Food budget and goals...

So...it's been a question in my mind - how much should a family of four spend on groceries in a month?  I did a bit of research.  The USDA provides a handy resource and you can figure out the budget for your family with the specific ages of your kids at the "thrifty," "low cost," "moderate," or "liberal" budget levels.  For us the range is $574 to $1162.  So that made me feel good about setting our budget at $800/month. 

I should define "groceries" - I am actually including any and all trips to the grocery store and including household products, paper products, alcohol, and dining out.  Our total "grocery" spending was $975 in October - so we didn't make the goal.  We spent approximately $150 on alcohol - expensive, dark, microbrews, and imported beers to be precise.  Teetotalism is in my future - I can't rationalize that habit.   Of the total, $175 was spent at restaurants.  It's disappointing because it seemed like we were doing well, but when you consider the eating out and alcohol - which were indulgences - we could have done better.  I share because we have seriously struggled with this for years - we have always overspent on food.  For us, $975 is actually an improvement.  We still are aiming for a more efficient use of our resources so that we can save our money for travel and adventure! 

Our open-source financial software, GnuCash is awesome and Husband does a very detailed job of keeping track of our spending.  It is easy to run reports to see how we are doing and it is fun to watch our savings grow.  In the past we were always able to put some additional money towards our debt (in excess of our minimum payments), but now I have a portion of my paycheck going to savings.  Our rental income and land contract income goes to the savings and we are keeping our total expenditures to less than $2600 per month (surplus to savings).  We opened a money market checking account after searching the best rates on BankRate, we also put the majority of our savings in CDs for the time being. 

I've been tracking my dietary choices since January of this year (I keep track of my dietary habits each day before bed with an app called Loop Habit Tracker).  It's a good feeling to be making progress and to visually see the progress over time.  Also it is a daily reminder or affirmation to myself that I do make good food choices.  In October I made the following food choices:

• Whole-Food Plant-Based 24/31 days (my ultimate goals is to always eat this way)
• vegetarian 25/31 days (probably ate eggs), 
• dairy free 30/31 days, 
• pescatarian 3/31 days 
• and that leaves 3 days that I ate some kind of meat.  I remember them - my neighbor, who is Filipino made pork spring rolls one day and pork BBQ another day. It was very nice of her to share and I tried some of the grub, which was quite delicious, Husband and the kids enjoyed it too.  Another time we went out to eat with friends at a pizza place - not eating dairy being my highest priority, I opted for a turkey sandwich.  

I had read Mr. Money Mustache before - he is certainly at the extreme end of saving money and living within your means, but he really breaks it down in terms of how to reduce the food budget.  However I get the idea that he does not include alcohol in his food budget calculations - maybe he doesn't drink...but I doubt it.  He may not include household expenses either.  It is worth checking out his philosophy - I agree with him in many ways.  

I hope that breaking the social taboo of silence about our household finances and dietary choices is helpful.  If not, well, it is therapeutic and helpful for me to write about it so that I can bring focus and clarity to my choices going forward!