping today. When I get to the check out I always hope and cross my fingers that I stayed under budget. Sometimes I do.....some times I don't. Today was a, Katy-didn't-quite-make-it, kind of trip. I went over budget by $11 and change. UGGGG! I HATE going over budget. Even if it's by a tiny bit.
While we were consuming our gourmet dinner (pot pies...can't beat $.58!) Ben averaged our daily food cost.
Now, to be well understood, I'm going to attempt to explain.
I go to Winco and Spicer Brothers Produce twice a month and I go to Costco once a month (I hardly ever use coupons.....like.....once a year hardly). We averaged out our dates and impromptu dinners to Wendy's and our total grocery bill for the month is.......$600($20 per day....for all three meals). (That includes all our house hold stuff....soaps, sponges.....etc.) Most times I do keep it to about $550, but there are those times when we are out of EVERYTHING!
To encourage myself (I think that $600 is alot to spend) I went to the USDA site and gathered some info. (You can too....here.) For the size and ages of our family we could be spending more.
We could be spending: $810.70 (what they considered thrifty) or $1,058 (low-budget) or $1,314.40 (moderate) and lastly $1,582.70 (liberal). That made me feel better. I didn't feel better that others spent more, just that we were doing well. And all without coupons =D (That's me smiling.)
I'll leave you with a little humor. Es was finishing up a job and chatting with both Ben and I when she jokingly exclaimed "You should know that! You've lived longer than I have!" Mmmmm. If only it were true!
6 comments:
Hey, for a family of 6, $600 a month is darn good! Heck, I probably spend that on our family of 3! And if you do more math, your bill breaks down to just $1.12 per meal, per person on average. Sounds pretty thrifty to me! :-) (I'm with ya on the no coupons thing. I know people who are seriously amazing at it, though--it's like an art, all of the combining coupons and double coupon days and matching coupons. I guess I just haven't developed that gift yet!)
Great job, Katy! It's not the easiest job to try to keep the food budget under control! It seems like most everything is up quite a bit over last year! Even with gas prices dropping, I'm wondering if the prices will stay up there! I'm proud of you! Love you much, Mom : )
That's a really interesting website thing...I think $600/month for your family is really good! I wish I could stick to a budget like that...I'm sooo bad with groceries! And we literally go through more than 1 gallon of milk every day! Anyway, I think our "budget" is closer to the low cost one..but even that seems like a LOT to me to be considered "low cost" interesting. Miss you!
You're doing GREAT! We are Winco shoppers too, and always go through the $400 we budget for groceries (of course, that includes diapers which seem to take up about half our money!).
Considering you have two more people to feed (and bigger stomachs to fill!), I think you're grocery skills are amazing. Well done!
I think we spent 700 last month. It was one of those 'we are out of everything' times. We seem to run about the same. But we are trying to zero in on all that fun budgeting stuff...or not so fun?? ;)
Hi! I found your blog through Gingers... I will be coming back!
I think that is amazing that you are spending that little! I am spending about 400-500 dollars a month on my family of four and I am TRYING to get it at 400 max. I have started using coupons and learning the art of that-it is so hard to eat healthy food and not spend every dime!
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