A not so perfect mom sharing ways to make life simpler. Find product reviews and giveaways, money saving tips, recipes and more.
A lot posts I read across the blogosphere have a lot to do with groceries and money. You know, “how much should you spend, how much is too much , what are other people spending” and stuff like that. It is really hard to come down with a definite dollar amount. Food is a need, a want, an addiction and just tastes sooo good. It appears to be that you need to spend as much on food that is required to survive since food is a basic that you can not live with out. But that is not the go ahead to buy the most expensive brands of food either. You have to find a healthy medium. Now before I continue please keep these 2 things in mind; always remember you have to do what works for your family not everyone else, the rule is you should only spend 15 – 20% of your income on food. What methods work for you?
There are a lot of things that need to be considered when setting your grocery budget:
For our family of 6 we roughly spend $420-$477. So far this is working for our family. I am hoping this will go down if I ever can get started with the once a month cooking. I am a little curious though, what are you spending on groceries?
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hi there
i just wanted to say hello and say that i really enjoy reading your blog
i have it bookmarked on my computer and i check back for updates all the time! I am a new blogger myself and would really appreciate if you looked at my blog as well.
have a great easter!
sure I would look at your blogs. I love reading blogs and we bloggers need to support each other . I hope you have a super easter too!
We only have 1 grocery store in our area (within 40 miles) so things are all really expensive and prices keep going up – every time when I go back (once a month), everything costs significantly more. A couple of months ago we were spending about $300 on food (Jan & February), but this month was $350.
I shop for groceries once a month for my family (me, my sister and our 2 Border Collie dogs whom we cook for instead of feeding dog food). I used to shop twice a month, but by cutting down to once a month, I’ve been able to save about a $100 a month. I know shopping this infrequently may not be possible for large families with children, but the more you can condense the number of shopping trips, the more you can save.
Not only do you save gas and time, but also, every time you go into the store, you increase the chances of and probably actually end up buying more than originally planned (like seeing something on sale or clearance that’s just so cheap you have to buy it even if you don’t really need it … ;p)
We don’t use a budget in our household, we just try to spend as little as possible, and we look at it as a little triumph if we manage spend less than the previous month.
I only clip coupons once in a while for things we need to buy, which isn’t very often because our grocery store doesn’t offer many coupons, although it often has good sales. We sort of have a set menu of our favorite foods and recipes and pretty much buy the same food every month.
In case you’re interested, we have some favorite frugal recipes on our frugal living and finance blog Our Fourpence Worth.
Cheers,
Penelope
thanks so much for stopping buy. I definitely will be visiting your site. I guess if I could plan a little bitter, I shop less. I am just having a hard time getting motivated.
We usually spend about $80 a week including toiletires, dog food, etc. It could be less, but we snack too much. This is for three – one a 2 year old, so we actually save on dog food now, as she gets most of Sam’s food.
BUT on a good for us note, we shop at target because from what I’ve found it is so much cheaper, and we pay on our card before we go and then use that credit card to try and build up our credit again. Woo hoo!
Oh my goodness, I forgot to include the dogs’ food. I really like that idea of paying on the card before you go, I never thought of that. Thanks
Thanks for this post. I have been watching your blog, just lurking lately. I just wanted to say thank you for blogging, and I hope you continue to do so.
~Brad
Thanks so much Brad for the kind words. I love blogging even if it is about the mistakes I make.