Mar 2, 2014
Food Budgeting
An area in my life that I have always struggled in is Groceries and finding ways to spend less. I don't really even think about it I just go to the grocery store and buy what I want within reason. There was one time in our marriage almost 9 years ago when we first moved to Lloydminster after Mark was done his summer student job at the weigh scale in Vermilion and he had no job and I had a full time job making $10 an hour and a part time job making $9 an hour. We had rent of over $800 a month a car payment plus all our other monthly expenses, this was the first and last time I did the pull the money out at the start of the month and live only off that for the month. It only lasted about 2 months and then Mark had a full time job and again finances were fine, so back to using debits and not really thinking about how much I am spending and what I am buying. Then two weeks ago Mark was talking to someone in our Branch and he said that him and his wife live off $200 a month for groceries. My jaw dropped, I was in awe, I did not comprehend how this is humanly possibly in Alberta. That is $50 a week for groceries. My goal is to spend no more then $600 a month and I think I hardly ever make that goal. So these past two weeks I have been thinking about it a lot and how if we could spend $100 a week on groceries, $400 a month we could probably save an extra 200 to 300 dollars a month. That is a lot of money and could go to so many things. Saving for family vacations, starting up Wade's education fund as we have not done that yet, or that little extra money every month for when hick ups come into our life. Like Ambulance bills, vet bills from puppies ripped out nail, or annoying things like the shingles blowing of our roof on a crazy windy day and costing over $500 to fix it. I am really excited for this challenge and have been doing lots of research and planning on how to make this goal become a reality. I will let you know next month how it went and how successful we were. Any tips or good advice send my way though I don't mind at all hearing how others have had success with Food budgeting.
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Check the flyers first, see what is on sale and plan your menu around that. We can't do it in Canada like they do in the states, but there are coupons out there, and they usually last for a year, so use them on an item that is already on sale and make it even cheaper. Cleaning products is a HUGE one to save money on with a coupon. That and buy bulk on non-perishables, it may mean one month you are over, but then the next month you won't be, you will be under by more.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hear/read about your new goal.
ReplyDeleteWe try to buy most of our groceries in one store, and try our best to take advantages of the sales. Using coupons/superbucks are a big help too. When we have to buy things like diapers, toiletries and cleaning products, etcs, our monthly budget usually goes up to a maximum of $400. So we try to buy those items when they are on sales and buy a bunch of them so we don't have to do it every month. Food wise not including all the other things like diapers and all, our usual monthly budget on groceries is between $300 and $350 (350 being the maximum). I really am excited to read what you do.
ReplyDeleteOne more comment and I will stop :).... We do fail miserably at times but I think keeping a budget book helps . Sorry for all the comments.
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