The Beginner’s Guide to Saving Money on Groceries
The Beginners Guide to Saving Money on Groceries
Food makes up a large portion of overall spending in most families’ budgets. It should be a component of a budget after all feeding your family is important. However, in my family’s case we were spending the same amount as our mortgage and sometimes more each month. This guide is for tips on saving money on groceries.
SO keeping in mind that our little Barrel of Apples is just my husband, the cat, and me this is a lot of money we were just spending on food. I suppose I first noticed this problem when I realized we weren’t contributing much to our savings account at the end of the month. WHERE IS THE MONEY? Is this like the sock monster that steals things from the laundry? I mean the money has to be somewhere right.
We were both working, our bills weren’t that much. I sat down with bank statement and divided all the purchases into categories. The amount of money flowing to the restaurant category was more than I paid to my mortgage company that month. Something had to change, we needed to save money on groceries.
How much should be spent on the groceries category of a budget?
This is where I think it gets tricky. There are so many factors that go into setting the appropriate budget amount for each individual family.
- How many family members?
- Are there any special diet restrictions?
- What age are your children?
- Do you stock the deep freezer with meat certain times of the year? or does your family can certain items?
Every family is different and therefore every budget amount is going to be different.
How to get started with Grocery Budgeting
- First, you need to narrow down just how much you are spending on groceries each month. Sometimes I use my computer and a spreadsheet, however when I first did this is was much more meaningful to me to write each individual transaction amount on paper. This really helped it to sink in that I was spending way too much.
- Second, decide how much time you are willing to invest in saving money. Some tips are simple and require little to no time, others are going to be a little more demanding. (EXAMPLE: Do you have time to clip coupons once a week?)
- Third, remember why you are doing this. It is not always going to be easy. Are you saving money to get out of debt, buy a new home, put away funds for a rainy day? Get your motivation and let’s make a plan.
Tips for Success on Saving Money on Groceries
- Decide on a realistic amount specifically for your family. For our family of two, we choose to spend about $300 for a month. Your family is going to be lower or higher, and that is A- Okay. We all have different needs.
- Watch the sales ads each week for your grocery store. Chicken on sale this week? Maybe buy some for this week and freeze some for a future meal.
- We will talk about this next one in future posts. Probably a lot. I’ll probably sound like a broken record. BUT I want you to know just how important it is. Hey, I’ll probably have a whole post dedicated to it’s importance. Ready for it? MEAL PLAN. Let me say (type) it a little louder. MEALLL PLANNNN!!! Know what you got in the pantry already, know what you need to buy, and use a grocery ad to make it.
- COUPONS. I love them. I sit down every week to clip and organize them. It is time consuming, but for me it is worth it. I only use them to A) Make my meal plan or B) Buy something we actually use.
Common Questions/FAQ About Grocery Budgeting
- How do you make your meal plan?
- I’m old school. I like paper and pencil. I write what we are having, what ingredients I need to purchase, and where the recipe is found. (The amount of times I’ve got random ingredients and forgot what I was even going to make is embarrassing). If the computer is more your style there are plenty of options out there for meal plans, so just pick your favorite and go with it.
- Where do you find coupons?
- I still get a Sunday paper and most of the time they are included in there. However, many grocery stores now offer A) their weekly ad and B) Coupons and other savings on their individual apps.
- Are there more ways to save money on food?
- So I reduced two categories of my overall spending when I start trying to budget. 1) Grocery 2) Restaurants. We were eating out so so much. I decided we would only spend $60 a month on dining out and the rest of our meals needed to come from the grocery budget. Sitting down with my individual transactions for the month really helped.
The Last Thing You Need to Know about Saving Money on Groceries
- This is called a Beginner’s Guide for a reason. These are just general tips. I’ll be covering more over the course of many more blog posts. So keep reading and I’ll post links to more posts regarding grocery budgets on this post.
- Don’t forget your motivation! This keeps you going with every meal plan and grocery store visit.
