Today marks my first official post for the “Project Food Budget” – a group of bloggers like me, that are trying to stick to a specific food budget every week/month – they’re already at week 9!
It also marks the end of the first month for My Own Healthy Budget challenge.
My Budget Details:
My budget goal is to eat healthy, unprocessed, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and spices/herbs.
There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. Breakfasts are usually on the small side on weekdays, and my husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work. If needed, that $ comes out of his personal cash.
First $400 Budget Month
So, yay, I survived my first official month, with $ to spare. Soo sooo oooh proud of myself!
My budget was $400 for the month of November, and I spent $396.65
Dining Out: $86.60
Entertaining: $19.68
Groceries: $286.47
Herbs & Spices: $4.99
I need more practice in meal planning, but yesterday I tried to put together a week of dinners. We’ll see how easily it will be to follow. I’ll post next week on how I do.
Today, I used my $40 Groupon coupon for GNC and bought 2 bottles of multi-vitamins, 1 bottle of calcium citrate, and a bottle of organic apple cider vinegar. Not bad for an investment of $19 a couple of months ago!
Tomorrow I’m planning a trip to Whole Foods. I have my list ready on my iPhone, with estimated prices and I think I’ll be able to keep to $50-$60. This should get us through for 7-10 days before needing to go shopping again.
I’m excited for our first CSA (local) meat delivery this month, and I won’t be applying the cost until I actually cook the meat, hoping to stretch what’s delivered for the next 6 months into the summer months.
Want to Join the Project Food Budget?
If you’d like to participate in the Project Food Budget, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!
Here’s who else is participating:
- Emily Levenson
- Dairy-Free Cooking
- Test Kitchen Tuesday
- Red Pen Mama
- Acquired Tastes
- Fit Flexitarian
- Warm As Pie
- Katy Rank Lev
- My Inner Healthy
- Little Blue Hen
- xox, b
- What da Health?
- Project Food Budget 2.0
- Ignition Nutrition
- A Nice Heart and a White Suit
- Because Hobbies Happen
- Primary Focus Health Coaching
- Chicken Tender
- Fresh…A New Chapter
- Whole Living Gal
- Chandeleah
- Two Eggs Over Easy
Congratulations on surviving your first month!
I think it only gets easier from here. Also, a tip that I didn’t know initially, but Whole Foods offers coupons at their website: wholefoodsmarket.com/coupons. They change every month and usually there are some pretty good deals in there!
Welcome to the project! 🙂
Welcome! So glad to have you on board.
Menu planning gets easier with time. I learned that planning for 7 days was wasteful — that we often didn’t get to all the meals and wasted food. 5 meals seemed to be the magic number for us.
Looking forward to watching your journey and seeing how you fare each week.
Thank you Angela, yes, I love Whole Foods coupons, although there’s not always a lot that I can use, but hmm, secret… they are very liberal with their use. For instance, if you have a stonyfield yogurt coupon for a 4 pack, you can use that same coupon on a large tub of yogurt instead.
Emily, thanks! I’ll keep trying. Good idea about 5 meals instead. It might be less overwhelming! Although I don’t know if I’ll ever get the hang of it. LOL. I am a free spirit when it comes to cooking. I don’t like having to stick to a rigid plan! I’m sure it’ll work for some days, but other days, I’m sure I’ll cook by my cravings!!!