Food Budget

I just completed entering in the final information for last year's expenses. We have kept detailed records of our cash flow for a couple of years, but last year was the first year where we kept records from January through December. It's interesting that when you start keeping track of what you spend, your spending goes down!

Looking over the year's summary of where our money went to, I was pretty surprised to see our spending for food. The total amount we spent at the grocery store for the year was $1845. That is $153.75 a month. This amount fed my husband, myself, our 3 1/2 year old son who can eat more pizza than I can, and and our 2 year old daughter who has a decent appetite as well. I also checked on our eating out expenses since eating out effects how many groceries we buy. The total amount we spent on food originating from a restaurant came to $442 dollars for the year, or about $37 a month. That number was a little bit higher than I would have liked to see, but my husband reminded me that with his job as an associate pastor there are going to be dining expenses. A number of his meetings are held at restaurants. Also, since the amount for dining accounted for over 80% of our total entertainment and vacation spending, it is really not that bad.

So I was overall happy with the numbers for our food expenses. I feel that part of my responsibilities of home management include cooking healthy, tasty, and well bananced meals for our family, and I try to do that as economically as possible to help our family achieve our financial goals. I try to buy as little prepackaged food as possible and cook a lot from scratch.

I am hoping that as we continue to expand our garden, raise some of our own meat, and as I build up my canning skills, our grocery bills will reflect our efforts.

If you visit back next week, I will try to have a link where you can download my recipes. (I will also probably post a recipe wish list!)