Yep, I said it, you need a grocery budget. 

I know this isn’t a fun topic, but I do think it has to be mentioned.  Before I start, I’d like to mention that my husband and I aren’t strict grocery budgeters.  I aim for about $50 a week, or $200 a month for the two of us.  This includes food and toiletries.  I just added up what I spent on groceries in January and I was over the $200 mark by about $45.  In January I happened to do a lot of stocking up.  Chicken was on sale, I made a trip to our local flour mill and I’m now set for laundry detergent and the like for a couple months thanks to some awesome sales and coupons.  I have a feeling that in February, I’ll be under budget.

So, back to why budgets are a good idea. 

1.  Without a budget, you don’t know if you’re saving any money.  Sure, you’re probably saving money by shopping the sales and using coupons.  But, in your effort to save money by using coupons and shopping the sales you’re more than likely spending more to save more if you don’t know how much you have to spend.  For example, a person without a budget might see a deal on laundry detergent one week and buy a couple of bottles.  Then next week, a different brand of laundry detergent is on sale so that person buys one more bottle, even though they won’t be needing any for a while because of last week’s purchase.  Say that laundry soap was on sale for $4.99.  Times that by three and that person has spent $14.97 in a two week period on laundry detergent when they really only needed to spend $4.99.  All these “savings” really add up when you don’t have the boundary of a budget to work with.

2.  A Budget will get you closer to your financial goals.  Would you like to be mortgage free by the time you’re 50?  Or, purchase a new-to-you car with 100% down?  A budget can help with that.  With a budget in place, you give every dollar a name thus helping you to plan a savings strategy to hit any financial goals you’ve set for yourself.  You’ll know exactly how much you can save each month after all expenses are paid and how long it will take to reach each financial goal.

3.  A budget will improve your spending habits.  Once you start tracking (and seeing!) how much you’re actually spending in a particular area you’ll start to spend less each month.  If you have no idea how much you’re spending on eating out each month, for example, you’ll probably be shocked when you start tracking it. You’ll start to eat out less, because you’ll recognize that you’re spending too much.  In terms of groceries, a budget will help you to wisely spend your money each time you’re at the store.  You won’t go overboard during the toothpaste sale if it means you won’t have enough left for milk and fruit!

4.  A budget will give you a sense of freedom.  I know, this one sounds strange, but hear me out.  When you give yourself a $100 budget for clothing each month, and you’ve spent $50 of it already on new shoes you don’t have to guess whether or not you can afford the $49 jacket you spotted.  Budgets are great for those who feel guilty about letting go of cash on possibly “frivolous” things.  In terms of a grocery budget, a way to feel more freedom, is to give yourself $300 for the month instead of $75 a week, as an example.   Yes, I know, this is the exact same amount when totalled.  But say one week you spot a rock bottom price on ground beef,  and it would be wise to stock up with enough to last until the next sale comes along because you’ll use it.  In order to stock up, you’ll have to go over your $75 weekly budget.   But if you budget $300 monthly, you’ll have the freedom to spend that money because you know the next time you shop, you’ll most likely spend significantly less because you’re already stocked up on a necessity.  I hope that made sense!

I think I’ll end it there as those points relate most to the grocery budget!

How to Set up Your Grocery Budget:

1.  Track your grocery spending.  Track your spending over a couple of months and come up with an average.  Or look at your receipts from the last couple of months to figure out an average.  Once you’ve figured out what you spend on average, you’ll want to trim that amount down, since I’m pretty sure you’re here to learn how  to spend less on groceries!

2.  Start slowly.  I don’t recommend drastically trimming your grocery budget right this instant.  Give yourself some slack and don’t put pressure on yourself to come up with an impossible-to-stick-with number.  You’ll get discouraged and may end up giving up.

3.  Challenge yourself to reduce your average slowly.  Over the following months and with some trial and error, you’ll most likely start to see your grocery budget lower with a bit of work.  Start thinking more creatively on how to transform basic ingredients you find on sale into delicious meals or start making more from scratch. 

Do you have a grocery budget?  What are some benefits you have noticed with having a grocery budget? Any advice for newbies?

Watch for the next post in this series on Wednesday.  Missed the last posts in the series?  Here they are:

• Trim your Grocery Bill – Commit to Make a Change
• Trim your Grocery Bill – Sneaky Ways Grocery Stores get you to Spend More
  

I thought I would start out the Trim Your Grocery Bill series by informing you of some of the tactics grocery stores use to entice you to spend more.  Now, these tactics are great for their business and actually quite smart, but not so good for those of us who would like to decrease our grocery bill!

These store tactics work because so many of us are impulse spenders.  How many things do you come home with every time you go grocery shopping that you didn’t intend on buying when you were still at home?  I’m guilty and I’m sure almost all of you are!

Here are 5 sneaky ways grocery stores get you to spend more:

Buy 1 Get 1 Free – Everyone loves getting something for free!  You may be wondering what’s so bad about this?  To be honest, nothing…if you were intending on buying that product anyway.  If you weren’t intending on buying the product, you do get a free item, but you’re still spending extra money that may not be in your budget, to get the initial item so you can get the deal. 

Free Samples – One word…Costco.  Free samples are down almost every aisle in Costco!  Combining the smell and taste of these samples, they’ve pretty much got you.  Those tasty treats will be haunting you even if you don’t purchase them at that moment.  You might see them on sale somewhere and suddenly you’re off to the store.  Costco isn’t the only grocery store I seen free samples at though, they just stand out in my mind.  My advice?  Don’t buy, just consider them a nice snack or perk for shopping.  (unless of course, you had intended on buying that product anyways!)

Giant Shopping Carts – Most grocery stores provide shopping carts for your convenience.  By providing shopping carts of the gigantic variety, they’re hoping you’ll fill your cart to the brim with stuff you “can’t live without”.  Make sure you bring a shopping list to keep yourself on track.   If you’re needing only a few items, leave the cart or shopping basket at the door.

Store Layout – All you need is some milk.  But since the milk is all the way in the back of the store, you happen to stumble across some great deals and you remembered you could maybe use some bananas.  While you were intending on spending only $4 or so for the milk, you ended up paying close to $20 with all your extras included.  The grocery store didn’t place the milk at the back because they weren’t sure where else to put it…they want you to walk through as many aisles as possible so that you buy as much as possible.  You’ll actually notice that all the daily necessities are placed in far, out of the way locations.  Same idea here, they want your eyes to see all the great things they have to offer in hopes you’ll be enticed to spend above what you had intended in the first place.

End Caps, Clearance Bins and Checkout Stands – End caps are the shelves at the end of every aisle.  You’ll find new items on “special” that the manager would like to bring your attention to on these shelves and are more often than not profit the store and not you, the consumer. 

Clearance bins.  Looking through the items, you’ll find something you never knew you needed since it’s now on sale!  Score!  When you bring the item home you may realize you really didn’t need it and spent money needlessly.  One final thought on the clearance bins, the sale price might not actually be a steal.  Double check the regular price to make sure you’re actually getting a significant discount. 

Checkout stands have high-profit impulse items like chocolate bars, gum and magazines placed around and near them.  While we wait our turn in the checkout line, the store has a captive audience and know if they place as many different products into this area as possible,  they’ll earn a large amount on impulse sales.

I’m fairly certain that there isn’t one of us that hasn’t been tricked into spending more than we intended at the grocery store.  I know for a fact that I’m guilty! 

Have you been suckered by one of these tactics?  Are there any other sneaky ways the grocery store will entice you to spend?

They can because they think they can. –Virgil

You’ve decided you want to start lowering your grocery bill, but you keep making excuses.  And quite frankly, you’re not sure it’s possible.

First of all, you need to put your attitude in check, leave your excuses at the door and commit to make a change.  Perhaps your family has dietary restraints or you eat only organic or you live in the middle of nowhere.  It is my belief that anyone can lower their grocery bill.  After all, spending only $10 less on your weekly shopping trip still saves you $520 a year! 

The grocery budget is one area of the budget that can be quite easy to manipulate, with a bit of effort.  It’s much harder to reduce a mortgage payment or a hydro bill, in my opinion. 

But, lowering your grocery bill will not happen if you’re not willing to make it happen.

Over the next month or so, I’ll be doing a series of posts with my tips on how you can trim your grocery bill.  Since I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t get a bit of a thrill from saving money I think you might find the posts quite useful!  I promise though, what I share won’t be difficult to learn.  Many of you probably put some of my tips to use already!  My plan is to share two posts a week, most likely Wednesday’s and Friday’s.

One final thought for today:  Ultimately, it really isn’t about how much you save but how much you spend.