My grocery budget is $330 each month, including food, household items and toiletries. Each week I crunch the numbers to see where I stand. Today marks the end of the month. You can read the halfway point here.
I am shocked that we didn’t have any “I have a craving for this” type of trips this month! We usually have at least one, usually two. Mr. Crumbs and his ice cream addiction is usually to blame as well, but our newest variation of chocolate chip cookies (with coconut oil and heath bar) seems to be satisfying his sweet tooth well. Then again it could be a documentary we watched a couple weeks ago called “Healthy For Change” that portrayed sugar as addictive as cocaine or heroin… and suddenly cookies didn’t seem so appetizing anymore…
maybe I’ll give it more thought over a slice of chocolate cake… ;)
In either case, it’s keeping my numbers in line. And that’s a good thing.
Costco – $16.57
Fresh Mozzarella 24oz, 6.99
Yellow Onions 10lbs, 4.79
Craisins, 4.79
The cheese is for pizza, which turns out wasn’t needed after all. I found two more balls of cheese in the freezer when I went to put these away.
Onions are a cooking staple and another package of craisins because there’s a good chance we’ll go through this package (and the other) before they’re on sale again.
Trader Joe’s – $24.23
White Whole Wheat Flour 5lb, 2.99
Organic Whole Milk, 5.99
Organic Bell Peppers Tricolor, 3.99
Organic Bell Peppers Green 2ct, 2.49
Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, 2.49
Organic Unsalted Butter 1lb, 4.79
Dark Chocolate Bar, 1.49
I’ve been alternating with the types of flour I use in my baking. All the recipes are at least half wheat, but the other half could be bread flour or all-purpose flour. The wheat flour from this trip was the second in the month, which means I bake more than I originally thought I did. I’d say this flour would get us through March, but that’s very unlikely.
Milk for yogurt and kefir, butter is a staple, our apple cider vinegar was running low and dark chocolate for those amazingly yummy cookies. Mr. Crumbs somehow found the dirty dozen list on his own and now wants to buy those only organic. 
Since bell peppers are on that list, we bought the organic variety at TJ’s.
Grocery Outlet – $29.39
Minneola Oranges 3lb, 1.99
Sea Salt 16oz, 1.49
Organic Free Range Eggs 20ct, 4.49
Grape Tomatoes 1 pint x2, 1.50
Pineapple x2, 1.99
Olitalia Olive Oil 1L, 6.99
Acai Pomegranate 100% Juice, 2.49
Organic Fuji Apples 3lb, 3.99
Rosemary, .99
Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt 4oz 4pk, 1.49
Cucumber, .50
Bacon, 3.99
A variety of fruits and vegetables to get us through the end of the month, salt is a staple as are rosemary and eggs. The juice is for Mr. Crumbs’ fake Italian sodas and that was a good price for 100% juice. I picked up a new brand of olive oil for testing purposes (which will be revealed in the next couple weeks). Greek yogurt for a new batch of homemade yogurt plus tzatziki sauce (as was the cucumber) and the bacon was an impulse buy. Want to guess who went shopping with me?
Costco – $34.44
Organic Granny Smith Apples, 6.99
Organic Frozen Berries 3lbs, 9.99
Organic Carrots 10lbs, 4.49
Organic Celery 4 hearts, 2.99
Organic Baby Kale 1.5lbs, 4.49
Anjou Pears 5lbs, 5.49
Lots of produce again to get us through the month. If you haven’t noticed a trend, we almost always have apples, oranges, bananas, carrots, celery and kale in the house. And believe it or not, we go through all of it pretty quick! I like to keep “other” fruits too, like pears or whatever else is in season, so we get a variety of nutrients. The frozen berries were a small splurge. Turns out berries are on the dirty dozen list too and organic berries are EXPENSIVE, especially since they’re not in season, so I thought $3/lb is fair enough for completely off-season organic berries. Frozen works just fine for berry pies. 
Savemart- $7.97
Organic Whole Milk, 5.98
Fresh Basil, 1.99
A quick stop for more milk and basil for pizza night. When I make yogurt, I make 3/4 gallon at a time. Mr. Crumbs puts 1/2 cup of yogurt in each of his daily smoothies and I make yogurt parfaits often, so we go through it pretty quickly. More yogurt means more milk.
Walmart – $8.18
Flouride Rinse, 2.88
Bananas, 2.91
All-Purpose Flour, 2.14
My son has a few small cavities and the dentist recommended dipping floss in fluoride to help get it in between the teeth. I plan to look into other avenues for dental health too (more natural ways like butter oil, raw milk and cod liver oil), but at least I can do something in the short term until I’ve got my mind wrapped around the other stuff. The boy chose bubble gum flavor – isn’t that cute?!
We finally finished off the bazillion frozen bananas and I picked up some fresh ones to enjoy. Flour is to replenish the pantry.
Total End of Month – $336.19
I’m over by $6.19. Not too bad, but I honestly thought I’d be coming in under budget this month. Darn that mozzarella cheese!
The good news is that we still have quite a bit of produce left and a little bit of chicken in the freezer to carry us into March. I plan to review expenses from the past four weeks to see if there’s anything that can be slimmed down… like finding a better source for flour for one thing. But I need to be better about planning meals based on the clean fifteen than dirty dozen.
How did your grocery budget accountability go this month?
Tiff-you should really do a little research on Flouride. You might be surprised. I think dentists just recommend it as a matter of course, a habit. Flouride is as banned as HFCS in our home.
Jealous of your celery. I paid the same for one, and the whole bunch, not the heart.
Cathie,
Thanks for your encouragement. I’ve officially added it to my list for this weekend.
I’ll admit to being spoiled with produce where we live. We more than make up for it in gas though, lol! ~Tiffany
I second the fluoride rinse comment by Cathie ! Definitely investigate that one a little further. Baby steps
Very nice job on your budget, thank you for posting these updates. Since you are so open about how you spend for food – we don’t have to be “nosy” and “pry” the information out of you.
Love it !
Yea for being on budget (well closer than I was). We totally blew our budget but I knew that was going to happen this month. I am spending some of my future budget to bulk up my meat while it is still inexpensive here. For some reason it always goes up in the summer. Today we found local source for all our meat and they sell in bulk. That made my husband happy plus they had a whole bunch of other local foods. It was a win, win. Next few months we should be under because of the meat stock up.