We’ve all seen and heard about the rise in food prices over the past couple of years, and it’s definitely meant that our bank accounts have taken a hit. It’s getting harder and harder to make the grocery budget go as far as it needs to week to week.
Some products are really noticeable, others have had a slow increase, and still others haven’t changed. Maybe you can guess which ones they are…
So, now more than ever, it’s important to know where our money is being spent. Every month I take a shopping list with me to the supermarket of the exact items I’m going to need to use throughout the month, and each month I analyse where I spend my money.
A key principle used in the business sector is “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, but I think it also has merit when we are talking about our personal lives too. I would also change it slightly to read “You can’t manage what you DON’T measure”. Because we have a choice to either just spend the money, eat the food and continue to marvel at the increase in prices, or we can hold the purchasing power in our hands and look closely at where our money is being spent.
Knowing where I have spent money on groceries means I can make decisions about what to change: what I can make myself, and what I can find alternatives for. It’s been a really useful way to make sure I can still feed my family using my shopping budget and set a realistic budget for the current time.
Because you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
There are 5 key steps to analysing my grocery shopping:
– I keep all my receipts. A few years ago I got out of the habit of keeping receipts. It seemed like a waste of time as my spending was on my bank statements. But now I keep them all so I can see everything itemised that I have bought.
– Do the analysis in the same place as my shopping list. I’ve always kept my shopping lists in a notebook (and if you’re not writing shopping lists yet, it’s a good place to start), but recently I switched to a larger book so that I have space to do the analysis in the same place, and there is room to do it.
– Pay for your groceries the way you want to analyse them. When I take my groceries out of the trolley and put them on the conveyor belt at the supermarket, I try to keep them in the same groups as I will analyse. This way, when I go to look at the receipt all the same group items are all in order and it makes it easier to add them up.
– Break your spending up into useful categories. I have 7 different categories I use to analyse my spending: fruit and vegetables, dairy and chilled, meat, pantry/dry goods, household, personal care and snacks/extras. If you think there are other categories you could use, add them as needed.
– Do it at the time. Try and set aside the time to analyse what you’ve spent close to when you actually spend the money, otherwise it loses the impact.
I have set up a template to use which you can grab here. Whether you shop weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, this template will still work for you, as you fill it in per shop, and it will give you a total at the end.
As I began analysing my spending, it really opened my eyes to see where I was spending, and therefore how we were eating. It prompted me to make a few changes to how I access and use food:
– Eat seasonally. It’s always cheaper to eat foods that are in season. So instead of buying tomatoes at $16/kg in the middle of winter, I focused on what I would normally be able to grow or have available at the time, like pumpkins and kale. Obviously, this also meant I needed to change the WAY we ate in those winter months too, because recipes with tomatoes are VERY different then those with pumpkins and kale!
– Grow my own. The next step from learning to eat seasonally was then to start growing my own food. This made the biggest difference to my food spending each week. I started with herbs, and expanded from there. You really don’t need a whole lot of space to grow food, so even small gardens and containers will save you money on food.
– Cook from scratch. I think this is one of my favourite parts of food. I have been meal planning for over 10 years now, and I’m still learning to cook. But I know I’m better than I was and my food tastes better than it did! Now I look forward to my shopping and my meal plans because I’m excited about what I will get to make next.
– Make my own. I am continuously mind-blown by all things I can do myself. From condensed milk to brown sugar to dishwashing tablets, the number of things I no longer buy has increased significantly, has changed my eating habits and the way I live, and has decreased my grocery spend.
I am no longer concerned about the price of food or how much I spend, because analysing my grocery bills has meant that I feel much more in control of my food choices. I see each store as a place that is serving my needs, and I know that I am free to choose. If you haven’t already, make sure you sign up to my email list where I share cooking tips, new recipes and challenge the modern idea of food as a commodity, so you can be free to choose too.