Last night, my wife and I balanced the checkbook. We were both surprised at the cost of groceries for the past four weeks: $456. And this didn’t include restaurant dining, which added $180 to our food expenditures. This means that in the last 30 days, our average cost of food was $21.20 per day. We agreed that this was higher than necessary, and identified the increase in monthly liability to three factors:
1. More frequent, “smaller” trips to the store
2. Four visits (instead of one) to our favorite Indian restaurant
3. Three (expensive!) pizzas from Extreme Pizza
We usually shop at Albertsons, which happens to be just two blocks from our home, making frequent trips easy. The problem is, we found that by making smaller runs to the store, we lost the cost-efficiency gained from weekly meal planning and larger quantity purchases. Buying ingredients like ground beef and chicken to accommodate just one or two meals instead of four or five is much more expensive on a per-ounce basis. We also found that our increased visits for just five or six items for one or two meals greatly increased our chances to succumb to impulse buys. This month, we’ll be making just four, well-planned trips to Albertsons with a set budget of $400.
We had originally agreed on a biweekly restaurant budget, setting aside $100 per month. Last month, however, saw us spending $80 over our budget by dining out, including two $20 pizzas. That means we spent 80% more than usual…unacceptable (at least in my miserly opinion).
This month, by sticking to our original budget, I calculate that we will drive down our daily cost of food to approximately $16.66, a savings of 21.4%.
