Spend Smart. Eat Smart.

Last week I was doing a presentation on the features of our Spend Smart web site. I discovered that we had gotten lots of hits from the more matters® web site which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Further investigation showed the people were being referred to our Spend Smart site from a flyer and other postings called 30 Ways in 30 Days to Stretch Your Fruit and Vegetable Budget. 

The number ONE recommendation was:

Calculate an appropriate Healthy Food Budget for your family, based on USDA’s Low-Cost Food Plan. This easy-to-use calculator, offered by Iowa State University Extension, helps to create a budget for what is a reasonable amount to spend to feed your family healthy meals. 

If you don’t know what a healthy food budget is for your family, you might want to put each family member’s age, gender and number of meals eaten away from home into the calculator.  Then, to compare your spending, you will need to collect receipts for all your grocery spending for a month. Don’t count non-food items such as pet food, paper, cleaning and personal care items that you buy at the store.

-pointers by Peggy  

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As I mentioned earlier, my sister asked me if she was spending too much at the grocery store, and I offered to take a look at her grocery receipts. 

The first thing I did was use the figure your food dollar calculator to come up with an estimate for her family: $150.53 a week or $653.26 per month. My sister and her husband take their lunches to work, and other than school lunches for the kids, they only eat out about 2 meals a week. This makes their cost of food at home a little higher, but saves on the overall budget.

Next, I added up the food and non-food items on all the receipts. Sometimes the receipts listed the amount spent on non-food items; for others, I had to figure the amount of non-food purchases by dividing the tax charged by the tax rate. (If the tax charged was $2.33 and the tax rate was 6%, the math is $2.33/.06 = $38.83 of taxable items.)

Surprisingly, over 30% of the money spent at the store was for non-food items. This included soft drinks, cleaning products, personal items such as shampoo and rinse, paper towels, toilet tissue, wine, etc. Just looking at the total spent at the grocery store gives you a false reading on grocery costs. My first suggestion is to compare prices of non-food items at warehouse type stores (like Sam’s or Costco) and discount stores (like Target, Kmart, Walmart, etc.) and stock up on items instead of buying them at the grocery store.

Next time, I will share four other suggestions I gave my sister.  Feel free to share your tips with us.

-pointers from Peggy

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Last fall my sister asked me how much I thought she should be spending on groceries (it turns out her husband thought she was spending too much). 

That’s a really hard one to answer; and, I sure didn’t want to get in the middle of an argument. Spending on food varies because of many factors including values and resources (time, money and skills).

I recommended my sister get on the Internet and Google “Cost of Food at Home.” I told her to check out the USDA Food Plans and see how what she was spending compared. I also agreed to look at her grocery receipts to see if I could suggest ways to save (more on that in a later posting).

If you would like to get an estimate of USDA’s Low-cost Plan, we have an online calculator that will do the math for you. Check out figure your food dollar on our Spend Smart. Eat Smart. web page. You will need the age, gender and number of meals eaten away from home for each person.
                                                                                                               - pointers by Peggy

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