A friend in law school had a joke she liked to tell; the punchline was always, "in this economy?!?!" Example:
"I've been eating a lot of hot dogs lately."
"In this economy?!?!"
The further into this recession/meltdown/depression/whatever we get, the more funny this joke becomes. It's everywhere. Every commercial makes a reference to the poor state of the economy and how you should buy their product because of it.
Like everyone else, PJO and I have our own unique concerns and priorities when it comes to our financial situation. In planning for the next year of living off of one income, we have started looking much more closely at our monthly expenditures. No matter how many times we track every single purchase, I am always shocked at the final numbers.
I don't pretend to be the best example of living frugally; many of you reading this are probably much thriftier than I. That is why I wanted to write this post, which I hope will end up being a series of posts. Starting on Sunday (beginning of November), I am going to try and think of new ways to slim down our monthly expenditures. Full disclosure: it's not so much meant to be informative or educational for you, it's to force me to be honest about my weaknesses in budgeting and get some good ideas for ways to improve. If there happen to be other people like me out there that have a lot of room for improvement and don't know where to start, then maybe this will get you started on your own journey.
This week: Monthly Food Budget.
In September, PJO and I tracked everything we spent on food. I would say it was a pretty average month. We didn't go overboard on spending compared to our usual habits, but we also didn't try to minimize expenses. The verdict?
Eating out: $300!
The average meal was about $20, and we ate out 13 times. Several of these were brunch.
Groceries: $460!
I didn't clip coupons because I felt a) it took too much time, and b) the coupons are usually for things I wouldn't buy anyway. This includes a lot of beer and wine (we tend to have a beer or glass of wine with dinner most nights). Almost everything we cook for dinner is based on meat (usually chicken or pork) and we buy a lot of fresh produce.
Eeek.
Clearly reducing our monthly food expenses will be a significant first step to reducing our overall cash outflow. The reform-our-food-budget plan?
1) No eating out at all in November. Without trying to limit the money we spend at the grocery store, we are going to see how much this helps. (and how hard it seems to not have that crutch to lean on when it's 7:30pm and you have no desire to cook anything yet are starving).
Luckily, fall and winter are the perfect times of the year to try cooking cheaper meals. The crock pot and dutch ovens are in use constantly and meat is stretched over several days.
2) Collect information. I'm not at the point yet where I can limit my grocery purchases to sale items only. There are certain things I will buy no matter what price and I like to try and cook a semi-well balanced meal. To be totally honest, I'm not even sure sometimes what a "great deal" is on certain items. I read this article yesterday, and realized I have no f*@king idea what the heck I spend on meat.
I'm taking the advice from a commenter on that article and collecting the circulars of nearby grocery stores for the next 8 weeks (supposedly a typical cycle of full price and sales). I'm going to make a list of things I buy frequently and chart out the best prices I find and where. Hopefully around the start of the new year, I will be able to buy meat only when it is marked down to the very best price and keep my freezer stocked with it so that I have what I need on hand whenever I decide to make certain dishes.
3) Reduce alcohol purchases. We probably spend $60 a month right now on this category that is admittedly not necessary and not healthy. It is so hard to resist buying pumpkin beer (one of my favorite seasonal items!) and we've always been suckers for Pacifico. I think for now, we'll try to cut this by a 1/3 or 1/2 and then reevaluate.
There it is, my first step. I have some more ideas that I'll share next week. In the meantime, what do you do to keep monthly food expenses down?
6 comments:
My husband and I are tremendously frugal. This is all him. He likes to play the game of living on nothing. I find it exasperating, but at least we're living within our meager means.
Now, we pretty much never eat out. But we spend about $700 at the grocery. SEVEN. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. We eat meat once or twice a week. We don't buy fresh produce often - maybe once a month - but rely on canned or frozen. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW WE SPEND THIS MUCH. Where is this money going? We do have a cat and dog, and they eat. And Jack eats table food, but not a lot. WTF? Why are we nowhere near other families of three plus two animals?
We do live in a city, but it's not a terribly expensive one. It depresses me when I try to think of what we could cut out and seriously - coffee and beer are going to have to go if we want to slim down. And how will I get through the day?
Anyway. I can't wait til this recession bites the dust, and one of us gets and actual job, and then in fifteen years or so our student loans will be paid off, and we'll have about a year of freedom before we start paying our first kid's college tuition.
In that year, we're having steak every damn night.
i thought you were sort of getting a salary from the firm?
it's so hard not to eat out!
Gillian, I think maybe we need to start brewing our own beer! $700 is a lot on groceries, but it's probably still cheaper (and healthier) than eating out.
Anon - I did just get a stipend check from the firm, but we used it to pay off some student loans. (well technically, it's all going toward loans, but we had to save about half to make the monthly payments for the next year, so we only paid off one in full).
I totally understand. Once you start tracking things, it can be a real surprise where all of the money is going.
My husband and I started doing the same thing a few months ago - entering every receipt into a budget spread sheet and only sticking to necessities. It's really shocking when you see it all in front of you!
Eating out where we live right now is prohibitively expensive, so we do a lot of home cooking. I find that if before I go shopping, I plan out every meal for the next few days (I do it for the week), it saves costs enormously. Also cooking in bulk saves a lot of money - if you make a large pot of chicken soup there's your lunch for 3 or 4 days.
Spending on alcohol is our issue too - beer or wine with almost every dinner. I'm not ready to give that up yet (gosh that's a bad sign), but lately we've been buying boxed wine (for some reason where we live boxed wine is really popular and there is a great selection - like actual quality French wine, plus it's 3 or 4 bottles worth).
You only spend $60 a month on alcohol? That seems very frugal to me!
Most of my "non-bill" budget goes to food and alcohol. I have started bringing my lunch to work and eating in more, that saves a lot of money. Also, I found going to the store more frequently, instead of big shopping trips helps a lot. That way none of the food goes bad because we decided to eat out instead, and you can get managers specials on meat and produce, because it's only good if you use it that day or the next. I also keep "emergency" stockpiles, like frozen veggies and such that can be used in a pinch when you don't feel like putting in all the effort of cooking.
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