Lightening Online

Image via WikipediaWelcome back to my series on Reducing the Grocery Budget. If you’ve not yet read the earlier posts in this series, you can review them here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Meat

Fruit & Veg

Given I’ve just begun my own personal financial budgetting year, I thought I’d share a little of my budget and tracking with you in more detail.

I’ve tried to scan a page from my own spending book for you to have a look at but it hasn’t come out very clear.

I’ll try and replicate what it says for you:

GROCERIES: FRUIT & VEG $170/MONTH

GROCERIES: GENERAL $300/MONTH

It doesn’t matter HOW you track your spending, but if you want to get the most out of your grocery dollar, I highly recommend that you DO track it somehow.

I prefer to use an exercise book. It’s not expensive or large and it’s very portable. On the occasions where I don’t get the chance to enter my receipt figures straight away, they can sit in the exercise book and are less likely to get misplaced.

I use this book to track ALL of our personal spending but even if you just start by tracking your grocery spending, it will make a difference.

Once it’s set up, it really only takes a few minutes to enter your figures after each shop.

You CAN do a similar thing by keeping your grocery money in a separate envelope or purse. Unfortunately, I find this is too easy to dip into now and then when you need cash in a hurry. I always *think* I’ll remember but it’s amazing what you forget. Doing it this way will hopefully help plug a few leaks. A dollar here or there really DOES add up over time!

At the top of the page, you’ll notice I’ve written the words “GROCERIES:FRUIT & VEG $170/MONTH. This is my budgetted amount. On the first day of each month, I write in a deposit of $170. If I have money left over in this category at the end of the month, I’ll ADD the $170 to whatever that figure is. If I have overspent in that category (minus figures get written in red to make them stand out), I will subtract that red figure from the $170.

Unless there is a MAJOR blow out which requires some budget fine tuning, I will base the whole YEARS spending on that $170 per month. If I finish the year in the red, we re-evaluate the amount budgetted in that category and if need be, allocate MORE the next year.

This works for us because for the most part my categories are in surplus throughout the year. I try to always spend UNDER our allocated amount. This allows for unavoidable purchases that cause 1 or 2 categories to go into the red. I also have a buffer amount sitting in the account just in case. If your budget is very tight, you’ll need to be VERY aware of any categories that go into the RED.

Here is my monthly budget for groceries for the coming 12 months (1st Feb - 31st Jan):

Hospitality $15.00

Fruit & Veg $170.00

General $300.00

Treats $30.00

Non Food $45.00

TOTAL $560.00 per month

If you work that out per week it comes to $129.23. So approximately $130 a week. I tend to shop in larger “stock up” shops with smaller “as we need it” shops in between so the only time I really use a weekly figure is if I’m discussing grocery budgets with others (who are less used to a monthly figure) or when I’m talking averages (eg. my $100 per week challenge is worked on an average spend over whatever time frame I’m talking).

So my BUDGET is around $130 a week and I currently SPEND $100. I’ve heard people say “I spend $xxxx per week” when what they are really talking about is their budget. The forget to include the $30 they were over a fortnight ago or perhaps they don’t even KNOW what they’re really spending.

That was me not that long ago. Our budget was $140 per week so if anyone asked me what I spent on groceries I’d say “$140 a week”. In reality I had NO IDEA what I was actually spending.

Whether you choose to break your groceries up into categories like I do or keep everything lumped in together is entirely up to you.

Once you know what figure you are actually working from, it becomes a LOT easier to set yourself little challenges. For example, I know I can feed our family for $100 a week average (at the moment), so for January and February I have challenged myself to only spend $50 a week. I do have a purpose in this though and that’s to recoup the cost of my 1/2 cow (which I haven’t had to pay for yet). So in essence I *need* to keep things down at that level in order to cover the costs of the cow AND stay within my $100 per week average.

Assuming that I achieve this, I will then have what is left of the cow, to help keep costs down during the coming months. One thing I’ve noticed with the grocery budget is that once you get yourself on a “good cycle” it seems to become easier to keep costs down.

I’m still trying to work out in my own head how this works. I’m not sure if it’s just a case of smaller savings starting to kind of compound or if it’s more a case of having a sense of “enough” because the cupboard and freezer always seem to be full (no matter how much I try to empty them a little LOL).

How is everyone else going with their grocery spending? Do you feel like you’re making headway? Or does it feel like you’re fighting a losing battle?

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