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How much would your grocery shopping budget change if you had fresh food at home that lasts three weeks at a time?
Imagine only going to the store every three weeks? How much could that save? Time? Money?
I didn’t start shopping for three weeks at a time. I certainly don’t expect you to, but what if you could go a whole week or two without stopping by the store? What if instead of going every couple of days, you went once a week?
My Budget
Pre-2019 I looked at my grocery budget and didn’t think we could cut a thing from it. I have to feed a busy family with a variety of allergies. Oh the challenges!
We were working five jobs between the two of us just to keep up with our family expenses. One day we realized things were getting worse not better. But why?
Well, we were working so much that we didn’t have the time or energy to shop or cook. We ate drive-thru or quick take-out. We didn’t have time to plan ahead for any meal. Frankly, we were surviving.
Grocery Shopping
Once a month I would go to the store to restock the house, but so often, sometimes daily, we had to stop to grab one or two things. My husband was far better at getting just the list. Too often extra items would be in the cart. Don’t go to the store hungry… that will definitely change how you shop. Sound familiar?
I didn’t think there was really another way. I felt stuck.
Family Budget
We tried so many different things from cutting anything extra from the budget like cable, outings, gym memberships, travel and planned eating out to not buy a new car. I was driving a Toyota Corolla that was 20 years old and had over 316K miles on it. Not living above our means, we were just surviving.
The one thing we couldn’t cut was the grocery budget. We felt like we were spending so much money on food and had nothing to eat. Is that you?
We tried a variety of financial programs in an effort to fix our family budget.
All until we found Jordan’s Page Budget Bootcamp. I had been following her large family videos for years but when we finally completed the program, we saw a difference. We saw the gaps we had in our budget. Having permission in life to be able to have and budget fun money.
We also started keeping track of our finances on YNAB You Need A Budget. Watching Nick True’s Mapped Out Money on Youtube was a lifesaver in learning how to navigate YNAB in the beginning.
While you are over there you should drop by and visit us at our YouTube channel.
Waste Less
The average American family tosses 30-40% of the groceries we buy. Look at your groceries and just imagine 30-40% going to the trash. That is frustrating. What is more frustrating? Trying to get the family to eat food hidden in the fridge. The food that was left over or not stored properly ends up in the trash too!
(In the future we will talk about batch cooking. I use batch cooking to limit my leftovers but also to give me precooked frozen homemade meals that my family loves for those really busy days.)
I will be visiting the grocery shopping topic a few times over the coming months. My hope is to help you save money at the store especially with the rising costs of groceries. A realistic grocery budget is helpful. So let’s take an honest look at where your grocery budget goes.
Reality Check
We have to start here. Compare it to the pre-diet pictures and measurements. We have to know where we start so we know if this is working. Or how well it is working.
Start today. Do not worry about yesterday or last week’s receipts. Don’t worry about the toothpaste or the dog food that you buy when you buy groceries.
My family has a special category for planned family outings, date nights, and traveling eating out. These are all pre-planned outings.
On a recent trip to Nashville in January, we realized we ate out more that week than we had the past two years combined. Saving up for fun experiences is important!
Go grab a calendar. Look at your debit card statements. How many times did you shop for food in a month? This is a great first step to your reality check and a needed one. See where you are. Now you know where you want to go. Now you know how much improvement to make. On this journey, consider signing up for our email newsletter for the latest free printables to help with tracking.
A realistic grocery budget is helpful, and I am hoping to teach you how to keep MORE food at home and not less.
My goal is to help teach you how to be more self-sufficient and not rely on the store as much, having back ups for meals.
This month I was challenged by Three Rivers Homestead to spend only $100 on groceries for the whole month. #threeriverschallenge At the time of writing this post I have spent $94 leaving me $6 left in my budget. As we were taking pictures of my grocery haul, the creamer was spilt. Half of it was on the floor. I will forever just laugh about spilled milk. Even though I was sad to have lost half of it, I can now use the shelf-stable creamer in the pantry.
Want to build yourself a full pantry? Take a look at the Homestead Anywhere Pantry Chapter on how to get started with a pantry.
I am excited to start this journey with you. Are you ready to get started?
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