Well.
Have you ever thought to yourself, this is going to be simple. And then it’s not. When I decided to track our grocery spending this year, I thought it was going to be a simple task. Buy the groceries, show the numbers and that is that. But I made it hard because I am a control freak. I wanted to separate everything into micro-organized categories, but I am also a busy working, industrious, functioning adult human who has the same limited time frame that every other adult has on their time.
So when things become difficult and overwhelming, I do what I usually do: I stick things in a pile to deal with at a more convenient time. I am a great piler. In turn this causes even more overwhelm; so I am seriously not doing myself any favors by creating all of these piles that must be dealt with at some point. My piling tendencies are something that I need to focus on in the coming year, but at least they are tidy and organized piles, right? control freak, here
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty and see what the damage was in October and November, shall we? I pulled my receipts and the totals for both months before I culled out anything that we didn’t eat and it wasn’t pretty for a family of four: October $676.03 and November $646.05. Then I sat down and pulled out all of the things we weren’t going to eat: Cat litter, cat food, dog food, contact lens solution, toilet paper, laundry detergent, sunscreen, mum’s that I sat on my front porch and murdered within a couple of weeks and etc. IE: household stuff that isn’t consumable food.
As I took out anything that wasn’t edible the numbers shrank: October $535.16 and November $579.67.
I know for a fact that the numbers for November are not correct. I couldn’t find one of my Walmart receipts (in addition to keeping all of my receipts I also use Mint.com which is how I know that I’m missing a receipt), so who knows what ended up being listed as food. Possibly motor oil or a battery for one of the vehicles is just a guess, but we’ll go with the flow as I grit my teeth in frustration because I lost a receipt. I am SO ridiculous.
We have one more month left in this year! And only half of that as you read this. It’s been a mishmash each month with our food spending, so it will be interesting to see how December rounds out this year.
January $740.71 Approximately $185.18 a week
February $631.00 Approximately $157.75 a week
March $689.00 Approximately $172.25 a week
April $405.44 Approximately $101.36 a week
May $1,047.02 Yikes Approximately $261.75 a week
June $361.33 Approximately $90.33 a week
July $704.96 Approximately $176.24 a week
August $760.65 Approximately $190.16 a week
September $366.24 Approximately $91.56 a week
October $535.16 Approximately $133.79 a week
November $579.67 Approximately $144.92 a week
December $
How is the grocery shopping going at your house? Are you sticking to your budget? Do you even HAVE a budget to stick to? Inquiring minds need to know.
Here are some ways I recoup part of my grocery budget each week:
ibotta | Checkout 51 | Receipt Hog | Walmart Savings Catcher
| Fetch (referral code – QF4TJ)
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