Any Budget Geeks?

[JennifersLost]

I took my receipts for the January through May and went through them to see exactly how I spend my money at the grocery store. I found some interesting things you can read about here (http://www.halvingitall.blogspot.com).

I also included a link to a Google Documents sheet where I laid out all the different categories and what I spent.

I wonder if someone would click on the link above, go to my blog and try the link to the "Where the Money Went" page. It's at the bottom of the first entry you'll see.

I'd like to know if when you go there you can mess with the page or not. I can't tell if it's a "read-only" thing or if others can "play" with it.

Thanks, guys!

[Kanga]

I tried to mess with your page, but I was informed that I did not have permission.


I like the idea of breaking down the grocery bill to find areas where you can save money.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Wow - you did a lot of work! But I can see how it will be so worth it for you (and it would be for me too but I'm not sure I want all the work)! Good job.

Oh - and mayonnaise is easy to make and is so much cheaper too (it is just egg, oil, a touch of mustard powder and lemon juice).

[brasilmom]

I took my receipts for the January through May and went through them to see exactly how I spend my money at the grocery store. I found some interesting things you can read about here (http://www.halvingitall.blogspot.com).

Pardon me, but what is your goal with that break down? You are just trying to have a category budget? With the prices going crazy as they are lately I am not sure how you can keep within the budget. My dd is extremely allergic so it is hard for me to have a category budget.

Instead I do a monthly budget and distribute money into funds. We currently have funds for: insurance, property taxes, family, vacation. We feel much better when it is time to pay those items as the money is set aside. If the fund grows above the annual expenditure we adjust the monthly contribution. Then we have a basic grocery expenditure, but I find this one a bit harder to control.

Sorry that I was not much help for your break down. Nonetheless I applaud you for all the work that took it. I do that only for medical/taxes purposes.

Be well

Miriam

[Mx5]

I took my receipts for the January through May and went through them to see exactly how I spend my money at the grocery store. I found some interesting things you can read about here (http://www.halvingitall.blogspot.com).

I also included a link to a Google Documents sheet where I laid out all the different categories and what I spent.

I wonder if someone would click on the link above, go to my blog and try the link to the "Where the Money Went" page. It's at the bottom of the first entry you'll see.

I'd like to know if when you go there you can mess with the page or not. I can't tell if it's a "read-only" thing or if others can "play" with it.

Thanks, guys!

Not what you're asking for, but I was wondering if you could tell us where you live (state or country) and how many kiddos / family size?

I shop at Aldi and can get a box of cereal for $1.69. When I saw your cereal total for the month, I calculated that I could get 15 boxes for the same price. I have 5 kids, 3 of whom are bottomless pit eater teens.

That aside, I wanted to commend you for really looking at where the money goes. It can be shocking, can't it!

Thank you for sharing.

[JennifersLost]

THanks for checking it out!

We are a family of 6 living in northwestern BC, Canada. Our prices for lots of groceries are higher than you'd find in the US. We have a "warehouse" store and I do shop a lot there, but nowhere near as many options as you'd have in most towns in the US.

For cereal - I buy Shreddies for the rest of my family; a double box costs about 7 bucks. For myself I get Fiber One - around $4.50 I think for a small single box! I need the fiber, though, and suffer without it.

Remember that this is our "before" budget. The goal is to cut it in half!

The reason I broke it down into small categories is so that we could take on things product by product. For instance, I'd always considered homemade bread products to be a luxury item rather than a savings. But when we broke it down we realized we can make bread for cheaper than we can buy it. Not only that, but tortillas and rolls are HUGELY marked up. It takes time and effort, but we could make flour tortillas for a tiny fraction of what we pay at the market.

This exercise has several layers to it. There's the cost factor. Then there's the environmental part: We're exploring cutting back our imprint on the world, too. Every loaf of bread we make ourselves is a loaf not packaged and shipped in from elsewhere.

And there's also the "quality of life" part. Slowing down enough to bake bread, to walk to the market instead of driving, etc. is forcing me both to exercise and to have frequent stops to "clear my head". Kneading dough de-stresses you. So does walking across town. I'm enjoying myself.

Thanks for the tip about the mayo, too. I've even made it before when we were exploring food allergies but never thought about it from a cost perspective!

[KAR120C]

I'm a budget geek! (Although when I read the subject line the first time I thought it was about trashpicking your computer hardware and using shareware... LOL)

Here's what I did: I made up 13 weeks of recipes (6 dinners per week, with one "spare" for a frozen pizza, or going out, or leftovers, although we generally eat leftovers for lunch the next day so we don't have to deal with them later in the week....), made up a "standard" breakfast-lunch-and-snack list (cereal, crackers, milk, cheese -- all the things I like to have at all times but don't always cook with). Then I made a database.

It took a long LONG time to get it to where it is, but at this point I have my recipes, the ingredients and amounts required for each, and the unit price of each ingredient (updated this summer, although I've seen really much less increase in most of our staples than a lot of people are reporting elsewhere). I can print out a list of every ingredient we use in 13 weeks (quarter of a year), in order by total price... which is great because if I can see that a larger bottle of, say, hoisin sauce isn't going to be a great deal unless it's tremendously cheaper, because we use a grand total of 1/4 c. in 13 weeks. Chicken on the other hand -- any penny we can save on chicken will pay off because we go through so much of it!! Same with milk. And lettuce. And the difference between the cost of homemade piecrust or pizza dough and storebought is signficant for the amount we use....

I thought it was a really worthwhile exercise, and kind of fun in a seriously geeky way ;)

[8FillTheHeart]

I don't know that I'm a budget geek, but I know how to live within our budget. ;)

One big suggestion I can make is to get rid of cereals. I don't buy them b/c they are super expensive for what you actually get. Granola, muffins (from whole wheat), rolls, etc are much cheaper on the budget.

[JennifersLost]

Okay, KAR1200 - you're my kinda person!

Computers and food budgets down to the penny - that's my husband and I in a nutshell, LOL.

Although I can only aspire to the kind of program you've put together. I tried to do a spreadsheet yesterday and nearly ended in tears. Darn Google document...

[GSMP]

Wow.....that's all I can say......:001_huh:

This is something I seriously need to do......

Kudos to you and the rest of you.......:lol: