This is the 3rd post of my Grocery Budget Tracking in 2018! Can you feed your family a Clean Eating diet and still come in under your grocery budget? I’m about to find out! This is the real grocery budget of our family, who eats 15 pounds a week of pastured meat…and sometimes Poptarts.
In 2018, I’m committing to tracking my grocery budget twice a month. I hope that will help make it less overwhelming. I have a spreadsheet if you’re curious about every little thing we buy, but I’ll report the general numbers here on All Day Mom (just search “grocery budget” to find all the grocery budget tracking reports).
Read on for this month’s budget revelations.
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Grocery Budget Tracking February 1–15: It doesn’t look good.
We go to Disneyland every February for Jefferson’s birthday, so when I planned out February’s grocery budget, I knew we’d be on vacation 5 days, plus our new (and cheap!) ritual the night before we leave on a trip: cereal for dinner! That’s 6 nights I don’t need to plan dinners for, and our vacation meals come out of the vacation budget.
This is what I didn’t plan for in February:
- A family dinner at a restaurant to celebrate a birthday.
- An impromptu Super Bowl party.
- Valentine’s Day.
- Mom & Son, Daddy-Daughter date.
Those unplanned-for events were all restaurant spending, except for the Super Bowl party (counted as Entertaining). Here’s how that went down:
- I don’t know a single rule of football, and I don’t like commercials.
- I had a ton of stuff to do around the house that Sunday.
- The kids wanted Super Bowl party junk food.
- I didn’t want to spend time making it (which would have been exponentially cheaper but would have taken my entire Saturday AND Sunday because I get crazy about making things Pinteresty.
- I bought every nasty frozen junk food invented. So much that Jameson said we needed to share this much junk food, so we invited Grandma & Grandpa over to pig out and watch football.
- Instant Super Bowl party to the tune of $57.
What I’ve learned from this round of grocery budget tracking:
I don’t like having restaurant spending in my grocery budget. I’ve moved Restaurant into a “sinking fund” category because apparently we WILL go out to a restaurant at some point every month.
With Restaurant spending in my Grocery Budget, we overspend at restaurants, and I figure I can make it up in the grocery budget. But I can’t make up for $217 in just the first couple weeks of the month! With a Restaurant sinking fund, we’ll have a definite—emphasis on the finite part—amount to spend each month.
(I’ve put a Sinking Fund template in the subscriber’s library— you can print it to fill it in, or edit it in Google Docs. Subscribe here for instant access.)
Since we go on a trip to California every month, the kids will get their chance to go out—this Restaurant fund is pretty much just for date nights, and allows for one reasonably nice dinner a month.
With the Restaurant fund, if we cave and buy fast food on the way home from baseball practice, we will probably have to eat fast food on date night too, because the fund is only $80 per month. If we want Date Night, we’ll stay out of the drive thru. That’s two problems solved.
Also, $80 is not a lot for a date night dinner after tip. So, we will need to choose a restaurant based on price more than we have done in the past. And maybe not order so much wine.
Public Service Announcement: You should tip your server at least 20%. Being on a budget is not an excuse for being a cheapskate. If you can’t afford a generous tip, order take out.”
Total Grocery Spending for February 1–15, 2018: $569.77
That includes $5.39 because I wasn’t organized enough to avoid shopping in Glendale, AZ, where they charge a 2.5% Stupid Tax to anyone dumb enough to buy groceries. Like me. Must shop in Phoenix from now on!
My total grocery budget is $600 (That includes restaurants this month, but as of next month, my budget will be $520, since I’ve moved restaurant spending into a different budget category.)
$570 is really close to $600 and I still have half the month to go, but $185 of that was my “magical meat” order (pastured meats from CPRmeats.com if you’re in Phoenix). It’s a lot to spend at once, but still cheaper than buying the crappy factory farm meat at Fry’s! We eat a ton of meat, so I try to make sure it’s all grassfed/pastured. Except on Super Bowl Sunday, when I served frozen, cheapo jalapeno poppers and taquitos and pizza rolls.
Total Restaurants & Alcohol so far in February: $217.27
That is crazy. And that’s why Restaurant spending is getting its own budget line and sinking fund.
Total ALL Grocery Spending for February 1–15: $787.04
Goal for the rest of this month: Spend as little as possible, obviously! We have tons of food in the house (including some Super Bowl leftovers, uggh) so I pretty much just need eggs.
I’m tracking my grocery budget by individual categories so I can see what we spend on meat, produce, dairy, etc., and I’m even tracking how much we spend on junk food, fast food, and restaurants! To see my 2018 Grocery Budget Tracking spreadsheet, please subscribe to All Day Mom (you’ll get instant access to all my subscriber exclusives, like this adorable BB-8 multiplication table printable!).
What’s Your Grocery Budget? Final Spending in January! Grocery Budget Tracking #2 Jan 16–31 2018
What’s Your Grocery Budget? Grocery Budget Tracking #1 Jan 1–15 2018
Have you read these posts?
- Found Money #1 Freebies #2 Gift Cards #3 I Made The Call
- How to upgrade to organic and save money on your grocery bill!
- Put fast food in your freezer for busy nights with these Paleo Chicken Nuggets!
- Feed your entire family a completely organic meal twice for less than the price of one combination plate at your favorite Mexican restaurant when you make Easy Enchiladas!
- Build your vacation budget from $0 to Disney with my book: Disneyland on a Budget: How Our Family Spends 30 Days a Year at Disneyland Without Breaking the Bank!
