View Full Version : Grocery Expenditures...Cannot Get Them Down
At the beginning of every month, I vow to myself that I WILL stay within the budget I set for myself regarding my food intake, though I am starting to think that maybe I didn't allow for enough because every single month I go over it. I thought $175 per month for one person seemed doable but I guess for me it's not working.
I rarely, if ever eat out, and if I do, that is under a separate category anyway. I make all my own food, don't eat very much meat at all (I buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts at Trader Joe's about once a month). I have a small vegetable garden that is providing me with some beans, zucchini, yellow squash, some snap peas, collard greens and tomatoes, which are just starting to ripen. I do end up buying a lot of fresh fruit (I always have bananas, strawberries, maybe some blueberries, a mango). I do still have to buy other vegetables that I don't grow in my garden. I don't eat much cheese, nor do I buy cow's milk. I don't eat very much bread either, and in the winter, I bake my own. I often buy the more expensive things that I get at Wholefoods by using the gift cards that I get for various bonuses, plus I have the WF employee discount to boot.
So where the heck is all that money going?
I eat a granola mixture at breakfast that I make at home and take to work to eat on my break, which consists of 1/4 cup Trader Joe's Ginger Granola, 1/8 cup of dry roasted unsalted sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup of quick rolled oats, 1/4 cup of oat bran, 2 teaspoons of flax seed meal, 1/4 cup of raisins (speaking of raisins, I am a bona fide raisin addict - I cannot stand it when I run out of raisins!), and to top this concoction off, I put a few sliced strawberries and a little bit of whatever other fruit I have that needs to be eaten. This is a breakfast that I take to work.
I drink coffee, but I buy the cheap stuff. I am trying to cut down in hopes of getting off caffeine once again but I'm thinking that that is damn near impossible considering I am now firmly on the 6am shift.
Lunch and dinner is whatever I can concoct using whatever I have on hand ; I don't like to run to the store for one thing. However, it IS pretty handy to work in a grocery store and know that I can easily pick up a missing ingredient right after I punch out of work.
So I guess some of the money creep is from when I just have to have a Dairy Queen Blizzard; it is such a rip-off though, considering I can get an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream at Krogers for less than the cost of a small Blizzard. The problem is when I keep ice cream in the freezer at home, I CANNOT stop myself from eating it in about two days. I am trying very hard NOT to buy ice cream for home use, and to just treat myself once or twice a month with a good quality ice cream cone when I absolutely can't stand it anymore. So about $20 per month gets spent on food I eat elsewhere other than home.
I know prices have gone up the past few years, but this much? Is $175 an unreasonable amount to aim for? If it is unreasonable given the price hikes across the board, I guess if I just don't let it go over $200, which is $50 per week, I could live with that. In my mind though, $200 per month on food seems like a lot for just one person. Any thoughts on this?
I try to keep groceries under $400/month for 3 people (and we very rarely eat out). Our budget was about $330 until a few months ago when I realized we were consistently exceeding it due to increased grocery prices. So your monthly budget sounds reasonable to me.
Your grocery usage sounds reasonable. I think you just have to figure out where the "Cost creep" is coming from. How often are those emergency Blizzards? How often are those grocery store purchases for a missing ingredient? I find that the more I can stay out of the stores, the less I spend. I usually stock the fridge fully about 1-2x/month - and after stocking it, we eat until everything is gone. It's a creative exercise as well as a frugal one. In the summer, I fill in the spaces with garden produce; year-round, with pantry items.
Perhaps you could keep a meal log for a week or two, and estimate the cost of each meal? Things like the TJ's prepared granola would be more cheaply made at home (granola is super-easy to make, and does not take a lot of time - but is usually really costly to purchase).
Blackdog Lin
7-27-13, 8:19pm
Hi SZQ. I don't think the budget you are aiming for is unreasonable. I just checked my Quicken and we're averaging $325/mo. in 2013 feeding 2 people - BUT, I think you're probably more focused on eating more healthy/organic than I am able to do on our budget. (AND, I confess that I have UPGRADED my own coffee habit, to the tune of about $25/mo. for decent coffee. I decided that it was important enough to me to spend the extra money.) :)
Have you considered working on planned recycling of leftovers? I freeze EVERYTHING that isn't eaten in 2 meals. Even just one piece of leftover fried chicken goes in the freezer, and is plenty for 2 chicken omelets on the weekend, so I don't have to take out meat for that meal. This morning's breakfast burritos consisted of a layer of yesterdays zucchini/stuffing crockpot side dish, just as a way to help use it up. I'll cook a ham (a big expense for us), but after the first meal of ham and mashed 'tators and gravy etc., the rest of the ham is cut and divvied up into 4-5 ziplocks to use for further casseroles, stir-fries, and breakfast dishes. The ham bone will be used for a (big) pot of ham and beans, and then I'll freeze those leftovers and in the next few weeks turn them into ham and bean soup with celery and carrots and onions. We'll have beef and broccoli over rice, I'll freeze the leftovers, and the next week turn it into beef fried rice. I'd rather have pork fried rice, but I use what's on hand. You get the idea.
Do you have Quicken or a similar program on your 'puter? It is my best friend for tracking our (general) spending. For your purposes, you would want to break down your grocery expenses into discrete categories, like meat; dairy; fruit; veggies; frozen fruit; frozen veggies; breakfast makings; etc. But doing something like this might give you the insight you're looking for, into where your grocery budget is going.
Good luck with it.....
We were so thrilled because this week, we got our grocery bill (weekly) down to $295!
SiouxQ, unless you HAVE to eat less to make ends meet, I think you are doing fine. Maybe you should re-evaluate your expectations. I think just over $40 a week is very low for one person. And I think you're entitled to that Dairy Queen now and then! (I usually have a separate category for those types of things, called "Splurge Food.")
The SNAP guidelines are $367 for two people, so you are within that for one person, and I would assume that one person's allowance would be more than half of two people's due to the efficiencies of feeding two with the same meal. I wouldn't sweat it. After all, we do have to eat.
To answer an earlier question, I do use Quicken to track everything (Food Out is my category for anything I don't eat at home). I also never waste food at all, and save the little bits and pieces that are leftover to turn it into the next day's meal. I am very creative that way. I guess I just need to accept that groceries really do cost this much these days and barring going on a starvation diet, I probably can't get it much lower. I will continue to keep a close eye on this though, just for the challenge of it. I think I have enough stuff to finish out the month.
try2bfrugal
7-27-13, 11:42pm
175 a month is $5.83 a day, which it probably less than most people spend. It depends on your local grocery prices, but the lowest I could get a balanced diet on would be $2 - 3 a day per person.
Basically it would be:
Produce - whatever I could get for 2 or more pounds for a $1 at the ethnic stores (carrots, potatoes, bok choy, onions, seasonal stuff, specials)
Chicken quarters on sale and stocked up in the freezer
Bulk cheese, rice, powdered milk, beans and nuts from a warehouse store or on a loss leader sale
20 cent bananas from Trader Joe's
Eggs on sale
Whatever extra goodies I could get with coupons, clearance racks, special offers from grocery store newsletters.
It really comes down to math if you want a super low, cost, balanced omnivore diet. If you figure out how much each food you buy costs per calorie and how many calories you need a day, you can plan the precise cost of each day's food. Grocery stores carry about 10,000 items, but if you want to eat super low cost there are probably less than a hundred optimal items you can buy regularly and still eat for under $3 a day a person.
Strawberries and blueberries are great foods, but they have so little calories they are quite expensive on a cost per calorie basis.
At the beginning of every month, I vow to myself that I WILL stay within the budget I set for myself regarding my food intake, though I am starting to think that maybe I didn't allow for enough because every single month I go over it. I thought $175 per month for one person seemed doable but I guess for me it's not working.
I rarely, if ever eat out, and if I do, that is under a separate category anyway. I make all my own food, don't eat very much meat at all (I buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts at Trader Joe's about once a month). I have a small vegetable garden that is providing me with some beans, zucchini, yellow squash, some snap peas, collard greens and tomatoes, which are just starting to ripen. I do end up buying a lot of fresh fruit (I always have bananas, strawberries, maybe some blueberries, a mango). I do still have to buy other vegetables that I don't grow in my garden. I don't eat much cheese, nor do I buy cow's milk. I don't eat very much bread either, and in the winter, I bake my own. I often buy the more expensive things that I get at Wholefoods by using the gift cards that I get for various bonuses, plus I have the WF employee discount to boot.
So where the heck is all that money going?
I eat a granola mixture at breakfast that I make at home and take to work to eat on my break, which consists of 1/4 cup Trader Joe's Ginger Granola, 1/8 cup of dry roasted unsalted sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup of quick rolled oats, 1/4 cup of oat bran, 2 teaspoons of flax seed meal, 1/4 cup of raisins (speaking of raisins, I am a bona fide raisin addict - I cannot stand it when I run out of raisins!), and to top this concoction off, I put a few sliced strawberries and a little bit of whatever other fruit I have that needs to be eaten. This is a breakfast that I take to work.
I drink coffee, but I buy the cheap stuff. I am trying to cut down in hopes of getting off caffeine once again but I'm thinking that that is damn near impossible considering I am now firmly on the 6am shift.
Lunch and dinner is whatever I can concoct using whatever I have on hand ; I don't like to run to the store for one thing. However, it IS pretty handy to work in a grocery store and know that I can easily pick up a missing ingredient right after I punch out of work.
So I guess some of the money creep is from when I just have to have a Dairy Queen Blizzard; it is such a rip-off though, considering I can get an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream at Krogers for less than the cost of a small Blizzard. The problem is when I keep ice cream in the freezer at home, I CANNOT stop myself from eating it in about two days. I am trying very hard NOT to buy ice cream for home use, and to just treat myself once or twice a month with a good quality ice cream cone when I absolutely can't stand it anymore. So about $20 per month gets spent on food I eat elsewhere other than home.
I know prices have gone up the past few years, but this much? Is $175 an unreasonable amount to aim for? If it is unreasonable given the price hikes across the board, I guess if I just don't let it go over $200, which is $50 per week, I could live with that. In my mind though, $200 per month on food seems like a lot for just one person. Any thoughts on this?
You sound a lot like me. I seem to eat simiarly and also have my binge moments away from home. Simple eater, not much meat or dairy, so what's the problem? Well, looking at myself I think I can make a few judgements. Every week, I'm supposed to put something money wise away, and every shopping trip, buy at least one item for the larder. Now these things aside, in order to spend a lot less I have to really think. It's just me? So, do I need the big bag of potatoes or just two potatoes. The big bag is the bigger savings but often as not it goes bad. Or, I'll buy more mushrooms than I need. It's easy to make poor estimations. I'm finding that except for bulk buys of some items, try to make my purchases smaller. Just try and get what I need for the next 5 or so days. Just 2 apples, not 5, 1/2 pound of mushrooms not 2. Just enough nuts for this week, not next. I'm also trying hard to be more creative and use what I have and make it home cooked.. So, for lunch yesterday it was just a few red potatoes in vinegar and cooked green beans from the garden. Today it was a zucchini patty sandwich from the garden. Nothing else really. And of course having a plan. It's hard to do, but make a meal plan, (I only use dinner plans) making a plan for all menus for the week, then extrapolating the ingredients and only buying that many ingredients for the week. I often buy too much and that's where I lose my budget. My meal plan is very simple, yet it is high also.
So, my list is simple but it gets pricey quick: This list is probably about 60 dollars more or less with estimated prices and will cover about 8 to 10 meals. Additionally it will cover lunch costs, or snacks/noshing time.
Coffee
or $5.00
Tea
cream $1.00
Bread $4.00
oatmeal $l.00
1/2 gallon milk $2.00
2 poundCheddar and 1 wedge of parmesan $10.00
Vegetables:
(2onion, 1cabbage, 1 cauliflower
4 Carrots,2 apples 1cilantro 1 lb Brussels
Sprouts,1lb potatoes, 2 lettuce = $15.00
one pound each of rice and beans $1.25 each
Eggs $ 2.00
Prepared Hummous: 3.00
Butter $3.00
Tortillas 1 corn and 1 flour$4.00
Pickles or other sundry like mayo or salad dressing. Or oil, or tuna $3.00
1 package Chicken boneless thighs 6.00 There will be half left for next week.
1 pound of lean beef. Top round or ground round.$6.00 Use 1/2 pound for me, or full pound if there is a another person here.
Bacon $3.00
From this sixty dollars I expect to be able to prepare while using some products already in pantry at home:
*Pasta /veg/meat goulash * Beans boraccha (homemade) and tortillas and cheese * Pasta Salad/green salad * *Naan/hummus/veg. roasted veg. *Mac and cheese./salad *Quesadillas. .. salad *vegetable soup/bread with onion gravy or welsh rarebit. *Chicken tacos with cabbage and tomatoes* Chicken with noodles/bacon and gravy and peas and salad* Salad and garlic toast* *Zucchini cake sandwiches (made with home garden veggies . similar to a crab cake) The Naan will be homemade from pantry supplies.
Snacks: Left overs, Cinnamon toast, tortillas and butter, apples, veggies and hummus.
Breakfast is eggs, or oatmeal, or toast and egg and coffee or tea.
The likelihood that I will spend more than $60 is pretty high. Some forgotten ingredient or unexpected turn. But I work hard to keep my food bills low, but I think they are high for one person. I do share food with daughter and roommate if they are around, but it's inconsistent.
But SiouziQ I seem to be on par more or less with your situation in terms of expense. When you look at mine, what do you think?
AmeliaJane
7-28-13, 9:00am
I agree that $175 is very reasonable. In fact, it seems to me that over on the Mr. Money Mustache forums when people are trying to reduce food costs, they are usually shooting for around $200/month per person (granted, a lot of folks over there are younger men so they probably require more food.)
A lot of the older "cheap food" guidelines involve a) a lot of carbs, which many people are trying to limit and b) no allowance for organic foods, which are very important to some people.
I guess two things you could look at are 1) do you have any food waste? I am actually getting better at this when shopping weekly, because I no longer fall victim to "don't know when I'll be back to the store, so better overbuy just in case" but still have issues with produce and bread. And 2) even with your employee discount, are you getting the best prices on your food? When I was on a tight budget, shopping at the least expensive grocery and doing things like checking the clearance bins, going to the grocery outlet etc made a difference.
happystuff
7-28-13, 11:10am
I've had to raise my weekly budget, although I'm happy to say that I don't reach it EVERY week. I now allot $80.00 for 4 people (2 teens) and it includes everything I buy at the grocery store, including pet food, paper products, etc. It also includes a cash allotment for the Dollar store where I also get some items that never go below $1 in the grocery store. I tend to buy and stock up things that are on sale, so some weeks I'm closer to the limit than others.
I've also just cleaned and organized the pantry, so I'm hoping to eat that down the next month or so, which should also help the grocery budget.
Great replies everyone! I guess I am doing the best I can for the most part. The only things I buy from work (Wholefoods) on a regular basis are almond milk (I use exactly 3/4 cup for my granola in the morning, so one 1/2 gallon will last about 7 days), the 365 olive oil, the 365 balsamic vinaigrette, sometimes whole wheat bread (when I haven't made any of my own) and some bulk food things and bulk spices, and then the odd ingredient I need to make something out of the stuff I have at home. Otherwise, I shop at Krogers and Trader Joe's. I used to go to the little ethnic groceries near my house because they always had really cheap produce but lately the quality has been atrocious - moldy and rotting, wrinkled sad veggies. I don't even bother anymore.
For instance tonight I made Zucchini Concoction #9 (it being about the 9th day I've eaten zucchini and squash because all of the sudden I had a bumper crop, all at once)! It turned out pretty good and everything used used for it was either from my garden, cupboards or fridge. Tomorrow I have a way to use up my collard greens (again, from the garden) and will make California Quinoa (which is a really yummy salad we have in the deli case). That will last for a few days as well.
I guess it all boils down to just paying attention and not sweating it too much if I go a little over budget. Things will be easing up soon anyway because my new housemate just gave me a check for the August rent he owes (he's moving in around the 15th).
ooh, please share your quinoa salad recipe!
I recall reading a blog by a journalist who really got into spending only as much as a food stamp budget would be. He, too, concentrated on calorie-dense foods, and he also kept an eagle eye on costs and was constantly on the look-out for bulk and on-sale items, freezing or storing them for later use. The longer he did this, the less he spent, because scoring great buys on the deep discounts added up. Of course, it kind of became his hobby and he spent a lot of time on figuring it all out, tracking prices, reading store circulars, looking up protein counts, etc.
I spent a year working to get my food spending for one person down to $200 a month.
try2bfrugal
7-29-13, 11:15am
I noticed many of the food stamp challenge web sites had really expensive foods on a cost per calorie basis. If you want to eat for $2 a day, not go to bed hungry and need 2,000 calories a day, then you have to buy foods that average out to 10 cents for 100 calories.
This usually means lots of single ingredient, bulk foods. Processed or canned foods would most often be too expensive to eat on this kind of budget, unless they were bought with various coupons or loss leader deals.
Maybe it would be most cost effective to not shop at Trader Joe's that I believe is as expensive as "Whole Paycheck - aka: Whole Foods". Just saying.
Maybe it would be most cost effective to not shop at Trader Joe's that I believe is as expensive as "Whole Paycheck - aka: Whole Foods". Just saying.
Trader Joe's is not anywhere as expensive as Whole Foods. Have you shopped there? I have two of them to go to and we are often there for well chosen and terrific tasting product.
Their chocolate croissant frozen dough works out to $1 each.
ApatheticNoMore
7-29-13, 5:33pm
The quality at WF is often better (TJ is mostly ok for most things, but stringy mangos and avocados that are brown inside speak caution). I'm very disappointed at one yogurt I got at WF recently that was rotten though - yogurts in reusable containers - not such a good idea afterall. Of course the best produce this time of year can often be found at the farmer's market.
Maybe it would be most cost effective to not shop at Trader Joe's that I believe is as expensive as "Whole Paycheck - aka: Whole Foods". Just saying.
There is no WF in my area. But there is a TJ. It's not expensive at all. I don't shop there much, because most of their food seems to be products, and I tend to by food in it's actual original state except for plain pasta, bread, and dairy products. But I've heard over and over again how expensive WF is. Because it seems product oriented, TJ's is not really for me.
I guess it all boils down to just paying attention and not sweating it too much if I go a little over budget.
I'd say you're on to something there :)
We spend about $200.00/person/month, and we eat a ton of organic everything, and that includes household goods but not eating out. I don't feel bad about that at all. If we go over, we go over, and cut out something else. Feeding ourselves well is too important to start counting those grains of quinoa ;)
Good going!
try2bfrugal
7-29-13, 6:34pm
There is no WF in my area. But there is a TJ. It's not expensive at all. I don't shop there much, because most of their food seems to be products, and I tend to by food in it's actual original state except for plain pasta, bread, and dairy products. But I've heard over and over again how expensive WF is. Because it seems product oriented, TJ's is not really for me.
I would agree with your summary. For natural product type foods, our local TJs is pretty reasonable. But for single ingredient bulk or raw foods, they don't carry much of that, and the local TJ store doesn't have great produce.
I do buy nuts at TJs and items like nitrite free lunch meat and preservative free pickles. That is also where we get our "fast" food. Instead of McDonalds, we'll get something like a prepared meatloaf and stuffed peppers from TJs.
AmeliaJane
7-29-13, 6:52pm
I don't notice it so much anymore (maybe because I shop in a very large metropolitan area) but at one time, Trader's Joe's had the best prices on staples the grocery store considered "exotic" but were not really that expensive to make--for instance, Israeli couscous, Greek yogurt, quinoa, etc. Trader Joe's just hit our area and what I noticed was that the local grocery stores adjusted prices on certain products to match them. Individual Greek yogurts went to $1/cup all over the neighborhood because that was the TJ price. They were also very early in organics before the big grocery chains were interested in them.
Their produce has never been a good reason to shop there, as far as I can tell.
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