The Best Ways To Monitor Grocery Spending With-In A Budget : The Grocery Game Challenge 2018 #2 May 7-13

STOP TRYING TO COMPLICATE SOMETHING SIMPLE AS YOUR GROCERY BUDGET AND WATCH HOW FAST YOU MAKE IMPROVEMENTS.

If you’re concerned about your grocery spending habits and wondering if they fall with-in your budget than there are a few things you can do to simplify the process. Not everyone has wiggle room in their grocery budget however if you find that you are consistently jumping to the other side of the budget then perhaps an increase is in order.

CBB reader Paul sent me in a question which I feel is something that many people struggle with especially if they are trying to understand where their money is going. We recently did this for my mother-in-law who is a free shopper which means she goes into the grocery store unarmed.

She buys whatever she fancies. It wasn’t until I tallied up how much she had spent over the course of 18 days did my mind spin. Her mini trips to the grocery store every day just to keep busy are costing her hundreds in petrol and she spends just as much as a family of 4. It’s amazing how fast the small stuff adds up when you have NO plan in place.

Mr.CBB,

As a single adult how can I best monitor the amount of money I’m spending at the grocery store?

Paul K.

Grocery Spending

For most single people on average grocery spending falls between $50-$100 a week based on their needs which includes diet. Monitoring your grocery spending with-in a budget isn’t as hard as it sounds especially when you have all the free finance tools you need right here at Canadian Budget Binder to help give you better insight into where your money is going and how you can better control any spending that is getting out of hand.

Related: How much should my grocery budget be?

Grocery shopping is one of the biggest categories in anyone’s budget next to living expenses such as rent or a mortgage and to be honest it’s far easier to control then dealing with a missed payment. So, how are the grocery experts out there making the most of their shopping experience? Well, let me break down for you the reasons you may be struggling to keep your grocery spending in check and what you can do to ensure you aren’t spending more money than you have each month.

Create a Grocery List

This is not as uncool as it sounds because I know some of my guy friends who have no interest in grocery lists. It’s just not something that most men do but for those who take that extra step they will yield higher savings. Have a look around the grocery store the next time you shop and you may struggle to find more men than women pushing a shopping cart with a grocery list in hand.

Granted the paper grocery list may have dwindled with the many Smartphone apps available but even then, no paper, no phone equals a grocery spending disaster in the making. Perhaps not as bad as it sounds but if you are short on cash and your grocery spending equals far more than you can afford you may run into trouble.

Solve it by creating a grocery list which includes how much money you have to spend for that particular shopping trip. If you don’t already know how much your grocery budget should be than I suggest you take the time to figure that out with a monthly budget.

Cash in Hand

When tracking your grocery spending habits cash really is the King and Queen of it all only because you either have it or you don’t. There are no other ways to pay for the food you are shopping for without that cash which tends to stick into the minds of those cash shoppers rather than the tap and insert shoppers, credit card and debit card.

Related: Using the envelope cash budget system

The land where nothing matters but the tap. It can become a real struggle shopping with plastic rather than cash if you don’t have a grocery budget and plan in place. Even then for some people they don’t know how to understand there isn’t the money to purchase more. Plastic is NOT money it’s just someone else paying and you still have to pay them back. Go for cash it’s the easiest route and an excellent learning platform.

Use Coupons/ Coupon Apps/Rewards Programs

In the almost last two years we haven’t even used $20 in coupons only because we’ve changed our eating habits. This means we struggle to find gluten-free coupons but on occasion we do find some that can save us money. We don’t document anything but grocery items in our budget but we have found coupons for laundry soap, paper towel and so on that we do use.

Pairing coupons with coupon apps is a great way to get double the savings if not more depending on what each saves you. Finally, rewards programs whether they are tied to the grocery store you shop at or through your credit card company for those who pay by credit all adds up. You either take advantage of the savings while they are there or you pass them by. The choice is yours but you must do weekly research before you leave to the grocery store.

Always ask for a receipt

If you walk away from a cashier without getting your grocery receipt you’ve just committed one of the biggest grocery shopping sins of all. That little piece of paper is not only a list of what you purchased but it tells you what you paid, savings, when you purchased the products, what tender you used to pay.

What happens when you have a problem and no receipt? Well, some stores will tell you too bad they won’t help you. Clearly you could buy a product from Wal-Mart and without a receipt try to return it to another grocery store. That wouldn’t be fair to the grocer so many won’t accept returns without a receipts.

Secondly, you need to make sure you paid what you were supposed to for every item. Sometimes you may have a case for The Scanning Code of Practice (SCOP) but you don’t learn about an error until you get home and read your receipt. That’s a savings margin for your grocery budget and a loss for the grocery store which could potentially be even higher.

You help them, they help you is the name of the SCOP game provided they fix the problem right away.

You will also need you receipt if you play The Grocery Game Challenge or if you document each product you bought in your budget spreadsheet. Either way that piece of paper should be treated like gold if you want peace of mind.

Document your spending

The grocery game challenge is the way Mrs. CBB and I both document our grocery spending so we know each week how much money we are spending and on what products. It’s far easier to dissect a problem when you can see all the pieces laid out for you.

In this case we use our monthly budget to administer grocery spending totals and type out the products we’ve purchased. It’s easier to look at something and say, we really didn’t need that or we went overboard. Next time we will do better. If you don’t have a clue where your money is being spent you won’t understand how you can improve the next time.

If money isn’t a problem for you then you likely wouldn’t be reading this post so I’m safe to assume that those of you who have made it this far down want the help to control grocery spending habits. Let’s put something into perspective for everyone.

An example might be,

You spend $5.00 on a large bag of chips but when you get to the bread aisle you only have $4 left in your cash grocery spending budget so you only buy 1 loaf. Ideally, 2 loaves of bread would have been best to get you through the week making sandwiches, toast and French toast. That bag of chips likely will be wiped out in a sitting or two adding no nutritional value to your diet.

• What do you do?
• What should you do?

This is a case of understanding how to best balance your grocery spending so you are able to get the foods that matter and leave behind what you can’t afford for that particular week. The only way to see these misguided purchases is by documenting them. A quick read of your receipt will give you brief insight but you’ll strike a home-run when you see it on your computer screen or written out on paper.

These are some of the best ways to monitor your grocery spending habits but just in case you find yourself too cool to care then you deal with the consequences of your lack of actions. It’s not that hard and takes no time at all. Aren’t your finances worth that little bit of effort? I’d say so.

Discussion: How do you go about controlling your grocery spending? What are some typical mistakes of those shoppers who find they spend more than they can afford?

Share your comments below!

Mr.CBB

May Grocery Game Challenge

Join the 2018 Grocery Game Challenge (GGC) but before you do you must read The Grocery Game Challenge Rules and Print the 2018 Schedule which includes new prizes!

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2018 Grocery Shop Results

Yearly grocery budget for two + 1 Toddler 2018: $3600 or $300/month (The above total does not include the stockpile budget of $300/year or $25/month.

Points Overview (add any other sections you need to show us your savings or that you would like to track on your own)

• Total Grocery Budget for this Month: $300
  
• Total Grocery Budget with any carry-overs $300
  
• Total Gift Cards used to date: $0
• Total Rewards Points redeemed this week: $0
• Total Rewards Points used to date: $0
• PC Optimum Points to Spend: 3,200,000
  
• Scanning Code of Practice (SCOP) to date $0
  

Coupon Apps (add any other apps you use to save money)

• Zweet -$0
  
• Checkout51- $1.50
  

Our Grocery Shop This Week

Shoppers Drug Mart

• 2 x 4litre bags of milk $4.25 each plus 2850 PC Optimum points
• 1 box of red tea $2.99

Total Out-of-Pocket $11.50

Food Basics

• 2 x cases of Coke Zero $4.99 $9.98
• 3 x Gluten-Free Hotdog wieners Sale $1.49 each $4.47
• 4 x Schneiders Bacon $3.99 each $15.96
• Premium bananas $1.90
• Bosc pears $3.78
• Green spring onions $1.98
• Royal Gala apples $3.97
• Golden pineapple $2.49
• 3 x seedless cucumbers $2.94
• Romaine Lettuce $2.49
• Hothouse Tomatoes $2.00
• 3 x 1lb strawberries $2.88 each $8.64
• Polar Ice Bars $4.99
• 2 x 500ml Lactancia Whipping Cream 35% $2.49 each $4.98
• 3 x 1l Lactancia 10% cream $2.49 $7.47
• 4 x Bavarian bread sale $1.99 each $7.96
• Almond Milk Unsweetened Vanilla $3.49
• Astro Coconut Yogurt Sale $1.99

Total Out-of-Pocket $91.48

Note: All totals below already have tax factored into them.