i'm not a coupon clipper and anytime i ever actually have clipped them 99% of the time i forget about them and leave them in my wallet or in the car (alongside my re-useable bags.) every week since i moved back to utah i get those annoying grocery store circulars in my mailbox. they basically advertise the things on special at the main grocery stores in the area. i used to take those papers straight from mailbox to the recycling bin and not even look. but a couple weeks back i happened to notice a store was offering bananas for $.49 a pound at just the time i needed some for flynn and only had $2 left in the weekly budget. so i went to this store and JUST bought the bananas on special.
since then i've been paying attention to the weekly ads and i've started to see the value in price shopping when you are on a restricted budget. this weekend it was worth my time to hit reams up for the $.60 sour cream and $1.29 gallon of milk. (have you ever shopped at reams? it really is an experience, up there with the library in terms of people watching.) and i'm already eyeing harmon's $.99 5 lb bag of potatoes. that's a crazy deal! the funny thing is that before this experiment i wouldn't have been able to tell you what the REGULAR price of sour cream was. i just never paid attention to the minutia of individual item prices because i never shopped with an actual budget in mind that i could not exceed. it was basically irrelevant to me if i spent $129 or $149.
as i formulate my plan for where my budget goes from here, i'm finding that knowing exact prices of stuff does matter. studying your receipt and having a ballpark idea of what something usually costs (and therefore knowing when something is really a good deal and on sale) is useful. individual prices are the building block of the budget. duh. i'm trying to figure out a realistic food budget going forward and right now i'm thinking of structuring it a bit differently than just a lump sum for everything. i'm going to try out a new approach and break the budget down like this:
$30 per week for what i'm going to call my grocery add ins--the stuff i need to make specific items in the recipes i've planned for the week and fresh perishables i need to replenish like milk, yogurt, etc.
$50 a month for replenishing pantry staples like flours, sugar, syrup, butter, meats that i freeze for later use, etc.
$50 a month for costco items
this food budget adds up to $220 per month to feed my family. and considering that I'd like to keep our e's (entertainment, eating out, and other "extras" ) to $50 per month, our expenses (other than all the bills we pay each month) would be under $300, $270 to be exact. after this extreme month this budget sounds plush, but i know it will still be difficult to accomplish and i'll have to work hard and continue to reign in my spending.
i think the main thing that will make this budget realistic is being super organized about knowing when to buy things and where is the best place to do so. i think costco offers a lot of values but for me it has mostly been a budget buster. i'm working on coming up with a list of the items we really like to have from there (cashews, frozen mixed berries, omega eggs, boursin cheese...) as well as the things that really are cost-effective to buy there (diapers, dishwasher soap, blueberries....) and then i will just have to start keeping an updated master inventory and stagger when i replace things. obviously this will mean sacrificing some. for example, the month i buy ground beef for the freezer, there won't be much cash left for anything else. but instead of just buying the 12 pack of fuji apples anyway, maybe i will just buy 2 fuji apples at the normal store instead. the same deal for the pantry staples, once i've identified the things i've really found to be necessities to have on hand (more on that later) i will have to start keeping a master inventory and replenish little by little, not necessarily as needed.
does this make sense? will i be able to do it? do these numbers sound crazy? if anyone out there has feedback or a way they structure their budget that works for them, i'd love to hear about it.
and because this post has been so nuts and bolts serious, i thought i'd share a site i found via Evan Kleiman's Good Food radio program which i regularly podcast. the site is grocerylists.org and it features hundreds of random found grocery lists collected from grocery carts, parking lots, etc. it is surprising how funny and interesting reading what other people shop for can be. you get this little window into their lives by how they shop and what they eat. you can tell if someone is having a party or if they have a zillion cats. it is pretty fascinating. the lists are compiled into a book called "milk eggs vodka" but you can check out a sampling of the lists at http://www.grocerylists.org/lists/100/
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