Yesterday, I did my last grocery shop for the month. I’ve been tracking all the groceries I buy this month, logging and categorizing each item. It was an eye opening experience.
I did go overbudget on groceries this month, but by less than $5, which initially pleased me. Mid-month, I decided I wanted to bake cookies and had only one of the ingredients (vanilla), which meant a big shop. But it also means I have tons of flour and sugar and other cookie ingredients leftover.
Not surprisingly, one of the top expense categories was frozen foods. I’m working on not eating so many of those, but I will always keep a few in the freezer, because a $2.50 Lean Cuisine is cheaper and healthier than getting take-out from a restaurant. I spent nearly $30 on various beverages, which does include a bag of coffee and some tea, but also included a bit too much soda. Sure, it’s diet soda, but I should cut back. Especially if I’m drinking tea instead.
The category that bothered me and made me frustrated about going over budget was what I called “treats.” I spent over $15 on treats, which in this project were candy, cookies, single beverages, things that I hadn’t planned to buy, didn’t need to buy, and didn’t need to eat. True, $5 of that was for Halloween candy that has yet to be touched – I bought it on the off chance I do get trick-or-treaters, but in all likelihood, I will be eating that candy myself (or bringing it to work to share). Even with the candy, I could have saved $10 this month by just not buying the ridiculous impulse items that I didn’t need.
Of course, those weren’t my only “impulse” items. I’m not good at shopping with a list. I make a list and take it to the store, but always end up picking up extras – usually things that I use that are on sale but that weren’t featured in the sale flyer. Sure, maybe I could save more if I stuck to the list and didn’t buy that impulse mango, but it’s a good, healthy treat, and a much better expense than a cookie at the bakery.
The lesson here? Don’t buy junk. So what if the cookies are on sale for $1. That’s $1 I could spend elsewhere, plus it’s empty calories I don’t need.
I’m not sure yet if I’m going to track again for November. I’m not sure how November’s groceries are going to go, primarily because I’m not sure if I’m hosting Thanksgiving or not. But this was a good exercise, and one that was fairly eye opening. And nowhere near as tedious as I thought. Another month of tracking, this time while keeping in mind what happened in October, might be helpful.
Megan is a 30-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
I think tracking where your money is going on your grocery trips is a great idea. I think that I’m going to do the same thing in November. As long as you don’t mind me stealing your idea. =)
It’s not stealing, it’s sharing! Isn’t that what blogging’s all about?
Congrat’s on only going over by less than $5 bucks!
And your totally right –
The junk is what jacks up the total (especially soda).
I’ve been working on eliminating soda from our household –
But it is so hard to get the rest of the family on board.
It’s so hard to get everybody on the same page at the same time!!!
I don’t track the individual items I buy, but I track all my trips… and yes, the incidentals/larger items (like a box of sugar or some sherry or white wine for cooking) certainly add up! (And so does the ‘junk’, lol.) 🙂
We actually withdraw a certain amount of money each paycheck from the bank and put the cash in envelopes (Dave Ramsey style). Once the cash is gone we are done until the next paycheck. At first we felt that we may starve, but after a few weeks we starting getting good at it! Now we sometimes have $10 or $20 left over.
To help the family get on board with cutting out things like pop…i cut it out during the week, then on the weekend i put a bottle in the fridge for the family to have…once it’s gone it’s gone. i do the same with chips and ice cream…those are weekend treats only!
You should check out the side effects of aspartame, found in diet sodas. It may give you the push you need to quit. 🙂