A little warning...this could be long, and very boring if you're not into budgeting...
A few summers ago, a very good friend of mine commented on the shocking prices of grapes. I honestly had no idea what to say. I HAD NO IDEA how much grapes cost. If I wanted grapes, I bought grapes. In fact, I had no clue how much money I was spending on groceries a month. This made me think. The next time I was at the grocery store, I made it a point to look and see how much grapes were. I stared at the price per pound. I was almost embarrassed...was this number high for grapes? I continued around the rest of the store, just throwing everything in my cart that I always did. I figured that we were doing okay with the grocery shopping as it was, so I just let it go.
This is kind of how things continued for a year or two. Then I read the book
Skinny Bitch. Well, all of it but the part about animal killing. It was truly more than I could take. This book promotes eating all organic, no junk food, and especially a vegan diet. Now, I could probably do vegetarian if I wanted (I don't), but vegan would be impossible. I did go on a kick, however, of only shopping at Whole Foods (Whole Paycheck), squeezing my own orange juice every morning, only eating free range meats, and only buying organic. At this point I also cut out all aspertame/splenda and as much high fructose corn syrup as possible. The positive: I was down about 13 pounds in a couple months! The negative: I was spending a couple hundred dollars a week in groceries and I didn't even feel I was getting anything for my money! I went back to my normal grocery shopping and still bought as much organic food as possible, but at my much lower priced grocery store. I think it was at this point that I was starting to recognize how much things REALLY cost.
Right after this I got pregnant with Brendan. Everything kind of went out the window. Everything I ate made me sick to my stomach, so I'd just buy whatever I felt I could eat at the time (like that one time I spent $20 on a bag of cherries.......). I was getting yelled at for not gaining enough weight (WHAT?!!!!) so I'd eat whatever I could to keep the doctors satisfied. I was aware of what I was spending, but I simply didn't
care.
Which brings me to now. I'm a working mom, so we do have some extra money coming in. Unfortunately, the cost of child care is insane, so a ton of our money goes there. That said, I absolutely adore our provider and she's worth every penny! But realistically, we need to be on a budget now. About a year ago I started cutting coupons and deal hunting with the help of my awesome grape friend from the story above. I started meal plans based on sales in the local papers and sure enough, there seemed to be more money around. Sweet!
Then for Christmas I got a
bread machine. I wanted one SO much! I haven't bought a single loaf of bread in a month because of this wonderful gift. It also inspired me to make a lot of foods from scratch now. I suspected this has helped me save money, but I didn't know. I checked to see how much money we spent on groceries in December. $340, which I think is freaking AWESOME for a family of 3, right? It kind of inspired me to see how low I could go. I made it my goal to spend only $300 in the month of January. I've done some blog reading on this very subject to see if I could do it.
Here are a couple of my favorites:
Emily's Blog: This one is a bit too extreme for my liking, but I actually have gotten a few ideas. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with the lifestyle that she leads; I am more focused on how she saves so much money. I don't always agree with how she does it, but she does offer some ideas, so I'll give her that. Plus...it's always an INTERESTING read. She sometimes (quite often) gets my blood boiling.
Annie's Eats- Yummy, yummy, yummy recipe blog. Her blog has me cooking a lot from scratch and I have yet to find something on there that isn't totally amazing.
So now I'm armed with knowledge and I've just about got my grocery shopping finished for the month of January. How did it go? Mmmm...not so well. $65 over budget, and $25 more than I spent in December without the extra effort. Part of the problem with my shopping is that I refuse to budge on some things. I want fresh fruits and veggies in the house, and I still buy a lot of organic stuff. I think I'm going to give it another go in February and if I fail then, I will know that $300 is just too low for us.
As a side note, I should add that Chris and I ate out one time during the month of January. It actually made us sick because we had gone so long without eating junk food. I'm willing to concede that since we didn't go out at all, that's probably where the extra grocery money came from.
