With Aaron being a graduate student, and Beth living in a big city with a big rent to pay, we are both in a place where we want to save some money! Both of us usually do our best to watch what we spend and try to stick to a budget, but one thing that we are both bad for is shopping for food. Grocery shopping can really make or break a budget, especially if you lean towards a lot of fresh produce or anything organic.
So, during the month of July we have decided to challenge ourselves and see if we can lower our weekly grocery bills to less than $40. To give you an idea of what we currently spend on groceries, we have included the total of our most recent g-shop:
Aaron $ 64.19 CAD
Beth $ 73.55 USD – eek!
It will be interesting to see how we are able to cut some corners because we will both be approaching it differently. Beth lives in a big city, but has no access to a vehicle. Meanwhile, Aaron has a vehicle, but has a more limited variety of grocery stores.
If you have any tips on how to cut down your grocery costs please share them with us! How much to you usually spend per week on groceries? What products do you usually buy or avoid?
Let the challenge begin!
UPDATE:
See the results!
Beth:
Aaron:
When it comes to organics…as it is soooo expensive…I check out items I use regularly each week…even when I don’t need them. That way I only buy them on when they are on sale. Items such as peanut butter, pasta sauce, soups, chicken, even milk (which has a much longer shelf life than non-organic milk) I start looking for when I am running low. In summary…don’t wait until you run out of items you know you use….look for a good sale price. It can add a bit of time to your shop each week but it pays off and it can be kind of fun to see how low you can get the price!
[...] my favorite blues: blueberries, blue corn chips, and Blue Moon! Whew. I would not have succeeded at Aaron and Beth’s challenge, but I am also shopping for 2, so I did not panic. We are prepping for the wedding festivities, so [...]