Hello my friends. Let’s talk groceries. We are six months into the year 2019. Seriously, how does the time go so, so fast! At this point I have to concede the fact that I am NOT keeping up with a grocery budget this year, but instead, I am tracking what we are spending. Two very different things.
I know that you already know the difference but let me clarify:
If I was actually keeping a grocery budget, I would:
1. Set an amount and stick to it. No matter what.
b. Make a strict list each week and stick as close to it as humanly possible.
Trois. Shop at ONE store while sticking to said list.
4. Let my family throw themselves onto the floor in a meltdown when I won’t buy the Oreo’s because they are almost $4.00 a box. Wait that would be me, not my family since Denton won’t eat pretty much anything with sugar lately, and Hayden wouldn’t eat an Oreo if you paid him a gazillion dollars. Liva might be on the floor with me though. At least one member of my family knows what’s good! Have I ever mentioned the fact that we have a beloved dog named Oreo? What a coincidence.
Now what I am actually doing is tracking my spending each week. Which isn’t doing my bank account any favors of late. Let me show you how I do it. Instructions follow:
1. Keep a white board in your kitchen and let anyone and everyone – including the dog and the cats – write down what they want for that week.
Dos. Write out a very loose list of everything that’s on the whiteboard in my grocery notebook, and then go through my fridge and pantry to see what we are actually running low on….
III. Go to any and all grocery stores that I happen to be near at that moment and buy EVERYTHING in a willy nilly fashion.
Quattuor. Tally all of the evidence up at the end of the week and stare in horror, while trying to figure out how this happened – again. (All the while, knowing exactly how it happened – because you were there.)
Sigh. Yes, this seems to be what I have been doing all year long. I am going to advise myself to get my arse in gear for the second half of the year. We shall see if myself listens. I certainly hope so…..
All of that to say, here is what we spent on groceries last week:
Food Lion $51.54 on 05.27.19 | Walmart $49.42 on 05.27.19 Food Lion $8.43 on 05.28.19 | Walmart $57.34 on 06.01.19
Total spent for the last week: $166.73
January $740.71
February $631.00
March $689.00
April $405.44
May $1,047.02 Yikes
June $57.34
And that’s it in the grocery haul department for our house. Are you keeping up with your grocery spending this year? Are you staying on track or do you just go with the flow? Going with the flow is killing my food budget!
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)
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here.