We are already entering the third month of the year! Crazy stuff! That means it’s time for another update in A Year of Good Food.
This year, our family is challenging ourselves to spend less on food, so we can reach our goal of location independence by the end of 2019. Last year, I challenged myself to adopt one habit a month that would translate into better money moves for our family. You can read all about what I called A Year of Good Habits here.
This year, we are challenging ourselves to do better at our food spending. Our family spent an average of $966 US per month on groceries in 2017 for our family of four. That’s almost $12,000 in just groceries last year.
For 2018, we’ve adopted the modest goal of shaving 20% off that number, each and every month. That means we would spend no more than $772 in groceries in any month of the year.
The extra $200 per month is going into a travel savings fund, so we can see and benefit from our reduced spending in the food budget.
We could have adopted a radical goal to keep our spending under $500 or something like that. But we know better. We thought it made much more sense to consistently hit our modest target, month after month, for an entire year, to show ourselves we could do it, than to maybe hit the $500 goal once or twice and then face plant with more $1000+ grocery bills.
And if we consistently hit sub-$772 spending, then perhaps we’ll challenge ourselves next year to shave off more.
Continue reading “A Year of Good Food: Use Cash”
