Happy 4th of July everyone!!
For the month of June I’ve been trying to keep my food groceries under $250. Here’s my results along with my non-food grocery results and eating out results for the month of June.
Food groceries:
- goal $250
- actually spent $253.10
Non-food groceries (shampoo, diapers for Gracia to sleep in, toilet paper, etc…)
- goal $40
- actually spent $36.79
Eating out (this counts any food bought at restaurants, convenient stores or gas stations)
- goal $100
- actually spent $119.87
I think I’m going to keep trying to keep our grocery bill around $250, which is exciting to me as I look back at my 2009 and 2010 records and see when we were spending $300-$360 on groceries! I think part of the change has been moving to a bigger town with more options for grocery stores. The town we were in before had pretty high grocery prices. And part of the change has also been the various strategies I’ve been trying to use to tackle our grocery budget.
I was actually under in the non-food groceries! 
The eating out is the area I’m the least pleased with, because we went the most over in it and it’s an unnecessary thing. But when I look back at how much we’ve spent in months past in eating out it’s a lot less, so at least it’s an improvement!
Anybody else out there working on decreasing their grocery budget? How are you doing at it?
So close
I’ve been keeping closer track of our spending in various categories, and tallying it up at the end of the month, and I was disappointed because we were over $100 in “dining and entertainment” as well, but I felt better when I saw that you were too, haha.
So thanks for making me feel better! You are my standard in a way…I figure, ok, if I can stay close to how much Katy spends on food, etc., then I must be doing pretty good at staying wise and frugal, because I know that Katy does. 
Well, you just made ME feel better!! =) If we both keep going over, we can both just keep making each other feel better!
We went from 2 income no kids to 1 income 2 almost overnight. We were digging a deeper and deeper hole, and something had to change, but I did not know exactly what. Like the answer to a prayer, towards the end of 2009, I watched something on MSN Money about the Economides family. Google “America’s Cheapest Family”, and it will bring up their site. I got their book about putting you right on the money, and the chapter about groceries was the most illuminating chapter for me. I had been spending between 200 and 250 per week on groceries for our family of 4. I had felt pretty good because that was below the national average. Just as a test, I did some meal planning for a week, and I saved a little money. From September 2009, when I started tracking my food expenditures (groceries AND going out to eat) until December 2010; I managed to go from an average of 879.00 per month to an average of 545.00 per month. In 2011, my average grocery/food bill was 418.00 per month.
I knew the rudiments of cooking 28 months ago, but now; I would consider myself a better than average cook. My goal for 2012 is to stay as close to 350.00 per month as I can. Mid 2011, I found Joni McCoy’s books at the library, and love them! Not sure if you have seen “5 Dollar Dinner Mom”, but I really liked that one too! Please keep your amazing posts coming!
I just got the Economides book for my b-day! And I really like Miserly Moms too!