by Ashley
As you know, we’re on a budget diet this month. We’re trying to slash our spending, particularly in the area of food-related spending (including eating out and grocery expenses).
I’ve been using Every Dollar to track all of our spending (review to come at the month’s conclusion), and so far things are going well. It’s been tough to keep within our weekly budget, but I’ve been stocking up with some meat and other freezer-foods and we have our Dream Dinners session coming up, too. My hope is that we’ll be able to do a No Spend Week next week (Week 3), only supplementing with about $25ish for fresh fruits and veggies. We should be able to do it based on the foods we have currently, and it would help us to stay within our overall grocery budget.
Week 1 Spending Report
For Week 1 (April 1-7), we spent $129 at the grocery store and $21 eating out. In my original Budget Post, I’d proposed to spend $300 at restaurants/eating out, $450 for groceries, and $250 for Dream Dinners (already committed/pre-paid). That’s a total of a $1,000 spent on FOOD and, as many pointed out, it’s totally crazy! I agree.
So, in my Every Dollar budget I’ve put the planned budget at $200 for restaurants/eating out, $350 for groceries, and the $250 for Dream Dinners (already pre-paid). That would meet my goal of slashing our food-spending category by 20%. If we successfully complete a no-spend week next week, we should be able to hit these food spending goals.
I’m going to pass on Dream Dinners for next month and try to further cut our food-spending by about another $100. If I could get to a $700-ish range for total food spending (eating out and groceries), that would be ideal! I know with some planning and food prep it can totally be done!
One month at a time – I’ll report on Week 2 spending at the end of our current week to help continue to hold me accountable.
What are your favorite generic/store brand items? Are there any grocery-store items you insist on buying “name brand”?
