I told you I’d share the grand total of my grocery bill from last weekend and bit by bit, break it down and figure out how to save ourselves some money. I mentioned in my first blog, that there are instances where spending the time to save the money is not worth it to me. But I am curious to see if by analyzing our grocery bill I can trim it down a little. Are you ready? Are you sitting?
The grand total for our grocery bill. . .for a family of 7. . .is. . .
$430.00 for two weeks
I should mention that this bill includes things that we won’t buy every time we go grocery shopping. My mop had bitten the dust (pun unabashedly intended) and so I picked up another one, and my spice cupboard had just been cleaned out and some things that I use regularly needed to be replaced. But this bill doesn’t include milk and we spend about $30 per week on milk. So figuring what I won’t buy again for several months, and including the milk (which is not on the receipt), the bill is about $380 per week.
I decided that in order to figure out what I should attack first. . .it would be beneficial to analyze exactly where my money was being spent. If you liked statistics, then you learned that you can’t just compare numbers without some type of common denominator. If you do, it doesn’t make sense. Let me give you an example.
I spent about $30 on laundry detergent and Clorox 2 (which I use to soak my dirty stuff in.) I spent about $20 on breakfast cereal. If I just compare those two numbers, clearly the laundry detergent is where I need to cut spending. But let’s look more closely.
I spent about $20 on a huge container of detergent. It will last us about a month. I spent another $10 on Clorox 2 which will last us at least 2 months, if not longer. So to calculate the cost of laundry for one month:
$20 divided by 30 days = .67 per day
$10 divided by 60 days = .17 per day
For a grand total of .84 per day to do our laundry.
Now let’s look at the cereal under the same lens. I spent about $20 on breakfast cereal. If my kids eat cold cereal every morning what I bought will last us for about two weeks. So using the same calculation I did as above:
$20 divided by 14 days = $1.42 per day
Clearly, it is more expensive for me to feed my kids cold cereal every day than it is for me to launder the clothing. I’m not saying that both categories couldn’t be looked at. My point is that you can’t just look at the raw numbers. So here’s your assignment if you’re joining me. . .
Look at your grocery receipts. If your family isn’t as large as mine, it may take you a few weeks to get a good idea of where you’re at. Divide your receipt into categories. I divided my receipt into the following categories: Paper products, baby, toiletries, laundry, breakfast foods, lunch foods, dinner foods, and misc. (If my misc. category starts to get too big, I’ll have to divide it.) Then figure out, how much per day you’re spending. In my next blog I’ll tell you what I’m spending the most on per day and also what I decided to tackle first!
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