I have a confession to make.
Some people I know are really, really “good” at shopping. They can – and do! – use coupons. They can calculate unit prices in their heads, and they can recall from memory what a reasonable unit price for any particular item might be. They can keep a running tally in their heads as they shop, estimating how much they’re spending as they go.
I am not one of those people. I blush to admit it, but until now, I’ve tended to impulse shop the whole way through the store. Looks yummy? I’ll get it. Shopping online, through Peapod, helped some, but I’ve sort of stopped doing that as I’ve gotten more into label reading and healthy eating; many of the more obscure items (chia seeds and nut butters, I’m looking at you) just aren’t on Peapod, so I’ve drifted away.
Now, Eric supports us well, but it’s pretty frustrating to see a paycheck just vanish every couple of weeks the way it seems to. We started taking a look at it, and…it’s food. It’s eating out, and it’s groceries. Gah.
From two different directions over the past couple of days, I got added motivation to change. First, my cell phone died on my run Saturday. We replaced it Monday evening, which I’d been dreading having to do, since the stuff I was able to do for “free” on my old phone was going to require a data plan on a new phone. (Reader’s Digest Condensed Version: all I wanted was my calendar on my phone, and any phone able to sync up, even over USB, with my computer’s calendar was going to have to be a “smart phone,” and a new law as of this year requires all smart phones to have a data plan, whether you’re planning to use it or not. 
) So Eric chose for me this new phone (thank you very much, corporate discount!). The added monthly bill for the plan isn’t nice, but what is nice is the way this phone seems fairly eager to assist me in budgeting and spending control. (Hey, there, free Mint.com app!)
This is getting long. Anyway, Eric and I looked at finances, and he decided we’d start with trying to keep grocery bills under $80 a week. Now, that sounds reasonable, but I’m sort of embarrassed to say how tense I got just thinking about it, feeling like there was just no way I could do it. I am appallingly bad with numbers, and I’ve never been good at budgeting. Add to that the fact that I’ve fallen off with meal planning (picky eaters can take the wind out of your sails quite a bit), and…my nails, they were well-bitten.
Then I went to the store this afternoon (sans kids, thank God), phone in hand, with a grocery list and an app that kept a running tally of expenses for me. Eric called partway through and joked that he was picturing me whimpering “Clean all the things?”, which wasn’t all that off-base.
But.
$79.27, y’all. And that was even without calling Eric and demanding to know whether he and the boys really needed to be eating extremely overpriced hunks of animal meat, anyway. 
(Now, don’t make me go back. And if the boys gripe about no snack crackers, I’m going to throw things.)
It’s not to everyone’s taste, I know, and would mean trips to two stores, but have you tried Aldi for some of the basics? Their prices on canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and chili beans are great, as are those on eggs, cheese and most meat. The produce is iffy – it’s good, but with a shorter shelf life it seems than the higher priced stuff from Pick n Save. It’s worth at least a cruise through, to see what they carry that you use on a regular basis, and what the price difference is.
And they have some yummy – and inexpensive – snack crackers, too.
Try $50/month for a mom and 2 kids (3 and 5). Nothing like standing in Target, pondering “Toilet paper or paper towels”….. (Dont’ worry – toilet paper ALWAYS wins.
)
Aw, good luck, Carrie!
I never knew how much other people spent on groceries until I had mentioned a figure to a friend last year and she couldn’t believe I spent that much. So I proceeded to poll my friends and that’s when I realized as a single girl, I spend more on groceries each week than families with like five members.
I still have yet to figure out how to lower my grocery costs.
I’m impressed. Even when I shop carefully, our bill is routinely in the $150/wk range.
Oof, Anne.
I can’t even imagine. You must have to be really savvy; I would flounder so hard.
Diane, maybe as I get more adept at this, I’ll be able to store-hop; as it was, it took me way too long just to select this pile!
Mary, I still don’t know how much most of my friends are spending.
We just figured that, for us, we could be doing much better. Should have seen me, standing there over my calculator, trying to figure out how many peppers I wanted vs. how many I really *needed* and could afford… 
Karen, that’s probably around what I was spending, though it’s hard to say, what with impulse buys here and there and the occasional trip out for an ingredient or two that we needed for the night.
When I first realized how low my budget was ($50), I freaked, espcially considering I live in one of the most expensive areas of the US (San Francisco Bay) But now it’s the “thrill of the (bargain) hunt”.
Shopping around will help a lot. For example, I buy chicken and ground beef from my local Asian store, basic seasonal fruits and veggies at a nearby produce market, cheese and corn tortillas from the restaurant supply store down the street, and eggs/bread/milk from Target (of all places, Target! LOL). I only buy the “super sales” from our two grocery chains – everythign else is just too expensive so we do without.
Crazy, huh? I usually run all of my errands early Saturday morning when the kids are at their dad’s house. That in itself saves my sanity.