This is the breakdown of my spending for the month of March 2011, the first month in my life that I tracked my spending. Intriguing! I'm pretty thrilled that 38% of my income went to Savings. This may not happen in April, as I have already bought a bike this month, amping up the "Recreation" percentage. I should still be able to get quite a bit into Savings. I'm also pretty thrilled that the categories of "Music" and "Clothes" were empty, and therefore do not appear on the chart.
I need to find ways to reduce my grocery bill. Kaden contributed nearly as much as I did; that puts us around $660 for groceries for one month for two people. That seems quite obscene. We do most of our shopping at our local food co-op because it's just a 5 minute walk from our house. It seems like prices aren't too much higher than at a regular grocery store, but I have not checked item-to-item. I don't think we'd change that anyway; it's worth it for the location, to support the organization which we are members of, and not have to go under the disgusting lighting of the corporate grocery store. I did spend $112 of my grocery money at Costco, purchasing large packages of items that will last several months (canned tomatoes, canned beans, soy milk, etc). I may start volunteering at the co-op to see if that can go against our bill - but it wouldn't be the same as reducing our spending. Maybe we just need to analyze and re-think our spending! I'm kind of at a loss on this one.
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4 comments:
Way to go Liina! 38% of your income going to savings is HUGE.
Let me know if you find a way to decrease your grocery budget. I posted the price of eggs and milk at the Trader Joe's in my area in response to your question on my blog yesterday (I already forget the exact prices). So, I'm not sure if my grocery budget is lower because of my location. I'd be interested to find out though.
Jenny - My husband is the consumer of eggs and milk in our household, so I'll have to ask him! I'm very curious, too!
One way we cut our budget was to find one thing that we would eat all the time, and buying the ingredients in bulk.
My mom gave us her old bread maker she wasn't using, so we're buying flour in 50 pound bags, yeast in 2 pound bags, and making 2-3 loafs a week.
We estimate that each loaf costs us about $0.50, and lots of times, it's so good, we just eat it with butter for meals. Super cheap and yummy!
Ellen that is awesome!
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