A way to share about my small attempts to live a more frugal life and to learn from others. The "more" will include a variety of things like recipes, pictures, funny stories, home schooling ideas, and whatever else I might want to add.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
$200 Grocery Budget for Family of 5!
Well, I have been meaning to post this for a few days now, but only getting to it today. Remember back in March I had the March Challenge to see if could keep my monthly grocery budget at around $400? Here were the results of that. Well, I have been reading so many frugal blogs over the past few months and thought it was time for a new challenge. I guess there are a lot of families out there who try to keep there grocery budget to $30/week. Well, I thought I would try for $200/month for the month of November. I had gotten away from really tracking how much I spent on groceries, so this challenge help me track all my purchases, coupon like crazy, eat out a whole lot less (haven't eaten out but 2 times since number 3 came along), and be more creative with food we had on hand. So for the month of November I actually only spent $220!!!! I was so pleased. And we still ate pretty well and have a fairly stocked-up freezer and pantry. The only that was really missing by the end of the month was the perishables. I actually tracked the purchases from Nov. 10-Dec. 10. This week I did go to Costco and Acme to stock up again and already spent about $200, but I'm hoping to not spend more that $50 until early January. We'll see how I do. I was quite please with November's results given I had a birthday party for my son, celebrated two Thanksgivings, and a few other hospitality events. Some of ways I have been able to cut our grocery budget nearly in half since last spring would be due to cloth diapering 2 children about 80% of the time, coupons, shopping at Rite Aid, and checking frugal blogs like Money Saving Mom and Deal Seeking Mom....they do a lot of the homework for you. How do you save on your grocery budget? Any tips? What do you spend each month? How do you incorporate bulk purchases into your budget?
Nice work! Perishables really are the hardest thing I think.
ReplyDeleteOccasional bulk purchases are also tricky...I have settled on a monthly budget that works for us that is frugal, but doesn't deplete my stock pile at all (actually, if I shop well, I usually end up with a little more at the end of the month than at the beginning). This allows for a month from time to time where I can make room in my budget for those occasional expensive purchases. In those months I may deplete my stockpile some, but still stay on budget.