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The month so far

February 23rd, 2021 at 06:56 pm

So we are 23 days into the month and I'm determined to wait until next Monday March 1st to grocery shop again.  We've already spent this month $1056 on groceries.  UGH.  We have food we just have to eat it.  We have to eat what is in the pantry and freezer and then I can rejigger maybe what we have and rebalance and I'm not sure how we spent so much to not be shopping this last week.  But I did shop on 2/18 about $150 of mostly produce.

I'm thinking of trying the cook smart.  It meal plans for you and helps you with the meals. I also figured from annual Credit Card spends we spent around $13k last year on groceries. A lot less than I thought. I buy other things from costco so it inflates the spending.  But if I sit there and tease out the excel spreadsheet and take out tires, tv, 2 computers, vaccum cleaner, bidet, it then works out to something much more reasonable.  According to my credit cards we spent about $10k on eating out last year but looking again at it in detail a lot was spent in Jan-March, June (roadtrip), and December (hawaii).  So not as bad as I thought.  

Right now DH has started a new job.  I have no idea when we will get paid.  He basically got paid 2x last paycheck with all his vacation days.  So I left it in checking and we are paying all CC, etc and getting the shipped righted.

Right now we have $30k in stock account earmarked for EF, $40k EF, $60k in Ibonds.  I think we are okay.  I'm trying to carve down our spending so that we live on what he makes and instead save.

4 Responses to “The month so far”

  1. CB in the City Says:
    1614182795

    I'm banning myself from the grocery store till March 1, too! I do have plenty of food in the freezer and the pantry. Just not necessarily my favorites.

  2. VS_ozgirl Says:
    1614285592

    I have found that one of the best ways to keep groceries down is by only shopping every 2-4 days (keeping it closer to 4 days where possible) because I pretty much just buy food to last us in a very short period of time. I might get a couple of things on special but don’t really go overboard in buying groceries because I’m only buying the bare minimum. Of course this method is not great for having food on hand if an emergency happens! We would struggle if something happens like Texas where you can’t get to the store.

  3. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1614303648

    I agree I might struggle if we were like texas. I'd like to think that if we were like texas I would just stock up before. Right now we are running on a semi-empty freezer with lots of storage space. It's very weird. That we are actually eating a lot of what we buy.

  4. rob62521 Says:
    1614540224

    Years ago there was a Chicago columnist named Mike Royko and he wrote a column on grocery shopping for he and the kids. He discovered that he would buy the same things every week, and every week the easy stuff and favorite stuff was eaten, and the other things were left. So, he made a rule that they couldn't grocery shop until everything was eaten and he shared how creative he had to get with some of the stuff leftover. I'm sure part of it was tongue in cheek, but I think it is something we often do -- eat what we like the best and what is easiest.

    We try to shop once a week and I try to plan my menus accordingly. I will admit sometimes I have to slip in and pick something I've forgotten, but I am trying not to do that. There are certain places we go once in awhile to pick up certain things, so I keep a list of things for those places. But menu planning helps. Plus, I freeze a lot of leftovers like soups to fix when I'm in a tight spot or don't feel like cooking.

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