Another month has passed so it’s time to check in with August’s grocery budget challenge to see how we did with our goal of spending only $2 per person per meal. Let’s crunch some numbers!
Grocery Budget 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. We weren’t too far off but July was definitely NOT a normal month for us. August is a much better gauge as to where we‘re starting. However, we buy some foods in bulk which can skew monthly numbers so I’m more interested to see the average over 6 months.
Related Post – Grocery Budget Challenge – July 2018
August’s Grocery Budget
Aside from a few vacation days at a rental cabin up in the mountains, this was a completely normal month. We brought our own food to the cabin as well as the usual camping treats like s’mores. I think the girls had enough of those to last until next year! At home, I try to stick with cheap kid friendly meals when my husband works at night. In August, he was home for dinner more than usual. I think the nicer meals brought our spending up a bit more.
I didn’t have any bulk food purchases in August. We buy a portion of a cow 2-3 times a year and shop at Costco every 2-3 months. Our last Costco trip was at the end of July and I’m hoping we can make it until the beginning of October before our next trip. Skipping those big purchases helped bring down our monthly budget so it all evened out. We spent more on nicer meals but saved by not making any bulk purchases. Even though we save money in the long run by buying in bulk, those large purchases increase the spending for the month. August was a more accurate picture of where we are starting with this grocery budget challenge than the numbers from July.
The Calculation
August had 31 days in it so we’re looking at 372 meals for our family of four. Our goal of $2 per person per meal equals $744 for just the food in our grocery budget (also not including restaurants). $2 x 4 people = $8/meal. 3 meals a day for 31 days equals $744.
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 the 2 months – $2.54 per person per month
We spent $45 less in August than in July. That’s pretty good progress. We’re closer to the $2/meal than we are $3/meal. We’re still $178 above our goal of $722. We have some work ahead of us but at least we’re moving in the right direction.
Goals for Next Month
Eat the Leftovers – We did better this month than in July but we still had some leftovers that had to be tossed. I think we’re all bored with food so I need to shake things up and find some new recipes.
Fresh Food First – We made good progress here this month! I think we only threw out some fresh asparagus but I didn’t feel bad because it tasted awful. It was quite bitter even coated with butter and salt. We are loving asparagus lately so I think I need to look into growing it. It does well here but it takes a few years before the harvest starts. That store bought stuff was nasty!
Meal Plan Around Sales – I didn’t make any progress with this goal from July but I did at least start using digital coupons again. I was able to score a few great deals but most of it was on non-food items.
Identify Cheap Meals – We used to have a few cheap meals that I used throughout the month. We stopped eating them when we left California because saving money was no long the necessity it was when we lived near Los Angeles. However, we now have some big financial goals we’re trying to hit so it’s time to bring back a few of those meals and find some new ones.
How are you saving money on groceries? Be sure to check back in next month to see how we did in September!
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