Now that I’m no longer being sat upon by a toddler demanding to see hamster on the laptop, I shall clarify the mistakes.
I think what happened is that when I entered last weekend’s receipts into my spreadsheet, my brain felt that I was done with them and they never got into YNAB. So when I checked YNAB on Friday and saw that we had well over $100 left in the food budget, I thought we were perfectly comfortable to get some treats and bread from the bakery this weekend.
Then I reconciled on Saturday and saw that we were already over budget. We’ll still need to buy more food next weekend to feed us in February.
Lesson learned: one place to enter receipts is probably enough.
I will probably be in my new condo by myself by the end of the month. It’s 23 years since being single so not sure about food costs for just me. I am guessing about 150/month if I don’t count my flavored sparkling water and going out to eat a few times a week once it’s safe.
Yesterday I got $5 of snacks at CVS while picking up an rx, and I just did a $40 order (well budgeted at least) from WF to be delivered tonight. I could’ve held off for a day or two but this week has been miserable and buying food is like a rapid release hatch to happiness.
Edit: I actually cannot read the total of my cart was $61. Also I forgot to add coffee on and I’m totally out of coffee.
I think I might have skipped the week 3 check in? We’re at $122 for groceries (plus I’ve finished spending a grocery store gift card I got late last year and haven’t counted so grocery costs will go up again). Eating out still at $100.
Apparently I did a good enough job on the deep freezer that I quit thinking about it. There is now room to put stuff in there. Get to the bottom sometimes, not always. I should do something to use up whole wheat pita’s, speaking of the bottom…
Not sure we’re going to have another grocery shop this month, but husband went to the liquor store in college town because he was about of whiskey. I’ll have to check on what it cost. Meanwhile, I’ve got a grocery list, but nothings urgent, and the weathers going to be foul for the next few days.
Week 3/4: Almost to the end of the month, and I’ve spent less on restaurants than ever in a month of the past year??? I’m still decently happy. I’ve enjoyed the meals delivered/taken-out we did spent money on.
This was a good reset! I definitely want some meals out to maximize happiness, but there are diminishing returns after once a week and/or coupled with the opportunity to catch up with people I like.
Final check-in for the month:
Spent $145 this week on groceries, which included a few unplanned stock-ups of things on a really good sale and a few things that have only intermittently been in stock. These are all items I was planning to eat in February anyways.
That brings my monthly total to $332.21/$300. So I didn’t hit my goal (again…), but I did finally learn some important things:
-make simpler recipes that require fewer (and cheaper) ingredients. I’ve known about it for years, but I finally started using Leanne Brown’s Good and Cheap cookbook, and I’ve really liked everything I’ve made so far.
-don’t buy too much food/make things with huge portions. I’ve definitely been making too much food at a time, so then I feel stressed about eating it all before it goes bad (and then overeating), or wasting it.
Also this month is still my lowest food spend ever, so I’m still gonna celebrate HMPH.
So, $165 + $60 + $30 for Engagement pizza + $109 today = $364? Which is pretty good, though it doesn’t include what we spent in Wisconsin at the beginning of the month.
We did use up some pantry stuff and I only got groceries 3 times.
I forgot baby carrots in today’s order, which is a tragedy.
Final check-in!
I’ve started noting in my budget when something was enjoyable and when it wasn’t.
Final numbers:
$1,150 Groceries
$ 450 Cafes and takeaway
$ 460 Work lunch
Changes this month:
I’m eating a larger variety of food, including getting UberEats from a larger variety and therefore more expensive places for my lunch during the work week
Ponder and I had two really nice lunch dates with local independent restaurant takeaway instead of chain takeaway, I’d like to keep doing this twice a month.
We had a whole week where we couldn’t use our kitchen because it was a dusty mess. It is SO much easier to use the kitchen now part of the bench is gone, but we were not prepared for the cleanup or with easy, no-cook food for that week. That was expensive!
I had some really awful soy hot chocolates. They burnt the milk or something.
By not trying to track exact enjoyment/$ and instead taking a general overview, I had enough mental space to pay attention to what we were enjoying and made a 4 week rotating menu & shopping list of what we enjoy eating every week, and what we need to take breaks from to really enjoy when we have it.
$527 for all grocery and special occasion eating
$458 for regular grocery spending
Must admit that was higher than anticipated. I think we’ll continue tracking this more closely for a few more months to understand if this is just what it is now, or if was a high month.
Ok, I failed in the last week! Had a couple crappy days and used a Visa gift card that was a Christmas present to get some overpriced groceries for a nice dinner Wednesday night, and yesterday got a wrap and work snacks from the store near work. Also did not (and will not by the end of the month) get the emergency supplies stuff I had on my to do list. I’m fine with the choices I made, but definitely failed in the tasks I set for myself with my food budget this month!
We did end up with a filler trip for $103, so total groceries for the month is $510. Dining out is at $100, which is also low for us.
Food waste - a little bit of the black beans, a little bit of leftover chicken, and a bag of frozen salmon that had expired in October. So…yeah… Food waste is a much bigger problem than I thought. Will probably continue this tracking/analysis for at least another month in my journal as I want to bring my total food costs down to create some fun money in the budget.
Overall I am happy with my spending for food.
I start February with a lot of meat in the freezer, fridge is also full with dairy and cheese.
I will stay with the food categories as they make sense for me.
Budget should be 400 EURO in the future but it has to be that on average as I will buy certain food (meat etc.) in bulk quantities.
Only one supermarket trip does not work out completely, but I was able to only having 3 trips, including buying fizzy water.
We did one more shop this month. So my total was 5. The goal was 4 trips to the store and at least 1 of those trips was completely unnecessary. I’m ok with where we ended up though as it is an improvement from previous months.
We picked up a few things for suppers which was not supposed to be allowed. We had a more stressful than expected month and did much better at not getting take out than we have been. So overall we didn’t quite meet out goals but we definitely have made improvements and implemented a few habits!
Groceries and meal planning in under 20 min today.
Overall the system is working okay. It’s going to take at least 3 weeks, but it helps us track our staples fairly well already.
I did notice that I am still struggling to cook every day and want to eat out some nights. It’s always for ease. We are tired parents. shrug Sometimes its just worth it.
I would say this system is a success and has simplified my life by reducing the amount of brainpower I need for this.
