I added up my January grocery receipts. Here’s how it went:I buy for a family of 3. Try to keep to $100 per week. January had 4 paydays for us, so it was a $400 month on budget.
I shopped 6 stores, purchasing 194 items that retailed for $522.40. By purchasing items on sale I saved 116.01 off retail total. Then I used 80 coupons for another $130.76 savings, bringing my out of pocket to $275.63. That’s a 47% savings overall. WHAHOOOOO!
Using the coupons, I recvd approximately 30 items for FREE. My free item count could be higher if you added in cvs free stuff but I figure I had to spend money to get that free and it's truly not FREE.
CVS $205.55 retail-62.74 (sale discount)-78.15(coupons)=64.66oop
Country Mart $12.07 retail-2.62 (sale discount)-0(coupons)=9.45oop
Dollar General $23.57 retail-NONE (sale discount)-1.10(coupons)=22.47oop
Apple Market $58.16 retail-15.36 (sale discount)-3.20(coupons)=39.60oop
Price Chopper $102.18 retail-35.29 (sale discount)-8.36(coupons)=58.53oop
Wal - Mart $120.87 retail-NONE (sale discount)-39.95(coupons)=80.92oop
I will be concentrating on how to use more coupons at Wally World and Price Chopper to get my out of pocket down.
Do you have any suggestions on this?
You mention your CVS purchases as part of your groceries? Do you include things like shampoo, bath tissue, paper towels, pet food, etc. as part of your groceries? Are did you buy that much food at CVS?
ReplyDeleteJust curious.
annie my grocery budget includes food, paper supplies, personal hygene (bath soap, shampoo, shaving supplies), cleaning supplies, and all pet foods. When I mentioned cvs purchases as part of my grocery purchases it was for a little of all those categories. I do buy food there when it's on sale for a REALLY good price and I have coupons for it. Our CVS is an older small store and so they dont carry alot of food. They are building a BIG new store to expand on their food area so my food purchases will increase there. I cant wait for them to carry milk. Usually milk is a lot cheaper at cvs than at grocery stores...plus I can use my ecb's to get it for free.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying, Lisa. I thought the amount you spent for groceries seemed high for a frugalite, but then I realized you must be including household and HBA items in that amount, too.
ReplyDeleteWe have separate categories in our budget for food, household and pet needs, and health and beauty needs. But the amount we budget for all three categories is $400, just like you.
In January we spent $186 for groceries, $85 for household and pets, and $75 for health and beauty. For a total of $346, if my math's correct. Because we buy some household items in bulk at Sam's, our household budget can be really high one month and very low the next.
So, your numbers weren't high as I suspected, but instead they were low compared to ours. Way to go!
Will you be doing a similar post next month?
Annie it was low for me. I'm new to this budgeting and being frugal so my goal is to get it even lower. Although it was as much as it was for January, I stocked up on a bunch of H&B items that were very cheap, so the benefit of that will show up down the road here in a few months.
ReplyDeleteMy goal is to track this every month in 2008, so unless something happens, yes I'll be doing a post like this every month.
It doesnt sound like your spending is outrageous like some others on the grocery challenge message board I've read. Have you went there and checked it out? The link is on my home page top left column. Join us over there, that's where all the 'veteran grocery hounds' are. They are very helpful and we trade coupons too.