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Angel
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| Posted: Nov 27 2012 at 9:06am | IP Logged
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Periodically it seems like our grocery expenses seem to start spiraling out of control. This may or may not have something to do with the holidays, or the fact that my cupboard was practically bare and I am trying to stock up again. We're going to try to go to the envelope system for groceries beginning in January, so I'm trying to keep careful track of our grocery expenses (breaking them down into categories like meat, milk, etc. so I can see exactly where we might be overspending) until Jan. 1.
I'm just wondering how you deal with certain areas when you're coming up with your grocery budget. These areas are:
Holiday food expenses (for baking, special occasions, Christmas dinner, etc.)
Personal/non-food products
Bulk purchases and/or stocking-up
Do you have separate budget categories for those areas or do you lump them all together? I think bulk purchases are what confuse me the most. For instance, We buy a lot of our meat in the form of a side of beef or a whole hog, etc, and we belong to a food coop with erratic bulk orders for produce and dry goods. In the past, I've tried to divide up the money spent over the amount of time I expect that it will take to eat the bulk food, then subtracted that monthly amount from the monthly budget... but sometimes *when* I'm able to make the purchases is unpredictable or we eat through the food faster than I thought we would... and then the numbers seem all screwed up.
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: Nov 27 2012 at 9:40am | IP Logged
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I'd definately have seperate categories for personal/non-food products and bulk purchases.. maybe holiday food too.. and instead of dividing the money over the time it would be used.. I'd just have a set amount each month.. perferably starting with a chunk of income (tax returns?) so that the bulk purchase category starts with enough to continue your typical purchases.. I'd look at bulk purchses for the whole year and divide that over the full year for adding funds to the account.. plus the startup fund part.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: Nov 27 2012 at 11:33am | IP Logged
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We do the same thing, the periodic spirallying I mean. One thing that has helped is knowing how much we spend on milk, eggs, etc... every month and keeping that separate from our disposable budget. Regarding bulk meat purchases, we have even made separate checking accounts for it where money is directly deposited on payday.
We've tried the envelope system many times, but sometimes expenses feel so erratic. The past few months, we've been successful in allotting our disposable income for the month leading into the month. I keep a notebook, and I've started recording projected expenses into the pages for each month as I recognize them or they approach. So, some months, we can really pinch our pennies on groceries and in others, we might need to spend more heavily. Generally, I have a good sense going into a month whether I will need to make a bulk purchase or not.
In theory, having envelopes with predetermined amounts makes sense, but we have found it very difficult to implement in practice. For instance, those things that one would "save up" for seem to always come before you have enough saved (barring that chunk of cash Jodie referenced, something we never seem to have). And this happens again and again, making it difficult to ever reach a point where your envelopes "work right." We still find having an exact budgeted amount per month helpful as a guide, and I reference our spreadsheet as I work out our expenses.
It is still "new", but this method has worked so far. For instance, last month, I budgeted a set amount for specifically "Thanksgiving purchases" so I could make sure we didn't blow through our grocery budget before needing those lasts minute items to make Thanksgiving come together. So, after taking out what I KNEW would be spent
I find this helps us keep a tighter reign on our expenses, whereas, I think I had more of a tendency to become something of a spend thrift if I still had money in a particular envelope. Does that make sense? We are more careful in evaluating each purchase of late.
Another example, in October, I wrote in the projected cost of a haircut for me and the boys in December. I also knew I needed tights, that our budget was tight from travel, so I put that in December as well. I have a few homeschool expenses already recorded for January.
I do leave a bit of "Misc." money for things as they come up. I did not anticipate the urgent need for blue jeans for my oldest in Oct., so it was nice to have somewhere to pull that from. It is a bit messy, and my notebook scratch system wouldn't make sense to an accountant or even my husband for that matter, but we've done better staying in budget than with any other system we've tried, and that's saying something. 
Also, after I take into account absolute expenses, I have the grocery budget roughly divided by week so I can pace myself.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: Nov 27 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged
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I haven't jumped into the bulk buying too much because of space constraints, but I hope to being next year. Right now, I have a set amount each week for food/household/personal items. That's what we get to spend each week, and I try to plan for upcoming events (spend less each week to save up for larger purchases). Since I do not have my cushion any longer, and I haven't had extra money to save yet, I do miss out on some bulk buying opportunities when the grocery stores have awesome sales. But, I'll get there someday.
Right now we just stick to the budget. I don't have separate categories, we just know that there is $xx a week for all food and household items (diapers, paper products, food items, personal care items, etc.). I take my calculator, my must have list and count pennies as I go through the store. If I hit our limit before my list is completed, I have to decide what's more important that week and put things back. If I'm under, I have a wishlist of items that are either for the pantry (stock up) or just something fun to have that week as a treat. On weeks that I need diapers, then that eats up part of the budget and I just stick to meatless meals and vegetables that week. I plan each week's meals and snacks, and try my best to have leftover money so I can keep the pantry stocked.
It can be very frustrating to not be able to buy all that I see, but I'm definitely learning a lesson in wants versus needs. We are no longer using credit of any kind, so if there's no money we just do without (or find a creative way to work around).
I'm sorry, I rambled a bit and I don't know that I helped the conversation much. Oh, and we get paid weekly, so all my budgeting is done weekly (even yearly bills are broken down into weekly increments).
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Angel
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| Posted: Nov 28 2012 at 1:31pm | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
| I'd definately have seperate categories for personal/non-food products and bulk purchases.. maybe holiday food too.. and instead of dividing the money over the time it would be used.. I'd just have a set amount each month.. perferably starting with a chunk of income (tax returns?) so that the bulk purchase category starts with enough to continue your typical purchases.. I'd look at bulk purchses for the whole year and divide that over the full year for adding funds to the account.. plus the startup fund part. |
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Jodie, do you lower your weekly/monthly grocery budget at all in response to the bulk purchases? It seems like buying in bulk ought to help my budget go lower, but for some reason lately it just seems to mean there's more food around. I guess part of my problem is that I really don't know what to expect from this bulk foods coop because I've only been doing it for a couple of months. You never know when a new order is going to come available, or exactly what's going to be in it. For instance, a citrus order just came up with an enormous amount of organic citrus, but also organic potatoes for a decent price... but this follows right on the heels of an order I placed for two bushels of apples and some stock up on local honey and organic raisins (cheaper than conventional in the stores around here). So, I'm spending less money in theory, but it feels like I'm spending a lot more because the orders are all jammed up together (along with a deposit I just placed on a side of beef from a local farmer). They'll last us for a long time -- months -- but where do I put the limit? I do still have to do weekly shopping.
The problem I have is actually a blessing, but it does require some workaround: my husband gets 1/4 or more of his salary in the form of a once-a-year bonus, which is like enforced saving. He has a decent monthly salary, which we're able to live within comfortably, but all of the "extra" and big stuff -- savings, curriculum purchases, seasonal clothing, bulk purchases of meat, home improvements, etc. -- comes out of the yearly bonus. The trick is to divvy it up without letting it all trickle away in a direction in which we don't really want it to go... like spending too much on food. 
(And, for the record, the monthly pay comes biweekly.)
Anyway, like I said -- it's a blessing and I'm certainly not whining about it, but setting a number requires a little more thought than if there was only a certain amount to stay inside every month, and that was it.
Sometimes I think that maybe it might work better if I bought as much as possible of staples from a bulk supplier (or Amazon subscribe and save) at the beginning of the month, along with bulk meat, and then just shop for veggies, fruit, and milk out of whatever was left of the monthly budget #.
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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CatholicMommy
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| Posted: Nov 29 2012 at 8:12am | IP Logged
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It is a bit easier for my family because it is just the two of us most of the time. But what I try to do is look ahead and see what is coming - on those months leading up to when we are going to have the holiday food or bulk purchases, we cut back to simpler foods for a time, or within that holiday month we cut back.
For Advent, we do a modified Nativity Fast, so our food expenses are automatically cut down, freeing up plenty of money for both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner if we have both at home and with guests - and still have money left for almsgiving. Same for Lent/Easter.
What throws me are the birthday months, because while those aren't extravagant by any means, they don't correspond to Lent/Advent fasting ;) Then there are the months I need to make the larger bulk purchases (oils in bulk; rum for homemade vanilla; these things are big expenses for us ;) ). And that is where we just cut back in other areas for sure, focus even more on ensuring leftovers are consumed not tossed, etc.
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: keeping track of grocery expenses
