Grocery Budget
My grocery budget is about $400 a month. Last year I averaged $432.54 a month. I have been struggling to stay within my budget. Hubby and I talked about it and have decided to up the budget to $500. We will give it 3 months to see if that works better. It means a $100 less into savings every month.
My youngest daughter has had stomach issues for years. Last year she went on a gluten free diet. I had heard it was more expensive but I never realized how much. She has been able to eat foods that she wasn't able to enjoy in years. She is doing so much better so an extra $100 a month is worth that to us. Hubby also has a dairy allergy. His items cost extra also but we are used to them.
As anyone that reads my blog knows, I shop sales, use coupons, have a well stocked pantry, cook at home and use Ibotta. Certain areas of my stockpile were dwindling. We don't want that. So we are making the $500 a month budget retroactive for the year. That gives me some extra money for stocking up.
We are currently in Baby Step 5 (saving for college) if you are a Dave Ramsey fan. We have been stashing any extra money that we have into the college fund. We now know what we need to get YD through college debt free. Adding $100 a month to our grocery budget will not change that. When YD leaves for school in August, we may be able to reduce the budget again. But for now we are upping the grocery budget.
Life, it's always changing.
My youngest daughter has had stomach issues for years. Last year she went on a gluten free diet. I had heard it was more expensive but I never realized how much. She has been able to eat foods that she wasn't able to enjoy in years. She is doing so much better so an extra $100 a month is worth that to us. Hubby also has a dairy allergy. His items cost extra also but we are used to them.
As anyone that reads my blog knows, I shop sales, use coupons, have a well stocked pantry, cook at home and use Ibotta. Certain areas of my stockpile were dwindling. We don't want that. So we are making the $500 a month budget retroactive for the year. That gives me some extra money for stocking up.
We are currently in Baby Step 5 (saving for college) if you are a Dave Ramsey fan. We have been stashing any extra money that we have into the college fund. We now know what we need to get YD through college debt free. Adding $100 a month to our grocery budget will not change that. When YD leaves for school in August, we may be able to reduce the budget again. But for now we are upping the grocery budget.
Life, it's always changing.
Great thinking. I think we should all add a bit to our 'normal' budgets to stock up. Things are going to mighty hefty in price in the near future.
ReplyDeleteYou guys have done an excellent job planning and preparing for the future.
Thank you. I know we have been thinking along the same lines.
DeleteHi Mcoia and you are right to go over your grocery budget and re-evaluate it regularly. With price rises and food intolerances it is getting more expensive to supply a house with groceries and also gluten and dairy free products are way more expensive too than catering for a usual diet.
ReplyDeletePrevious to now our grocery budget was $200 a month for groceries and $40 for food storage stocking and we have found that on average we were spending $200 a month for 2 adults.
Now that we have almost a years supply of food in advance (bought on specials) we think instead of the $240 a month we can reduce that down to $150 - $190 per month instead starting as of April as we are able mostly just to stock up now when specials come around on items we have used. We have also found a lot of local smaller country supermarkets where we can get meat far cheaper on close to use by date clearances and specials in our local area than the previous large supermarket we used to shop at. This is a huge saving as meat here in Australia is expensive and a majority of our grocery spend.
Having said that I have noticed price rises here on flour and everyday staples of 15 - 30 c per kilo due to droughts and flooding rains we have had in varying parts of the country. Our grain harvests here in Australia are down 33% from late last year to date and we lost about 15% of our cattle in Australia due to the massive floods in and around Townsville raising the price of meat.
I think we are getting good specials on meat as a lot of people simply can't afford to buy it or have cut back what they buy and the farmers in our area are struggling and most people have high household debt levels due to high property prices here or have no money coming in in the case of the farmers. Retail sales in food here are abysmal and all the supermarkets are fighting for every dollar they can get from us consumers.
Property prices have also plummeted on average 15 - 48% in a lot of areas and ours has plummeted almost 16% although we are fortunate we paid a very low price for our property compared to the prices in our area so we are still fine. There will be a lot of people if they got mortgages in the last 1 - 2 years who will have negative equity in their homes :o .
Personally we will buy wherever we can get the best price as we are paying a house mortgage and have no loyalty to any grocery store or company. The extra money will go either into savings or paying off our house mortgage.
Shall keep you updated on our progress as of next month :) . Our freezers are stacked full of meat on half price or better specials for 3 - 6 months along with frozen vegetables also on better than half price specials. We are in the process of building and starting our new vegetable gardens here too.
Have a fantastic week ahead everyone :).
sewingcreations15 (Lorna)
That is wonderful that you are able to reduce your grocery budget. The garden will help with that too. Thank you for all of your support.
DeleteMost welcome Mcoia and I truly believe the only person who can gauge whether your grocery budget is correct is the person doing it for their family.
DeleteAs you said you noticed your supplies dwindling which is a strong suggestion that your grocery budget was too low.
You are still way under the USDA thrifty plan so that you have to congratulate yourself on :). We are likewise under the suggested budget for groceries for a family of 2 as well.
Have a great week :).
sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
Thanks. Have a wonderful week too.
DeleteThanks for sharing such beautiful information with us. I hope you will share some more information about grocery shopping app. Please keep sharing.
ReplyDelete