Do you often wonder if you are spending too much on groceries?
Well I sure do!
Groceries are the second biggest line item on your budget compared to your mortgage or rent. You have to change your mindset to be the same for grocery shopping as you do for locking into a mortgage rate. Going to the bank and renewing our mortgage or renting a space we have to make sure it is within our budget. This also applies to grocery shopping. If you are not setting a monthly/weekly budget you could be over spending in this area of your budget.
So, the question remains what is the correct amount to spend monthly or weekly on groceries? Easy question to ask but very difficult to answer. I am going to list the factors you should look at determining and setting a budget then share my personal amount, I spend with you.
Factors to look at when setting your monthly/weekly budget for groceries
- Where do you live?
- How many people in the family are you feeding?
- What are the ages of the family you are feeding?
- Do a monthly budget of all your fixed costs mortgage, rent, utilities the line items that can not be changed and see what you have left over per month.
- Do you currently have a pantry or cupboards full of food?
- Do you currently have a fridge full of food?
- Do you currently have a freezer full of food?
- How much food do you throw away each garbage day?
After answering all these questions, it should give you come clarity on if you are overspending on groceries. You will have an idea of how much food you may be wasting, or how much you have in your pantry or cupboards that is going to waste.
The amount of people in the household and the ages will also be a huge determination on your grocery spending. An example of this is the amount a 2-year-old boy eats compared to a 16-year-old teenage boy in sports 5 days a week! The two-year-old may only eat $50.00 in food a week while the teenager is $100 a week or more. This is why you can not have the same grocery budget for each family as each family is unique in make up and is in different stages of life.
What you can do is change the way you look at grocery shopping. By looking at your habits and needs you can find a healthy budget that will work with your family.
As promised how my grocery budget is determined!
I live in BC Canada, feeding two active teenage boys and a husband, in doing my budget we have a budget of $250 a week. This budget does not include majority of our meat which is another $200 per month. We have very little waste, a pantry, fridge, and freezer that we stock. That brings our monthly budget to $1200 so approx. $300 per week. This also does not include our eating out budget which the kids get once a week that is around $50.00 (school lunches and pizza night)
In closing today, I hope this gives you a place to begin to come up with your unique household grocery budget!