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.

Getting Rid of Stuff

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I don’t own a lot of stuff. Everything I own could fit in my Toyota Camry. I might not be able to safely drive with all of that stuff crammed in there but I could make it fit. That being said I still own too much stuff.

Baker of Man vs. Debt lists all of his stuff and many people participate in the 100 Things Challenge. Compared to them I have a lot of stuff.

In order to reduce my possessions I will be taking advantage of Ebay’s five free listings a month. In addition I will sell stuff locally, give stuff away, or throw stuff away as needed. Even doing that I don’t think I will get down to 100 things unless I’m loose with what I count as an item. If I counted all my books as one item and all my clothes as another item I could probably get down to 100 things but I would consider that cheating.

Instead of setting a goal of 100 items I am going to set a goal of having everything I own fit in the trunk of my Camry. That will be enough of a challenge and at that point I don’t think I will feel like I have too much stuff.

My Plans for 2010 – So Far

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My plans for this year are not too definite yet. For now I am working full-time at my non-profit job. This job is one I can tolerate but it doesn’t pay much. It does at least count towards my ten years of public service that would allow my student loans to be forgiven.

I’m not looking for a more permanent job right now because I plan to hike the Appalachian Trail this year. Hiking the trail is something I feel like I need to do or it is just going to be bugging me that I haven’t done it. This year it will finally get done one way or another.

I’m not sure when I will leave for my hike since my apartment lease isn’t over until the end of May. I might leave before then and just pay rent on my vacant apartment. After my lease is over I am going to put all my stuff in storage and go without an apartment for the rest of the year. That should save me some money.

These plans will be updated and more detail provided as they get put into action. If you have any feedback on my plans I would like to hear it.