Another month has passed so it’s time to check in with November’s grocery budget to see how we did with our goal of only spending $2 per person per meal. There’s only 1 month left to go until the end of this 6 month grocery budget challenge. October was excellent but let’s see what happened in November. It’s time to crunch some numbers!
The Goal
I often hear the goal of spending $2 per person per meal among the FIRE (Financial Independence / Early Retirement) community. It seems like this is may even be possible if you prefer healthy and organic foods. July was our first month tracking it but July was definitely NOT a normal month for us. August was closer to normal so it’s a better gauge as to where we started. September and October were amazing! I had to triple check those numbers before believing it. Now we’re checking in with November. We’re right in the middle of the holiday season so I expect our numbers to be a bit higher. But how much higher?
November’s Grocery Budget
November was a fairly normal month except for the start of the holiday season. I made a Costco run which increased our numbers for this month. September was the last Costco trip. We also buy beef in bulk and I expect that we’ll place a beef order in December. Costco and the beef order surely don’t help to keep our numbers down for these holiday months.
The Calculation
November had 30 days in it so we’re looking at 360 meals for our family of four. Our goal of $2 per person per meal equals $720 for just the food in our grocery budget (also not including restaurants). $2 x 4 people = $8/meal. 3 meals a day for 30 days equals $720.
November’s grocery expenses – $903
November’s cost per person per meal – $2.51
October’s grocery expenses – $737
October’s cost per person per meal – $1.98!!
September’s grocery expenses – $772
September cost per person per meal – $2.14
August grocery expenses – $922
August cost per person per meal – $2.48
July’s total grocery expense – $967
July’s cost per person per meal – $2.60
Average for July, August, September and October – $2.30 per person per meal (down from $2.41 for the first 3 months)
Average for all 5 months –$2.91 per person per meal. Bummer.
Well, that didn’t go as planned. Without the Costco trip, we would have spent almost exactly the same as October. I really don’t like looking at the grocery budget numbers on a Costco or bulk beef order month. Even though that food is spread out over at least two months, it’s still a good chunk of change to hit the budget at once. August was our first month tracking that was a normal month for us and November was actually a bit worse than August. It almost feels like we’re back to where we started…but it’s also the holiday season. Food expenses always go up during this time of year. My husband was also not working as many evenings so I made bigger dinners than I have been lately. All this adds up to a higher grocery budget this month.
Related Post – October Grocery Budget – 10 Ways We Saved $200 on Groceries
Grocery Budget Goals for December
Meal Plan Around Sales – This is still hit or miss for me. I haven’t gotten into a solid habit with this one. I definitely meal plan. I’ve been using Plan to Eat for 6 years and it is such a huge time and money saver. However, I must admit, I rarely look at the sales before making my weekly meal plan. Time to change that.
Create Price Comparison for Costco – There are lots of blog posts out there with price comparison charts. People always seem to be wondering if they’re saving or losing money by shopping there. I don’t buy a lot at Costco and many of those charts don’t have the items that we do buy. I think it’s time to make my own so that I can compare apples to apples.
Relax! – Yes, that’s right. I want to relax the grocery budget a bit for December. We put a lot into savings and paying off our mortgage and we work hard to make that happen. December is a time that we can relax a bit and splurge on extra treats while still being mindful of not wasting food.
We’re now done with 5 months of this 6 month grocery budget challenge. I was really happy with how our numbers were dropping every month…until now. We hit our goal of only spending $2 per person per meal in October but we were pretty far off for November. December is another month and then we can look back at all 6 months and hopefully see the overall average go down.
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