How do you account for your spending at emporiums that sell household and personal care items as well as food? In the past, I’ve let Quicken record any charge that occurred at, say, a Safeway or an Albertson’s as “groceries.” But the truth is, a substantial part of what you buy there isn’t groceries at all—it’s household gear, personal care products, or even yard-care items.
When I bought a freezer and started the great Food Hoarding Project a few weeks ago, I decided to break these things out, so that I could see what portion of my spending is really going to food and what to household and other items. It occurred to me that this might explain how some punkin’s can report spending $200 a month (or even more spectacularly parsimonious figures) on groceries for a family of four: maybe what they’re classifying as “groceries” is food and food alone.
Yesterday I made another run on Sprouts, Costco, Target, and Safeway, pretty well making my goal of storing about three months’ worth of food and household supplies. Except for a few perishable items, I now have enough meat, vegetables, cheese, beans, rice, sugar, flour, cornmeal, pasta (& cetera) to last for a good three months, stored up against the specter of catastrophic inflation or, more realistically, of a layoff. From here on in, it shouldn’t take much to keep this store up to date, and I believe I can do that in no more than one or two trips to the markets each month.
The total amount I’ve spent on groceries (bear in mind that I was almost out of everything when I started) is $519.36. That prorates out to $173.12 a month: an all-time record low for me. Especially when you realize I don’t break out pet food, what with Cassie the Corgi dining on human food.
But maybe not so record-breaking, because cleaning products, shampoo, contact lens stuff, Bandaids, and the like previously counted as “groceries.”
Since the start of the Hoarding Project, total spending on household and personal care goods has been $151.80, which would work out to $50.60 for each of the next three months. That’s not bad either, in my universe: a total of $223.72 ($173.12 + $50.60) is still significantly less than I ordinarily have spent per month in that lumped-together “groceries” category.
But…we have to bear in mind that while I was almost out of food when I started this scheme, I had plenty of household goods: lifetime supplies of Simple Green, paper towels, toilet paper, and the like. This month’s “household” category was inflated because my ancient Brita water filter gadget broke, because I dropped my indispensable little kitchen timer on the floor and broke that, and because I decided to buy a lifetime supply of Costco’s tinfoil at a very good per-unit price but a breathtaking out-of-pocket price. If I hadn’t purchased those items, the total for “household goods” would be much lower. But in either event, the total we have is unrealistic, because I avoided buying stuff I would normally need to stock up on and because I bought items that I would normally purchase once every few years, not once every few weeks or months.
IMHO, it’s a little more enlightening to be able to see how much is actually spent on food, as opposed to everything that’s spent at a particular type of merchant. I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble, though.
So, out of curiosity: how does your accounting system register “groceries”? Do you break out supermarket and big-box purchases into categories such as “food,” “household items,” “personal care items,” and the like? Or do you lump everything that appears on a supermarket receipt into one category?
After months of keeping several categories that cover groceries, household and personal expenses, I simplified my system use two categories. This cuts down on the math involved in taking a long receipt and subtracting out individual items to put into the correct category.
The Food & Household category covers groceries and the expendables required to run the house, like paper towels, light bulbs and laundry detergent. The other category is Personal Expenses. In that one I put shampoo, deodorant, makeup, haircuts and anything else I do for just me, like my clothes, books and entertainment. I still itemize expenditures in that category because there really aren’t that many in any one 2 week period. That way if I should ever want to analyze that category of spending in more detail, the information is available. So far I haven’t needed or wanted to do any further analysis, but I could if I wanted to.
I’m meeting all my savings goals and I no longer get behind on my record keeping,so I guess this is working for me.
I’ve been following along with you on the stockpiling. Not to the degree you are doing it, but I have stocked up on many items at Sam’s in the past month. I must say my grocery expenditure was half of normal for the last two weeks. I attribute much of that to the fact that if I don’t go in a store, I can’t spend extra money there. I also enjoy the free time I have not stopping at the grocery store after work 3 days out of 5.
For the most part I only buy food at Safeway and personal care items at Longs, Target, Rite Aid or Walgreens. Sometimes there is overlap but whatever I bought the most of at that store is what it gets categorized as. I used to break out items invidually (even dividing out the sales tax into the appropriate categories) but it just got too time consuming to keep up with tracking my spending in that much detail.
That’s beautifully minimalist! I like it. 🙂
By and large letting Quicken assign heaven only knows how many categories to various purchases has been OK…a problem arises mostly when I go into stores like Costco (where I tend to buy clothing as well as goodies in many other categories) or Target (where one is known to put a head of lettuce in with the new sheets).
Glad to hear this scheme is working for you, too, Amanda O. We have yet to see how well it will control grocery & household expenditures over the long run, but it sure is nice to feel no great urgency to race to the grocery store! I now arrange shopping trips at my convenience, rather than realizing on the way home from work that I don’t have enough in the house to eat or to feed the dog. And I’ve made only two major shopping trips in the past three and a half weeks! That alone is worth it.
I use three categories: Groceries (foodstuffs), Household (paper goods and cleaning supplies) and Self-Care (toiletries and such).
I use an Excel spreadsheet to track spending, and the categories allow me to sort and filter for quick reports.
Regards,
I don’t really keep track. When I do (out of curiosity), I discover that, yes, I only spend about $200/month on food (for me, husband, and kids when they are home). I do see this as something of a sport, since it’s not a necessity.
As for drugstore items: if you get the freebies at Walgreens or CVS, in no time you’ll have a 2 year supply of personal care items, plus more makeup than you AND teenage daughter can use. As for cleaning supplies: I read Don Aslett on this and only use a few products, properly diluted.
I am lucky because I have an internal budget monitor in all spending areas. Perhaps this can be developed over time???
I count it all as groceries and still try to stick to my budget. Keeping in mind that I’m only shopping at grocery stores (not places that also sell clothes and furniture!). Once I started making my own dog food that expense was absorbed into groceries as well. So far so good. I’m a little over this month because I had a dinner party but was way under last month. I don’t want to drive myself crazy separating out individual expenditures.
It’s actually not hard, especially if you lift stuff out of the grocery cart so that it lands on the checkout conveyer belt with food and household goods roughly grouped together. If you live in a state (like mine) that taxes only nonfood items, you have to add the tax rate to the total nonfood stuff, which is a minor pain in the butt.
I’m getting just OCD enough that I find it kind of interesting to see what specific categories are absorbing money in the “grocery” department.
Does anyone know where i can contact Safeway on line to get a print out on how much money spent in groceries per year. Need this for Tax info.
I know I have spent a lot of money at Safeway I would like to find out how much
purshased for one year. Thanks Rhonda
@ Rhonda: I have no idea whether Safeway even tracks such a thing. They must have some clue, because they hand out those coupons for gasoline discounts based on how much you’ve spent over a certain period. Why don’t you ask the manager at the store where you shop?