Frugality

What Do You Spend on Food?: A Grocery Budget Experiment

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It is always interesting to me when people share their grocery budget and the foods they buy. There is a wide variety of opinions on how much is needed to buy groceries for a month. Look at the comments on my post about my food stamp experience and my follow-up post on food stamps to see some of the differing opinions.

I generally spend about $100-$120 a month on food, that includes groceries and restaurants. I don’t try especially hard to keep my food expenditure low but my preferred foods are fast-food and junk food which tend to be cheap. As an experiment at the beginning of this month I decided to not eat any meals out and eat whatever I wanted at home. After two weeks the results showed that I could eat just as bad at home as at a restaurant. Not eating out might have saved me some money but it didn’t result in me eating any healthier or losing any weight. That experiment has been abandoned and I am on to the next experiment.

For the month of February I will share with you all the foods I buy and what I pay for them. To try to keep my diet somewhat healthy I am only going to eat out once a week and not purchase any chips, cookies, candy, crackers, ice cream or soda. For me that will force a major change in diet although I suppose there are still plenty of bad foods left I could eat. I’m not going to buy any more food the rest of this month in order to reduce the amount of foods in my pantry before the experiment starts. I believe that with these changes I will spend less than $100 for food for the month and eat healthier than average or at least healthier than the average bachelor.

I would be interested in seeing what you spend on food. If you want to share leave a comment with your monthly food budget.

Weekend Spending Spree

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My goal of spending less money this year is not off to a very good start after this weekend. On Friday I saw that Nebraska Furniture Mart was advertising a twin mattress for $30. Since I have been sleeping on the floor in my new apartment this looked like a pretty good deal. After sleeping on the mattress for a couple of nights I am happy with the purchase. Although it is a foam mattress it is much firmer than I expected but still softer than the floor. It isn’t a great mattress but for $30 it was a good deal.

Sunday was when I spent the big money. I had internet installed in my apartment a couple weeks ago but my aging laptop was so slow that it was too frustrating too use the internet much at home. I tried cleaning up the disk and running some anti-virus and spyware programs but my laptop’s performance didn’t improve. I finally came to the conclusion that with my laptop being five years old and performing poorly it was time to buy a new one. Best Buy advertised a new laptop for $280 in Sunday’s paper so I went and bought it. They had a printer/copier/scanner for $30 when you bought the laptop so I bought that too. The performance of the new laptop is so much better that I do not regret the purchase.

I know some people have to keep themselves from spending money. My problem is the opposite I have to make myself spend money. The items I bought this weekend (except maybe the printer) were items that needed and I will receive great value from for the price. I still had a hard time convincing myself to buy them. I convinced myself to make these purchases by deciding not to take a trip to Las Vegas that I had been considering. Sometimes you do have to spend money.

Frugality is Not “Not”!

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Many who have a negative opinion of frugality see it as “not” having a big house, “not” driving a big car, “not” going out to eat, etc. Viewed that way it is no wonder that they have a negative opinion of frugality. Frugality, like many things, can be defined by what it is not but that isn’t the best way to define it.

One way to define frugality is that it is about making choices. For example driving a small, fuel-efficient car rather than a big SUV so that you will have more money for retirement. Or living in a small house rather than a large house so you can put more in your children’s college fund. That is a better definition but still not ideal because it is making your choices look like sacrifices.

The best way of viewing frugality is realizing that the frugal choice can be the preferable choice. For example, your small car saves you money on gas, contributes less pollution to the environment, and is easier to park. The small home is easier to maintain,easier to clean, and cozy. Cooking at home can provide you with better tasting and more nutritious food. Plus when you do eat out it is a treat not just a boring routine.

Less is more. Frugal is better.

Stuff I Didn’t Spend Much Money on This Year

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Off the top of my head here are a few things I didn’t spend much money on this year that most people spend a lot of money on.

  • Haircuts – I didn’t spend any money on haircuts this year.  I use clippers to cut my own hair and am quite happy with the results.
  • Clothing – I bought two pairs of hiking shorts at $1.15 each.  That was my only clothing expenditure for the year.  This number will go up a little in 2010 since I’ll need to replace my underwear and socks but I don’t plan to spend any other money on clothing.
  • Cable – I haven’t had it and don’t plan to.  I spend too much time watching TV with just the over-the-air channels.
  • Landline Phone –  I have a cell phone that costs me $30 a month and includes unlimited texts and data.  That is a much better value than a home phone.
  • Personal Hygiene – Ok, this one sounds bad but it isn’t.  I get most of my personal hygiene items for almost free from CVS or Walgreens by playing the drugstore game.  The fact that a 99 cent bottle of shampoo will last me all year helps also.

That is just a few of the items I don’t spend much money on. I’m sure I’ll think of a few more things later.  What items do you spend little or no money on?

'Tis the Season for Giving… to Yourself

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This time of year many businesses are offering bonuses when you buy their gift card.  For instance AMC Theatres is offering a $10 concession card when you purchase a $50 gift card.  Since I easily spent over $50 there last year and will do so again next year this is a good deal for me.  If you know you are going to be spending money at a business anyway you might as well take advantage of these bonus offers.  It is an easy way to save a little money.

This thread at Slick Deals has a list of bonus gift card deals.