My household of 6 includes my family of 5 and a grandparent. At the start of June, My husband took out of our checking account $280 for our groceries which included $200 for food and $80 for fruit. Meat budget was returned to our saving account to pay the remaining it owed our saving account. We spent $200 from our saving account to pay the butcher fee for a whole cow ground into ground beef few months ago. Then we saved the meat budget to pay back the saving account.
Grocery Year To Date Cost_7-1-19
In June, sweet corn went on sale and I stocked up on it. Sweet corn is a vegetable and I like to have it in my freezer for winter use. I have stocked up in bell pepper few months ago. I have a list of vegetables I would like to stock up on if they go on sale. I could stock up on broccoli and cauliflower when they are on sale but they are not necessary. I have 1 lb. of broccoli in my freezer. They are in the cabbage family and I have other vegetables in my garden that belong to the same family and I prefer to stocked up on them instead. These vegetables in the cabbage family that I have in my garden are wild mustard, kale, turnips, and rutabaga. Last year I have used broccoli leaves from my garden. This year I have rutabaga and turnip that went to seed. In the past I have eaten their leaves but not this year. I would stock up on jalapeno pepper, potatoes, and sweet potatoes when on sale. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are vegetables that can store well in my basement for months. I have 5lbs. of potatoes in my basement that I have purchased probably three months ago and they are still in good shape. I might cook them soon. I have not defrosted my chest freezers this year but I sorted through them to pulled last year stock on top and put this year stock at the bottom that way I know what I have and what I need to replenish. I don’t make freezer meals. If a staple can sit on the self I don’t see the point of mixing it with other food ingredients and put it in my freezer. I have limited freezer space even though I have 3 chest freezers. I like to keep them for food ingredients that don’t have self-life and I don’t want to cane. Although, I save leftover stews and some cooked meat. Stew takes few hours to cook. When I cook it, I save a quart jar of it in the freezer and leave the rest in the fridge for the week. I purchase or harvest vegetables, prep them and freeze them to use in my cooking. I cook dinner daily unless I have enough leftover food in the fridge for one dinner. I don’t like to cook more than what we need for pasta and rice. They are so easy for me to cook that I don’t like to have leftover in my fridge beside enough for the next day lunch.
For meat, there are some cuts I intend to purchase when they go on sale. They can be expensive that is one reason to purchase them on sale. Moreover, they are cuts that are easy for me to cook after a long day at work even if I didn’t take them out of the freezer few days prior. They are pork chops and pork steaks. If pork ribs go on sale I would stock up on them as well. They are good to cook during holidays. At the moment, I have in my meat freezer, a lot of ground beef, soup bone, stew meat, some beef steak, some beef roast, few pork roasts, 3 bone-in hams, and some beef organs. Last year I stocked up a lot on chickens both from the grocery store and a farm. This year I won’t purchase much of it. I would reserve space for pork. Having meat in my freezer allows me to cook meat from my freezer while I save most of the meat budget to purchase meat on sale to replenish my meat supply.
In June, we spent $143.78 on food and $116.58 on fruit. That was a total cost of $260.36. As you can see from one hand, I saved $56.22 from the food budget and I kept it in an envelope for food. I would use it to stock up on my pantry staples, or kids clothing for school. Fruit on the other hand, went over its budget by $36.58 in June. That $36 came from the money saved from the fruit budget from prior months. So that is totally fine.
From January to June my grocery budget was as follow:
My grocery budget was $375 a month including $200 for food (food, garden, non-food, kids’ items), $80 for fruit, and $95 for meat. My six months budget from January to June was: $2,250 (375*6) including $1,200 for food, $480 for fruit, and $570 for meat. Let’s take a look at my spending.
From January to June my grocery expenses were as follow:
Food: $774.68
Garden: $68.03 (this included $50 paid to the city to rent two community plots and $18.03 for seeds.)
Non Food: $263.05(included toilet paper)
Kids Items (games, toys, clothes…): $405.56
The total food cost including all the category above was $1,511.32 that was $251.89 / month in average which means I spent $51.89 a month over the food budget. That was due to the kids’ toys that the fruit budget contributed.
Meat: $258.36
Fruit: $347.04
The total grocery cost from January to June was $2,116.70 which is $352.78/ month. That is $22.22 below the $375 grocery budget. Kids’ toys were on clearance at Walmart at the beginning of the year and I purchased many to replace their baby toys. I have not purchased toys for the kids for some years (5+years) and decided to stock up when they were marked down. My oldest one is 8 years old and most the toys were purchased during her first year. I give them money on their birthdays and on Christmas and encourage them to invest it. So it time for me to replace their infant toys with age appropriate toys. I also decided to stock up on games that my husband and I can play with the kids like monopoly, scrabble and the like for family time together.
These cost affected increased my food expenses but I am glad I saved enough from my grocery budget to afford them. That is how my family live well on less. We don’t feel we miss out on much. Our needs are met and some of our wants. We can read about how I stock up my pantry, the meals I cook and how we shop fruit on sale and you would see that we purchase a lot with less without using coupons.
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