Grocery Costs for 7/22

I've done all of my grocery shopping for this week's meal plan and am now ready to see how my spending turned out.  I really like breaking down my spending to see where my money is going and where I can be saving more.  When you are menu planning on a budget, it is helpful to take a good look at where your money goes.

I'm changing the way that I look at my grocery costs.  I realized that it looked like I didn't buy any produce!  Calling fresh fruits and vegetables "Staples" may be accurate, but it isn't that helpful.  During the summer when almost everything is in season, I like to have as much fresh produce as possible.  My kids love fresh fruits and will eat a lot of vegetables, so we have something with almost every meal.  For produce purchased for a particular recipe, I will still include that in my dinner costs.  But when I'm picking up a bunch of bananas or corn on the cob to have with whatever meal, I will put that in their own "Fruits and Veggies" category.

So here is what my spending looked like for this week:

Breakfast: $11.40

Lunch: $6.79

Dinner: $36.54

Staples: $15.65

Fruits and Veggies: $8.36

Buy ahead: $5.98

Splurge: $1.00 (twizzlers :) )

I also picked up some grill tools from the grocery store for $4.48.  We needed a new basting brush and grill cleaner, and they were on clearance.

Everything added together with tax and bag credit came to $98.34

Grocery costs

All of the groceries have been purchased, and like I suspected, I am over budget.  As you'll see, my buying ahead is going to be a lot more this time than it usually is.  The great sales at my store are over now, so this time next week, my weekly budget and menu plan should look a lot better.

The grand total spent was $126.28.  Here's where it all went:

Breakfast: $2.69
Lunch: $3.53
Dinner: $34.21
Staples: $40.71
Buying Ahead: $29.08
Splurge: $3.29 (chocolate so I can make cookies.  Yum!)


I also bought a basil plant for $2.49.  If I can keep it alive (my gardening skills will never be worthy of a blog), it should end up saving us money.  Even if I only use it once, we've broken even.

So, I am over budget, but next week should find me under.  And almost $20 of the buying ahead is in the form of coffee.  That alone will save us almost $5 a week for probably the next two months.

I know this cost post is getting out late.  A combination of bad math and my kids kept me from getting it out in a timely manner.  Keep a look out later today or tomorrow for my menu planning for this week.

Grocery costs

I had more staples that needed to be purchased this week than I normally do.  It just seems to happen that way some times, doesn't it?  Even though I knew my staples would be higher, I went ahead and bought ahead on some deals that my store had going on.  Going over budget a bit now will end up saving money later as long as I manage my pantry well.  I did end up over budget a little for this week.  Not too terrible, but something to keep an eye on to make sure it doesn't become routine.  Normally I would cut the splurge purchases, but I bought those in my first shopping trip and didn't realize yet that I was going to be over budget.

So here is where it all went:

Grocery costs

Well, we made it through the Thanksgiving holiday!  We had a great time with family and of course had wonderful food.  And thanks to having many meals with family, it wasn't even a challenge to stay on budget this week.  We did still have food costs, though, so here's what it looked like:

Grocery costs

Alright, now that the grocery shopping is done for this week, the total cost came to $92.87.  Here is how it all broke down:

Breakfast: $6.48
Lunch: $6.28