Real Numbers: Weekly Grocery Spending Snapshot 2016
For the past nine fall/winters I’ve taken some time to record exactly what I spend on groceries for a set time. I think it’s a valuable exercise in knowing the reality of spending and what is really going out of the pocket. Note, this is not my 4th No-Spending Challenge Results which will come out in March.
I’ve included how much we have spent over the years so you can see exactly how much I am spending and for the amount of people and ages of the little ones. Anyone that has kids knows that the age of the children make a difference in how much you spend.
I usually record my numbers in the fall, but this fall I plumb forgot since we I came off my 3rd No-Spending Challenge in August, and it felt like I had already tracked it. I was only tracking during a challenge which is not a good indicator of exactly how we spend. So I started recording the first of this year which is really not that much later than usual.
- Fall 2007: $ 42/week =$168 for 4 weeks (2 adults, a 2 year old, 1 baby)
- Fall 2008: $55/week =$220 for 4 weeks (2 adults, a 3 year old, a 1 year old)
- Fall 2009: $67/week =$268 for 4 weeks (2 adults, a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a baby)
- Fall 2010: $ 74.89/week =$299.56 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 5, 3 & 1)
- Fall 2011: $84.25/week =$337 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 6, 4 & 2)
- Fall 2012: $105.88/week =$423.52 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 7, 5 & 3)
- Fall 2013: $142.65/week =$570.60 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 8, 6 & 4)
- Fall 2014: $106.08 /week =$424.30 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 9, 7 & 5)
- Winter 2016 (2 months later than normal):$112.53/week =$450.10 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 10, 8 & 6)
So we spend an average of $112.53/week on groceries, up from last year a wee bit, but still down from two years ago. Again, I attribute it to eating lots of soups and chilis in the winter when I can make practically free perpetual broth and supplement it with lots of beans, and vegetables.
So here are the real numbers of what I spent on groceries for the 4 weeks of recording my receipts. You may notice that when I grocery shop, sometimes I have two transactions for the same store on the same day. I do this to separate out my grocery blog expenses with my normal grocery spending (for tax purposes). We eat it all, so I count it all in my stats here. This is pretty much normal spending for us. Since I knew I was launching into a no-spending challenge starting February 1st, I did buy a little more oats than normal because I HATE running out of granola bars. That’s really what it comes down to-granola bars. It’s the one food I couldn’t stand running out of on my first no-spending challenge.
Every time I leave a store, before I am gone I make sure I record in a google doc on my phone exactly what I spent so I don’t have to do a bunch of work at the end.
| Week 1 | Date | Amount | Weekly Total |
| Fred Meyer | 1/1/2016 | $18.46 | $134.91 |
| Fred Meyer | 1/1/2016 | $11.58 | |
| Fred Meyer | 1/3/2016 | $51.24 | |
| Walmart | 1/4/2016 | $2.97 | |
| Winco | 1/7/2016 | $43.99 | |
| Winco | 1/7/2016 | $6.67 | |
| Week 2 | Date | Amount | |
| Albertons | 1/8/2016 | $19.26 | $64.72 |
| Fm | 1/10/2016 | $10.10 | |
| Fm | 1/10/2016 | $24.12 | |
| Walmart | 1/12/2016 | $11.24 | |
| Week 3 | Date | Amount | |
| Costco | 1/15/2016 | $136.20 | $197.04 |
| Costco | 1/15/2016 | $17.99 | |
| Fred Meyer | 1/17/2016 | $6.83 | |
| Fred Meyer | 1/17/2016 | $2.48 | |
| F Meyer | 1/17/2016 | $5.50 | |
| Winco | 1/20/2016 | $28.04 | |
| Week 4 | Date | Amount | |
| FM | 1/24/2016 | $21.75 | $53.39 |
| Winco | 1/28/2016 | $23.36 | |
| Winco | 1/28/2016 | $8.28 |
Do you know how much you spend regularly? Do you have a grocery budget? Ready to record what you spend in a month on groceries? Might you need to do this for other parts of your monetary life?? Anyone else want to join me?
Other posts you may enjoy:
- Getting a Refund for Services Not Rendered
- No-Spending Challenge
- No-Spending Challenge Results
- Know Your Target Grocery Prices: Grocery Prices to Meet or Beat
