Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Saving Money on Groceries

This month was a tough one financially. I started the month knowing we were $300 short for paying the bills, keeping the cars running, and feeding the family. With the end of the month just a few days away, I can say that we made it.

One of the things I did was watch my food expenses very closely and use a few money saving techniques that I've learned. Out of curiosity, I looked up what the US government says an average family of five spends on food so I could compare it our totals. Here's the totals.

The monthly food expenses for a family of five on a...

liberal budget spends $1,272.10
moderate budget spends $1, 046.70
low cost budget spends $850.20
thrifty budget spends: $581.50

We spent $528!

My total includes all food, household products, diapers, wipes, dining out (3 meals), and taking a friend out for a birthday dessert so our actual food expenses would be a bit lower than that.

So, are you wondering if we ate Ramen every day? LOL Not at all.

For breakfast, we tend to eat cereal, breakfast burritos, eggs & pancakes, and other cook breakfasts. We even splurged on our BFG-inspired royal breakfast which included fried eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, sausage, toast and jam, and orange juice.

For lunch, we usually have a variety of sandwiches (turkey/cheese, ham/cheese, egg salad, tuna, pb&j, grilled cheese, and homemade subs), leftovers, or simple meals like angel hair alfredo.

For dinners, we had different kinds of burritos (the fillings change), Mexican platters, taco salad, chicken taco salad, chicken tortilla soup, southwest chicken and rice, burgers, bbq ribs, shepard's pie, herbed pork roast, roasted chicken, breakfast, homemade pizza, chicken fettuccine alfredo, and I can't remember what else. Some of these, like the burritos, are family favorites so we have them more frequently.

For dessert, we had brownies, cake & ice cream, cookies, apple crisp, apple pie, and chocolate pie.
So, as you can see, we eat a fair variety of foods we enjoy.

So, my question is...are you interested in posts explaining how I save money? Or is there already plenty of that on the Internet? Do you want me to stick with just homeschool and family stuff? You're my readers. What would you like to see me write about more?

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5 Comments:

Raquel said...

Hi i am a new reader! bt i would love to hear your money saving tips i am always looking for ways to save cash especially on the grocery budget.

The Four Week Vegan said...

I'm new, in fact this is my first visit - found you through Twitter. Anyways, I love money saving ideas. Especially on groceries as that is the one of only a couple budget items here that is tweakable.

Chickie said...

If you can manage groceries that include diapers (!) in the area of the country where you live on less than $600, (don't get out your red pen...I know this is a terrible sentence!) I absolutely want to know how.

Anonymous said...

JoAnn,
I would love to hear how you save money. It is almost always a very important topic for most homeschooling families and even more so right now in these times.
I have been enjoying your Blog for months now, I check every day to see what you have posted!
irvine328

Montserrat said...

For our family of nine the monthly thrifty budget according to the government is $1,120.50. I wish we spent that much! On average our monthly grocery cost is $500 but that does not include household or baby products which I have in a different category. Including those our budget would be more like $700- $800 per month.

I'd be interested in reading the ways you've found to save money too. I like getting new ideas! There's always more I can be doing.