January Grocery Budget Challenge *Update*

Hi Guys!

Last month i shared with you all my January Grocery Budget Challenge, and today i'm going to give you an update and let you know how it went.




To recap, my challenge was to spend $150 a week on food items and $200 a month on non food items for our family of 7.

Honestly, i didn't do that well with the challenge. First i'll give you the numbers, and then i'll tell you why it didn't go so well.

• Food Items:

Week 1 = $196.75
Week 2 = $163.18
Week 3 = $202.45
Week 4 = $310.46 (We went to Costco this week, that's why we spent so much)
Week 5 = $135.39

Budget for 5 weeks = $750   ~~ What i spent for 5 weeks = $1,008.23 ($258.23 OVER budget)

• Non- food items:

Week 1 = $23.11
Week 2 = $0
Week 3 = $49.53
Week 4 = $69.94 (Costco trip this week, we stocked up on a lot of paper goods)
Week 5 = 12.30

Budget for 5 weeks = $200 ~~ What i spent for 5 weeks = $154.88 ($45.12 Under budget)

It was really hard to stay on budget. My biggest problem was with menu planning, trying to come up with budget friendly meals was my weakness. Because i didn't want to just feed my family rice & beans every night. A Costco trip during week 4 also blew our budget big time for that week.

My 3 reasons for taking on this challenge were:

• To take more control over my budget
• To stop wasting food
• To see if it is even possible to do

My thoughts on the challenge, now that it is over:

1. I do feel like this challenge has helped me become for aware of what i'm spending, i am no longer just throwing things into the cart.
2. We didn't throw away as much food as we usually do, during this challenge.
3. I do believe it is possible, but it would take a lot of time and work to make it happen.

There are my thoughts on the grocery challenge. I don't think i will challenge myself again anytime soon with my grocery budget. However, i did learn from it, so it wasn't a complete failure.