So I’m just one dude and 10k a year just on food seems incredibly high. I don’t go out that often, ~$1600 was at restaurants. I’m not really sure what I’m doing wrong while shopping at grocery stores and want to track grocery purchases better. The store I typically go to doesn’t have online receipts to use.
I’m wondering what kind of apps are available for tracking grocery expenditures that Lemmings would recommend? It would be nice to be able to go back and check prices/sizes of things too, so what is being shrinkflated/skimpflated
I’m not sure about tracking your spending, but I can tell you that you’re grocery shopping is way too wasteful. That’s like $200/week on groceries for one person. Unless you have a very limited diet, you’re paying more than double what you should be at the grocery store. For context, when I get groceries for me and my wife, I rarely spend over $50. Get store brands, buy bigger sizes, and shop at cheaper stores like Aldi. Stop buying frozen and processed garbage; buy fresh meat and vegetables and cook big batches and have leftovers. This time of year is great for a big pot of soup/chili!
I think if I were interested in tracking spending like that, I might just build a simple spreadsheet with dates and costs, maybe add variables for the unusual things like stocking up to have guests to feed or whatever. Sorry I can’t be more helpful on that front. If you’re not experienced with cooking, there are some really good YouTube channels that can teach you some good, versatile recipes that are very budget-friendly.
It really depends on where you live. $200 doesn’t get you that far in places like Manhattan or San Francisco. Especially if you’re cooking for every meal for more than one person for a week.
You’re not wrong. But for context, my wife and I live in Ashburn, VA (NoVA is super expensive but not quite Manhattan or San Francisco expensive). A lot of it comes down to choices though. Of course eggs and bacon for breakfast are not gonna be in the budget I mentioned, but oatmeal with some frozen berries fits just fine. No you can’t get steak to fit in that budget all the time, but if you have a vegetarian meal every once in a while then you get some flexibility in your budget to allow steak sometimes because meat is way more expensive than a can of black beans.
I also make my lunches and pack them for when I’m at work, so that’s a lot of the food I eat and it’s way cheaper than it would be if I ordered something somewhere, and it doesn’t take much time to make a whole batch of sandwiches for the week. Idk I grew up poor, so these things are just in my nature, and now even though I don’t have to be so frugal I still choose to because it just doesn’t make sense not to.