Now that the month of June is coming to a close, I’m ready to do a full (transparent) budget recap for you. Since I declared this the summer of grocery budgeting, I wanted to show you what it looks like for our family and what a tremendous impact it made this month!
I looked back on another month (March) which was a pretty typical month for our family in terms of spending. I added up all our grocery spending PLUS eating out expenses. One of the questions I got was, “Well, you might be spending less on groceries but are you spending more eating out?” But we also made a real effort this month to focus on eating what we had at home and keep our overall food costs down. So, as you’ll see, not only was grocery spending less but our eating out was less frequent, too.
THE TOTAL COMPARISON
March 2023: $2,223 spent in groceries and eating out combined
June 2023: $1,497 spent in groceries and eating out combined
Goodness it’s pretty shocking isn’t it?! I’m guessing for most people saving over $700 in a month is a significant cost savings – as it is for our family! That money can be used for so many other things, like saving for family trips and vacations, college funds, rainy day savings, putting money toward a car or mortgage payment if you have one, etc.
And even if budget isn’t a concern for you, one of the most convicting things for me was seeing how much food we had been wasting in the past vs. how much keeping a pretty strict grocery budget forced our family to think about using what we had in our pantry, freezer and fridge in the most creative ways.
Note that while I tried to stick to just weekly trips, sometimes it was worth it to run for a few items to stretch what we had left in the fridge and pantry. For example, we needed more milk, and some cheese and running out to grab those two things allowed me to put two more meals together for dinner with items we already had on hand.
I should also add, our kids (and my husband) had to adjust their mindset a bit as it came to food. Less easy to grab items, less luxury items, fewer snack foods, and fewer choices. And that’s OK! I think my desire to never have my kids feel any sense of “lack” was driving many of the choices I made at the grocery store. But in reality, it’s OK and even good for our kids to know that we make the most of what we have, that sometimes they don’t get their first choice of snack or meal but make do with what is on hand, and understand that we are shopping with intentionality and focus.
I’m excited to continue to stick to grocery budgeting and more intentional planning as we head into the month of July and look forward to taking you with me!