The Money Pie Deconstructed: Groceries

Every year I do a recap of my spending, and I have broken the items into nine categories: Dining Out, Entertainment, Groceries, Health, Home, Misc., Shopping, Transportation and Travel. Last year I broke down my transportation category and went into more detail about where I spend my money in this category, how I get to work, how hard it is to park sometimes and what's in my trunk. 

Now its time to talk about groceries. Before I start, I have a confession to make. I like reading posts and watching YouTube videos about how people spend their money, and specifically how they spend their grocery money and/or how they save money on groceries. Some of my favorites are Frugal Fit Mom, Mary's Nest and FlavCity. 

I am not a doomsday prepper, but I definitely could last for a few months on the stores that I have in my house. Much of this is due to the fact that I have a good supply of camping food, which lasts for a long time, is lightweight and can be eaten by just adding water. I also have amassed a good supply of staples over the years, such as rice, dried beans and canned tomatoes. 

I am not an extreme couponer; however, I do like to sit down with the ads each week and compare prices at my local stores. I prefer to do this on paper as it is nice to be able to compare the different places side by side, but a lot of stores have apps and I will sometimes browse them instead, which is nice because you can make a list of things to buy right on the app. However, using the apps does sometimes mean toggling back and forth or making notes about which store has better deals. I usually base my weekly shopping trip on whichever store has the better deals. If one store has one of my staples at a great price, I may just shop at that one store for the week, or if the deals are split, I may go to two. 

I make a list in Google Keep and to be honest, a lot of weeks I just duplicate the list from last week and change a few things. There are a few staples I often buy so my list looks very similar each week. This app is also good if you are sharing shopping duties as you can add a collaborator and they can also add or cross off things from the list.

I generally shop at Safeway for most basics, and a local store called Farmer Joes for produce. Farmer Joes is a combination of expensive specialty items, bulk items and produce; if you want a head of lettuce, their prices and quality can't be beat, but if you are looking for a gallon of milk, you will pay out the nose for it. This makes it worth my while to go to both stores, plus they are only a block apart so it does not take too much extra time. 

I have a two tiered method of shopping: (1) fresh items that I use each week, such as milk, eggs, vegetables and fruit and (2) longer term items, such as dry goods like beans, rice or oatmeal, canned goods and meat, which I will buy in bulk and freeze. For the fresh items, sometimes you just have to pay a little more, but I try to buy what is in season and work around that rather than having a specific dish in mind and buying specific items for that dish. I am happy to eat oranges instead of apples, or use oat milk over almond milk if one is cheaper or fresher than the other. For longer term items, I try to get them when they are on sale and I store them until I need them. For example, last week Lucky's had pork chops for $0.99 per pound, so I bought ten pounds and froze them in two packs for later. Again, I don't really need specific items so will buy whatever is cheap at the moment. 

The "pantry"

I do not plan meals per se, but will see what is on sale and will then loosely plan around that. If pork chops are what I bought, that week's lunches will be pork chops and I will add whatever veggie I bought along with rice or quinoa from the long term section. I usually cook enough for one week's worth of lunches and prep them all at once. For dinners, I will normally go to the freezer where I have stored my prior deals in convenient serving sized packs, and I will take something out in the morning and then cook it at night with some other veggies etc. 

I guess I will be having pork butt soon!

I do not mind eating the same meal several times a week, and a lot of my meals consist of meat/tofu and a veggie with sometimes rice or potato. Other standbys are beans, lentils or some sort of Indian or Thai inspired "stew" (usually beans or tofu) over rice. If I am feeling lazy, an old standby is miso soup and if I am feeling frisky, I may add chicken or pork or rice noodles to it and call it ramen. 

Weekly meal prep

Lunches for the week

Let's talk about the costs, my favorite part! I love hearing what others spend on their grocery bills and why its higher or lower. I know a few of you chimed in on my purging post and I am amazed at what a range there is of how much people spend! Over the last six years, my average grocery bill per month has been about $320. This is inflated by the amount I spent in 2020; without this outlier, the average would be about $290. For the first quarter of 2023, the average is about $200, but my goal for this year is to shop more from my pantry and use up some of the items I already have rather than buying more, so I expect my grocery costs to be lower this year. 

Fun facts: in 2022, I went to Costco 17 times; my average spend per trip was $115. My three top purchased items by count at Costco were blueberries, strawberries and cucumbers and by dollar amount were coffee, strawberries and blueberries (yay fruit!). The price of two pounds of strawberries ranged from $6.99 to $10.79 throughout the year. The average cost was $7.97. 

What is your grocery shopping schedule/method like? Do you often buy the same things over and over or are you more exciting than me? What is your favorite "go to" meal? If you have not already answered this, how much do you spend on groceries?