Talking grocery budget is something that is done in whispers, in hushed tones, in back rooms and in low lighting. Talking about our grocery budgets with friends is something done with hesitancy, not wanting to offend, but also not wanting to be judged. If we care at all about what we spend, knowing how we are doing with our grocery budget. We wonder how we are doing and if there are things that we can do better. We wonder if we compare to other families about our size?
A grocery budget is a very personal thing and varies widely, depending on the size of family, how old our kids are, the kinds of meals we cook and how much time we spend cooking from scratch. A grocery budget also depends on the stores we shop at, what prepared items we buy, and a million other variables. Lets face it, a grocery budget is all about tips and tricks to manage it and the choices of foods we buy. A grocery budget is a very personal thing.
For me it has taken a long time to really understand what helps me stay in budget. A big part of that is identifying the three most critical things that is important in regards to my groceries. If we get anymore than three, they get lost in the shuffle and busy of life. I realize that what is important to me is a well balanced diet, a tasty dinner time meal that we all sit and eat together, and meals that are fast and easy to put together, just in case I get one of my lovely headaches. Knowing your goals is important to help us know where to focus our efforts. Because dinner time is really important to me it takes a good chunk of my budget. This means I need to come up with ways to save on breakfast and lunches. Because I want to feed my family good healthy fruits and veggies that we can snack on or add to any meal I budget this separately. Having fast and easy dinners are a good reason why I have relied on making freezer meals so heavily.
Having a target budget for grocery shopping is critical. especially in the beginning when you are first learning to menu plan and budget. In the beginning, making your menus are a bit tricky because we are still learning how much everything cost when we shop by the week.
In order to figure out how much we can spend on a average dinner meal plan we can break things up a bit. This is how I break mine up. This may not work for everyone, but it is a good guideline for me. To help be real, I am giving you a peek into my real budget so you can see how things roll in my house. This budget feeds my family of eight. I understand you may have a bigger or smaller budget, that's ok. We all work with what we have, and learn how to do better with it as we go along.
Here is a blank one you can print off HERE.
Take sometime to think about whats really important for you to accomplish with your grocery budget. Once you figure that out, you can make a plan to accomplish it. I'm sure you have many, but try to narrow it down to your top three. Do a little dividing and calculating so that you know just what to spend where.
Once you figure out your budget and the cost of the average dinner, you can have a better idea of what kind of meals to plan for. Remember, this is average. Each breakfast, lunch and dinner need to stay under for the week, not for each and every day. We often go on the cheap one day if I go over another. For example we eat on the cheap for weekday breakfasts, so my husband can make nice weekend ones. We also eat on the cheap sack lunches for school, so Friday I can add nice fun stuff in after they have had a good week getting all their chores and homework done. This just helps us be able to take control just a bit more.
Please note that I have a sale items budget. One of the ways I feed my family better is by watching for sales that I know we already and regularly use. This budget isn't for a great sale on ice cream, even though I know we will most definitely not let it go to waste. I use this budget most often for meats and produce I can freeze or canned goods. If I don't find any sales that week, I save it for the next.
Up next for our get started series is Tips & Tricks to save on groceries.
What are the tricks that you use to keep your budget managed and under control?
0 comments:
Post a Comment