It has been about a month since I have updated everyone on our food savings goal, but I have still been tracking it. As a reminder, Step 3 is all about finding ways our family can make forever changes to save money. We are taking a systematic approach to our savings. We think this will increase our chances that our saving decisions become full blown habits.
Thus, in Step 2 we decided to start saving by categories. The first category we are attacking in Step 3 is food. We have been tracking our food spending for almost two months now. Here is where we stand:
Previous monthly Kroger spending (prior to tracking): $700
Monthly Goal: $300
Current monthly Kroger spending: $584.38
Note: We have done all our Kroger shopping for the month, so this is our final total. We slacked for a couple of weeks and it shows. But, as you will see below, we have done very well on our overall food spending.
Previous monthly subconscious food purchases (prior to tracking): $303.60
Monthly goal: $103.60
Current conscious food purchases: $76.46
Note: We are on track!
Previous monthly eating out spending (prior to tracking): $400
Monthly goal: $200
Current eating out spending: $31.68
Note: We are still crushing this category!
Previous monthly total food spending: $1,403.60
Monthly goal: $603.60
Current monthly total food spending: $692.52
My Observations
We are not ready to take our victory lap, but we are starting to envision a world where we can easily meet our food spending goal. We are not where we want to be (take note of our Kroger spending), BUT, we have lowered our overall monthly food spending because we have turned all of our food purchases into conscious purchases.
At home, we have realized that we have been spending more at Kroger. We are aware of why we are doing this as well. Our issue is that we will go shopping on Sunday and stick to a script. However, Friday rolls around, and we want more gourmet meals on Friday and Saturday night. We have fought the urge to eat out, but our Friday Kroger spending has been around $70 just for meals for the weekend.
Staying Upbeat
Some people would take this as a loss and get down on themselves. I do consider this a loss, however, it is no reason to get down on ourselves. I am learning a lot about our spending habits and where our weak points are. Having this knowledge is powerful and should help us achieve our ultimate goal in the near future.
Do not ignore failures and mistakes, acknowledge and learn from them! This requires setting aside your pride.
Actionable Plan
I am going to write one article a week on Step 3 tracking and updating our spending habits. I really hope this is not boring for the readers, but if everyone sees how we are struggling and what we are doing to try and fix it, it may help more than just us.
My ultimate goal has not changed. I want to be able to do all the things on my Top 13 list whenever I want. Getting nerdy and fine-tuning our savings is still a necessary step to reach this goal!
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