pillow
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2007
Sorry I got everyone off track with the groceries, but wow, these grocery numbers befuddle me. lol I think I am pretty frugal, i shop sales and coupon, though not excessively. I will say my numbers are going by the end of the year statements for my CCs so include Grocery and drug stores. So my walmart spending is in there (household products) but no food I bought from Sams or Target is included. I would have no idea what food alone is taking out household products. We really do not go out to eat often, I really dislike going out to eat, but we are averaging $6500/year for that. At least $1600 of last years was during our 2 main vacations ($1200 for 2 weeks out west and $400 for 3 days at Universal) so I can't imagine how you could spend less than $700 and still vacation? Plus having kids in sports, that average 2 hours away, one way, we just have to eat out on those days. I think the number will go down this year as I am down to 1 kid in sports.
I count vacation food in my vacation budget - not in my yearly household food budget. Some places are easier to eat cheap than others. When we went out west, we stayed in places where we could cook our own food. But at Disney, we don't want to go that route, so we just budget for expensive food. For me, part of the Disney experience is eating at some great restaurants. Going out west for us is all about the outdoors, scenery hiking, etc. I care less about food on that type of trip.
I've started keeping a spreadsheet for every penny I spend, which helps me parse out the food and other household stuff. I know many others use free budgeting software, but for me a spreadsheet works fine.
I sometimes packed sandwiches and took them to away meets when my DD ran cross country. More work but much cheaper. Anyway, I'm not helping this thread get back on track am I? Maybe we should start a new thread . . .