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Am I spending too much on groceries? Part II


March 04, 2009 | Peggy Martin

Am I spending too much on groceries? Part II

As I mentioned earlier, my sister asked me if she was spending too much at the grocery store, and I offered to take a look at her grocery receipts. 

The first thing I did was use the figure your food dollar calculator to come up with an estimate for her family: $150.53 a week or $653.26 per month. My sister and her husband take their lunches to work, and other than school lunches for the kids, they only eat out about 2 meals a week. This makes their cost of food at home a little higher, but saves on the overall budget.

Next, I added up the food and non-food items on all the receipts. Sometimes the receipts listed the amount spent on non-food items; for others, I had to figure the amount of non-food purchases by dividing the tax charged by the tax rate. (If the tax charged was $2.33 and the tax rate was 6%, the math is $2.33/.06 = $38.83 of taxable items.)

Surprisingly, over 30% of the money spent at the store was for non-food items. This included soft drinks, cleaning products, personal items such as shampoo and rinse, paper towels, toilet tissue, wine, etc. Just looking at the total spent at the grocery store gives you a false reading on grocery costs. My first suggestion is to compare prices of non-food items at warehouse type stores (like Sam’s or Costco) and discount stores (like Target, Kmart, Walmart, etc.) and stock up on items instead of buying them at the grocery store.

DATE
STORE
TAXABLE+TAX
FOOD
2
HyVee
$22.95
$85.92
2
Target
$38.04
$39.64
5
Fareway
$21.67
$69.78
8
HyVee
$27.07
$50.95
13
Dahls
$59.89
$151.90
17
HyVee
$43.62
$114.25
18
HyVee
$12.48
$27.48
24
Target
$60.97
$111.38
Total
$937.99
$286.69
$651.30
Percentage
31%
69%

Next time, I will share four other suggestions I gave my sister.  Feel free to share your tips with us.

-pointers from Peggy


Peggy Martin

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