Weekly Grocery Spending Snapshot 2018
Every year I take four consecutive weeks to get an average of what we spend for groceries in a typical week. This is not a part of the no-spending challenge. This is actually just regular grocery spending during a regular month.
During our busy late winter (yep, months ago) I managed to record what we spent on a Google spreadsheet. After my spending expeditions I don’t permit myself to leave the parking lot without recording my totals spent because I just don’t trust my brain to remember later.
So after four weeks of tallying up the receipts, here’s the damage in our handy dandy chart. You can see the dates are months earlier this year and I’m just now getting around to posting it since I wanted to get some other posts out first :/ .
| Week 1: | Date | Amount | Week 1 Total | |
| Fred Meyer | 2/25/2018 | $24.74 | $145.65 | |
| Winco | 2/27/2018 | $23.86 | ||
| Winco | 2/27/2018 | $19.02 | ||
| Costco | 2/27/2018 | $54.00 | ||
| Costco | 2/27/2018 | $16.67 | ||
| Safeway | 3/3/2018 | $7.36 | ||
| Week 2: | Date | Amount | Week 2 Total | |
| Fred Meyer | 3/4/2018 | $22.40 | $165.03 | |
| Fred Meyer | 3/4/2018 | $11.97 | ||
| Winco | 3/8/2018 | $22.07 | ||
| Winco | 3/8/2018 | $29.66 | ||
| Costco | 3/8/2018 | $72.19 | ||
| Meyer | 3/10/2018 | $6.74 | ||
| Week 3: | Date | Amount | Week 3 Total | |
| Fred Meyer | 3/11/2018 | $19.40 | $108.79 | |
| Winco | 3/12/2018 | $13.07 | ||
| Winco | 3/12/2018 | $18.93 | ||
| Costco | 3/14/2018 | $37.96 | ||
| Costco | 3/14/2018 | $14.75 | ||
| Haggen | 3/16/2018 | $4.68 | ||
| Week 4: | Date | Amount | Week 4 Total | 4 Week Spending Total |
| Fred Meyer | 3/18/2018 | $11.99 | $100.99 | $520.46 |
| Winco | 3/18/2018 | $26.52 | ||
| Winco | 3/21/2018 | $14.65 | Average Spent/Week | |
| Costco | 3/21/2018 | $53.81 | $130.12 | |
| Winco | 3/21/2018 | -$5.98 |
As you can see this year we ended up spending on average $130.12 a week for the four weeks. Obviously some week’s spending are higher than others. Included in our grocery spending is our toiletries. So if I have to get toilet paper, soap, or shampoo, it’s all rolled into these numbers.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The place in the frugal family’s budget where you can flex and save the most, I believe is the grocery line item. That’s why think it’s so important to do this exercise regularly. Yes, some of the more frivolous spenders need to downsize their cars, and downsize their homes, and downsize their budgets in general. But that’s a different post for a different time. This post is not only for the spenders, but it’s almost more for the savers who are spending close to zero on entertainment, and travel, and have modest houses, and cars that are paid off. It’s to all of those people that I’m really talking to: you should take another look at your grocery budget to see if you can cut it more. Can you buy more beans and rice and make more from scratch? Can you buy less prepackaged goods and make more yourself?
Tell me, are we, the Sarrs, average? What do you spend on a typical week, or month? Or do you even know what you spend on groceries at all? If you have never completed a weekly grocery spending snapshot, I highly encourage you to keep all of your receipts for a time, and take a really good look. Organize it so it’s really obvious to compare and contrast. Since we buy all of our groceries with cash, I just use the receipts. I know some of you use a debit, or use a credit card for everything, so you could go back years later and calculate the goods.
If you are interested in our average grocery bills from previous years, you can click on the links below.
- 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:$112.53/week =$450.10 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 10, 8 & 6)
- Spring 2017: $119/week=$476 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages 12, 10 & 7)
- Winter 2018: $130.12/week=$520.46 for 4 weeks (2 adults, 3 kids ages almost 13, 11 & 8)
