There are some monthly bills that we cannot change such as our mortgage (short of refinancing anyway). But there are some monthly expenses the we do have control over and one of them is our grocery budget. Heidi has talked a lot about couponing and other things associated with a grocery budget. If you have ever read Crystal's blog over at Money Saving Mom you probably know that her family lives on a $40.00 a week grocery budget (although she just recently updated it to $60.00 a month due to her pregnancy). She does a lot of couponing and shopping at Aldi as well.My cousin just turned me onto this person's blog called The One Dollar Project. Apparently they challenged themselves to see if they could live on $1.00 a day for their grocery budget. They freely admit that they do not get a lot of fruits and vegetables with this budget, but it is a pretty interesting concept.
Now, do I think that you should live on Tang and bean burritos and only spend $30.00 a month on groceries - NO WAY! I am actually more for eating more whole foods and unprocessed foods myself which can cost more, but if you plan ahead they don't have to cost a lot more.
CHALLENGE:
Look at your grocery budget and see what you can do differently. Or start a grocery budget. If you need to start a little high and pull out a certain amount of cash for the week and spend only that much for the week. Coupon if you want, or go to Aldi. I for one am planning ahead for next year. I am thinking about my garden and what items I can buy from the farmer's market and can. My green beans that I canned this summer are still lasting us! I am excited about that. Anyway, I am going to join the challenge starting in January. We can put it off until since next week is Christmas.
I am going to see if I can spend $60.00 a week on groceries (which is about what I spend anyway give or take $10 or $20, ha), but I am going to try to buy whole foods - no processed foods. I don't think organic milk will fit into that budget but I will see what I can do.
What about you? What does your grocery budget look like? What things do you do to slash that grocery bill?
5 comments:
I'm not sure I understand....
$1/day for how many people??? I think that's a more-than-suitable goal PER PERSON, but not PER FAMILY.
There are five of us and we spend about $200-$250 on groceries each month (including diapers), which puts us at about $1.50/day per person.
I agree that it would be very difficult to include much, if any, fresh produce in this budget and definitely nothing organic.
The people that do it are just a couple but it is $1.00 per day per couple. You will have to check out their blog when you get time (ha, ha).
Now someone needs to teach them to coupon. Maximize that $30! lol.
Ok I want to do better with the grocery bill. I am embarrassed to say what my family of 5 spends a month. We live in Los Angeles..is food more expensive here? Do those totals include items other than actual food? I buy mostly organic and try to do whole grains etc. My kids are 6,4, and 3 and they are so picky. Half the time my dinner goes down the drain instead of in their mouths. I try to buy from Trader Joes, which seems pretty reasonably priced. I know coupons are great, but I never seem to find coupons for the things I want. lol I'm going to go check out the blog you mentioned. I need to find ways to curb grocery spending but still buy healthy edible food. I keep thinking of Jon and Kate plus eight..if she can do it, why can't I?
I need to cut down on my grocery budget too. So I am interersted in seeing how you do it in the days to come.
I really should give up diet pepsi....sob! sniff! snort! but I just can't bring myself to do that yet...sigh!
However, I do have other ideas (like using lentils) to stretch my grocery budget. My family loved the lentil tacos I made so I'm going to try some other recipes too.
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