My Grocery Challenge

I have decided to try another grocery challenge for myself. I will be posting each time I spend money to try to start my New Year on the right foot.

I am giving myself for this month of January $400. That is a lot compared to what I used only but a couple of months ago. This will be to feed a family of 3 adults,2 teenagers and one cat. This will also include any paper/hygiene products.

Yesterday we spent $19.46 for tea,brown sugar,flour,frozen juice and a bag of chocolate chips to make up for cookies.

To do this I will keep each receipt in an envelope marked January Grocery Challenge receipts.At the end of the month I will mark down on the envelope how much is actually spent out of the $400 allowed eg: $400/$400.Also, once the month of January is completed I will put the envelope in freezer bag (large enough to hold 12 months worth of envelopes) and set in a shoe box and keep it on my closet shelf for easy access. I want to keep track along with putting other envelopes in with other receipts such as gas,clothing,entertainment etc...

I have to also consider that if we go to a store to buy foods onsale that we only stick to food. You know how the days are gone where we could once go shopping for groceries and all that the store carried were groceries? Now you go grocery shopping and you can also pick up clothing,furniture,car parts and other gadgets.Or you are out and about looking at bread and on your way out you might see something non food related and think "Oh right, I have been meaning to pick up one of those".

Another thing which I have tried to do in the past when shopping for groceries and say non grocery items was to line up my groceries first and the non grocery items 2nd so that when I would look on my receipt I would not have to jump from the top of the receipt to the middle and so on.All of the food items would be listed one right after the other. This is a good idea except for the fact when taxes are added to the total of your receipt, you have to break down what are actually food taxes and non food taxes.

I have decided that in order to keep an accurate total for our groceries I will just have to stick with groceries and either have dh with me so that I can pay for the groceries and then he can pay for the non food items . In other words, go through the checkout twice opposed to once.

Wish me luck :).