project: food budget, weeks 5 and 6

by Stacy

project food budget piggy bank

My expenditure tracking was poor the last two weeks. My husband’s birthday (and a small party) was on Halloween resulting in 3 trips to the grocery store in one day. I was working at the time and take no responsibility for such shenanigans.

Totals

Week 5: $144.24 — More than the previous week when I got a huge bulk order. I couldn’t even FIND all these receipts, so that’s estimated. The mind boggles.

Week 6: $45.11 + a fancy dinner out
Just under $10 at the farmers market on Thursday, the CSA counts for $28, and a quick trip to Sprouts on Saturday for sweet potatoes and almond milk took care of the rest. I haven’t hit a grocery store since.

Tuesday night, my husband and I went on a rare dinner date. We put on real people clothes, headed to a French restaurant, ordered a bottle of wine, and enjoyed ourselves for an hour or two of conversation with no dishes to do at the end. Worth every penny of the $100 tab. That splurge brought us close to the previous week’s total which was high, but it’s not something we do often.

Lessons learned

Don’t send the husband to the grocery store without supervision and make him turn in receipts for the duration of this challenge.

I’m leaving in the morning for the International Food Blogger Conference in Santa Monica so I’m trying to minimize perishable items that my husband won’t eat.

Other thoughts

My family starts arriving next weekend for Thanksgiving, so we’ll be eating out more often and feeding more people in. Hilarity could ensue.

How do you budget for holiday meals?

Check out all the participants of the Project: Food Budget Challenge!

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

suki November 14, 2011 at 12:58 pm

If I didn’t already have a weekly Thursday link-up, I would do this!
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Stacy November 15, 2011 at 10:34 am

You should still play along!

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Emily November 14, 2011 at 7:31 pm

sometimes, i create a separate budget for “special” occasions. mostly because it’s a large expense for a lot of people that is our of the ordinary.

could also be that i don’t want to massively blow the food budget, and have to give myself a break 😉
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Stacy November 16, 2011 at 7:34 am

That makes sense. Maybe I’ll just track through realizing that we’re having houseguests and such and compare that to the rest of the year.

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birch November 16, 2011 at 4:15 am

I don’t suppose your state would take kindly on us smuggling in our CSA items. We get a box today… It’s not going to be finished before we go.

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Stacy November 16, 2011 at 7:36 am

Ooh, like what? (P.S. You should email me back.)

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