Reducing the Grocery Budget: Non Food Items
From time to time, I get asked whether my $100 a week average grocery spend includes non food items. To give you a bit of an idea, I’ll summarise below.
Items I DO Include Under Groceries
- Toilet Paper
- Tissues
- Some cleaning cloths (such as for washing up dishes)
- Soap
- Shampoo’s etc
- Toothpaste, toothbrushes and floss
- Cleaning Products
- Dishwashing Liquid and Dishwasher Powder etc
- Laundry Detergents, Fabric Softeners etc
- Pegs
- Garbage Bags & Bin Liners
- Glad Wrap, Alfoil, Snap Lock Bags, Freezer Bags, Baking Paper etc
Items I DON’T Include Under Groceries
- Make Up and Skin Care - I have a personal care category for these and also use my own spending money
- Nappies & Wipes - I used to have a “baby” category for these (and dummies etc) but now we only have a few dry nites to buy so these also come under “personal care”
- Houehold items like mops, mop heads, toilet brushes etc - these come out of our “household” budget
- Bandaids, Panadol and other “medical” type items come out of our medical budget
- Stationery items also come under “household”
- Toys and stickers for the kids - the kids have their own budget category which covers sporting activities, music lessons, tennis coaching and a few little bits and pieces that I buy from time to time (toys, stickers, craft supplies etc)
I hope that helps to clarify things for you. One of the dangers of comparing your spending to someone else’s is that the term “groceries” is rather broad and while some people will include anything that can be bought in a grocery store, others will divide off certain items.
There is no RIGHT or WRONG way to organise things here. It’s just a personal preference. I find the larger costing items can throw both my budget and my tracking out and make it harder to see where we’re up to from week to week.
What I do works for ME and while you are more than welcome to do the same, please don’t feel that my way is the ONLY way. This is also why I encourage you to compete with yourself when it comes to reducing the grocery budget.
The real victory comes not when you manage to achieve the same grocery figure as me. The real victory is when you realise that once upon a time you spent $X and now you’re spending $10 (insert whatever figure you like here) less. 
No doubt there are some items that I’ve failed to include on either of these lists. If you have a question about where I include certain items in my budget, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll endeavour to answer it.
Next week, I’ll go through those items that I DO include and explain ways that I’ve found to reduce our spending in the area of non-food items. I *was* planning to include of all this in todays post but I’m rather tired after being away so you’ll have to forgive me for making you wait another week.
Similar Posts:
- Grocery Spending For March
- Weekly Grocery Spending
- Reducing the Grocery Budget - Part One
- Reducing the Grocery Budget : Budgets & Tracking
- Grocery Challenge - End of February Update
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The thing with doing budgets is not to get too hung up over the categories. The important thing is that the total budget is affordable for you, the categories are just a guide.
Having said that, my attempts at budgeting have never lasted long. I am just not organised enough, and have never really had to budget tightly. There you go, Ian’s budgeting tip #1, have an income that is higher than whatever it is you need/want to spend.
Categories are a guide but I find having stuff divided up and tracking is the best way to keep our spending to a minimum.
LOL at your budgetting tip. I guess that’s why most Australians spend more than they earn - they’re just not earning enough!!!
Lightening,
Tomorrow [Saturday] is my next trip to the grocery store. I have apparently really decided to challenge myself this time, I’ve budgeted 25$ CND/week LESS than the last trip. I’m scratching my head over that one, but that’s ok. I like a good challenge.
The more I think about it, the last trip purchased a lot of stocking piling items that had dwindled during the last few weeks of unemployment and zero income.
Your non-food items that you include in your grocery budget are quite similar to mine.
Cheers,
Maggie
Lightening,
I did great on my goal of staying under budget at the grocery store. 77$ for two weeks of groceries. I also splurged and spent 10$ on fresh flowers, which I am NOT including in my grocery budget but as misc. purchases.
Cheers,
Maggie
I love reading your budget posts. Am looking forward to the next one on how to save money on the non food items! I think I may do a couple posts on budgets/being frugal soon as well since we’re working on that right now in my home, too.
I have to write down some of your ideas. I usually spend to much on groceries, and some time end up dumping some items in the garbage. shame on me.