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Poll: Monthly Budget for Groceries+Restaurants+Target/Walmart
What is your combined budget for these items? (Not what you actually spend, but what you budget for and want to stay within).
I made a poll, but welcome comments and breaking it down if you want to share. We are trying to re-do our budget and I feel like living in Los Angeles for two years warped our sense of reality.
[Poll]This discussion has been closed.
Re: Poll: Monthly Budget for Groceries+Restaurants+Target/Walmart
Robin. Are u looking for monthly, I assume?
We do ours by week since we grocery shop weekly.
So here's what our breakdown is after fix bills are paid (Savings, Retirement, Mortgage, Utilities, Insurance, etc)
Groceries - $125
Gas - $100 ( we don't really spend this much unless we go out of town)
Baby Stuff - $50 (Includes formula, diapers, wipes, baby food)
Misc/Others - $155 (eating out, activities, clothes, etc)
Whatever is left over from any of these goes to our Misc bucket for more miscellanous money.
We do ours monthly -
$550 for groceries - includes everything baby related (diapers, wipes, baby food etc), paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, food, bathroom stuff (toothpaste, shampoo etc).
$250 - entertainment - includes any extras for the month that we want whether it be movies, eating out, take out, taking the boys somewhere like fernbank or children's museum, baby sitting for any events we go too
I saw the $50 for baby stuff and was thinking how the heck does she do that. Then I realized you were saying weekly. I was going to ask for your secrets if you got all that for $50 a month.
When hubby and I went to a meeting to buy our first home the dude told me that I spend too much on groceries. I had wrote in my budget $500(with coupons). He told me I should be spending $250 per month for a family of 5.
My hubby and I felt like punching him.
this wife bakes.
One of my favorite cakes ever! I had a blast making this..all handmade with buttercream suds!!!!
Budgeting blows.
Our monthly budget:
Groceries: $300 (I think we've been going over this, though, so it's probably closer to $400)
Eating Out: $300
Entertainment: $120
Gas: $300
Mommy to Abigail Elizabeth (11/4/11) and Brady Jasper (7/2/09)
my blog
We don't really budget. We should, but just thinking about it gets me all anti-mathy. Ugh.
Any tips?
I posted about this a few weeks ago and got some great feedback. Still incredibly overwhelming, but helpful info all the less.
Ooh - I need to scroll through and find it - thanks!
Ugh, I am so bad at this. DH "gave" me a budget last year, but I rarely stick to it, and he usually doesn't comment about it. And I go to Target waaay too much. Here's our theoretical budget though (weekly):
Groceries - $100 (I always go over this though because I cook and bake so much)
Target - $50 - and this is a joke because I rarely make it out for under that for one visit, much less the week
Eating out - we probably spend less than $50/week on this. We rarely eat out, though lately it's probably higher since I've had m/s and haven't cooked dinner as much
Costco - $150/month - I actually do stick to this one though
I like Mint.com a lot, but DH is paranoid about letting 3rd party apps have account access
I am trying to stay under $500 for groceries per month. We are eating in almost every meal. That total includes 1 Costco trip per month and usually 2 trips to a local Kroger or Publix. Meal planning has helped stay on budget and we allow ourselves 1 dinner/meal out each week now. We used to eat out about 4 times a week for dinner, plus 2 or 3 lunches per week.
The budget I chose was the $600- $750 option. We have gone over slightly but overall are doing pretty well. It has been an adjustment but not as difficult as I thought it would be.
This does not include Target shopping but I am trying to avoid those types of stores if at all possible or unless I have a list and it is planned. I cannot believe how much I used to spend there a couple of times a month. Impluse shopping was the death of my bank account. Good Luck!
We are easily $700+ on groceries alone..but we do organic dairy and meats. The majority of our grocery items are produce, meat, dairy, and a few snackie things. 99% of the stuff we buy does not have a coupon.
If you do organic and mostly these items, how do you keep your grocery bills so low?
for all these items--we are easily at a $1000/month.
Ditto - we buy all organic and Whole Foods is not cheap. Definitely no coupons. Plus, we don't get the paper and I don't have time to go online and print out coupons. It's not worth the hassle to me.