2018 Food & Toiletries Spending.....the December Edition & Yearly Totals

Onward to December's food spending report.......

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for DECEMBER 2018.

I have posted December's totals on the Total Grocery Savings Page located HERE and have updated the Totals there.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in December.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Sum.  My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 4-5(4 at home this month). No "kids" under 22.

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ALDI
OOP  $24.35
Value  $41.61
Savings  41.48%

BOYER'S
OOP  $4.39
Value  $9.29
Savings  52.74%

BREAD OUTLET
OOP  $10.16
Value  $53.78
Savings  81.10%

GROCERY OUTLET
OOP  $68.80
Value  $184.29
Savings  62.67%

OLLIE'S
OOP  $2.32
Value  $6.56
Savings  64.63%

RITE-AID
OOP  $0.00
Qs/Ads/BC  $793.69
Value  $793.69
Savings  100%

SHURSAVE MARKET
OOP  $1.98
Value  $3.98
Savings  50.25 %

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $252.82

Qs/Ads  $1134.88

Value  $1387.70

Savings  81.78%

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My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Rite-Aid at 100%, Weis at 81.78% and the Bread Outlet at 81.10%.  My worst savings rate was at Aldi at 41.48%.
Over 40% being the worst is a-ok with me! ;-)

I shopped at 8 different stores this past month.  

TOTAL Out of Pocket for December..........$364.82

TOTAL Coupons/Store Sales............$528.70

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased.........$893.52

TOTAL Savings of ................................59.17%

TOTAL Out of Pocket for December.....$364.82
TOTAL Coupons/Store Sales....$1322.39
TOTAL Value of Items Purchased w/Rite-Aid.....$1687.21
TOTAL Savings with Rite-Aid items........78.38%

This closes out the December food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....
I wanted to stay as far under my $400 budget in December as possible.  Under $300 was what I shot for but it wasn't to be(not with the deals I saw and took advantage of). ;-)  But we were still $35+/- under $400 so I'm happy with that.

The monthly food spending savings percentage went up by 1.82% in December 2018 to 78.38% compared to November's 80.20% savings average.

With 12 months accounted for, I have spent a Grand Total of $5111.85 on food/toiletries in 2018.

Add in the Rebates/Refunds Kitty of $754.76 to offset my food budget and my Grand Total for the Year goes down to $4357.09 spent on all food and toiletries in 2018.

2018 Yearly Total Spent...................$4357.09

2018 Yearly Total Value of Items...$20339.95

2018 Total Saved.............................$15982.88

2018 Yearly Savings Total of.............78.58%

The average per month amount spent is $363.09 in 2018.  It's under an average of $400 per month which thrills me to no end.  8-)))

LOOKING AHEAD To 2019.......

We'll be taking advantage of all the shopping strategies we do every year.  Midway through 2019 my daughter will be moving out after finishing her college degree so the food bill should go down some.  We'll see at that point how low we can get our food spending with only 3 adults living in the house.
Stay tuned to this Bat Channel to see how 2019 unfolds.....

If you have other ideas or guidelines you follow please leave a comment and share yours with us all.

*  How much did you spend on food/toiletries in December?

*  Do you track your yearly food spending?

*  What was your savings percentage buying on sale and/or with coupons vs. buying at regular retail price last month, if you track that sort of thing?

*  What are your methods for keeping your food spending in check?

Is anyone out there up for tracking expenditures and trying to spend less but still eat well?


Sluggy

$20K Savings Challenge.....December Update & GRAND TOTAL for 2013

In our family we save money. It is important to us to put money aside for "rainy days".  You know.....those unexpected days when things happen in your life that you can't plan on, but that DO happen and they cost you money you didn't know you'd need to pay out.

Our income is mainly the salary my Hubs draws from his job.  We have money taken off each paycheck from the top to put into savings, before we even get our hands on it.  This money that's taken goes into various pots....life insurance, health insurance premiums, long term care insurance premiums, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings.
Once the automatic savings, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision payments are taken out, it leaves what we get to "live on".  From this amount we budget for bills, both monthly and irregular bills(semi-annual, etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into a Savings Challenge. 

For 2013 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am going to keep the Goal amount at $20,000 again this year.

On to the December report.....

I have posted my December End of Month $20K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog for the specific numbers.

I have 2 goals each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $1,666.67.
But seeing as I hit the $20K goal in October, we'll just see how much more I can sock away in December.

I have to report that we finished up December with a little pile of cash to tuck away.
The extra cash amount we ended the month of December with?.......$1,281.68.

Income
We had $1,157.18 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in December totaled $124.50.  This brought us to our gain of $1281.68 for December.

Outgo

As for the expenses this December, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  Cable, Phone, Water were all approx. the same amounts as in November.

*  I spent under $300 for food/toiletries in December.  (This almost makes up for overshooting that budget by $180 last month).
*  I didn't buy any living room furniture yet so no spending there. 

 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  $310 more was spent in cash over November's total of cash spending.  I blame Hubs paying cash for Christmas stuff.

*  The electric bill was $100 MORE than November's bill.  I blame the cold weather/turning the heat up.

*  We had unexpected pet related spending of $104 due to the dog having ear infections.
*  The credit card bill was almost $500 MORE than November's bill. I blame Christmas again.

 

The Food Budget costs for December are in another post, which is located HERE.

The 2013 GRAND TOTAL.....
With all 12 months accounted for, our Savings Grand Total for 2013 is $24,033.60. 
 

We surpassed our goal by $4,033.60!  8-)))
 

Looking ahead for January and all of 2014......

*  I will continue to do this Savings Challenge and report in each month on how it is going.
 

*  I need to sit down with Hubs and have our Yearly Financial Meeting to go over how and what we spent on in 2013 and see where we need to cut back, change or expand the spending for 2014.  We'll break down the monthly spending and analyze how we did financially in each category.  Then we'll look ahead into 2014 and try to anticipate where we'll need to put our money toward and how much we can hope to save.

*  Figure out how much of the money saved in the year before's 2012 Savings Challenge didn't get spent in 2013, so it can now be tucked away permanently into a savings/investment instrument.  Going forward into 2014, any funds saved in 2013's Savings Challenge now become our mini-emergency fund for 2014.  Any emergencies that can't be paid for using extra income each month after the bills are all paid will be paid for out of this $24,033.60 Savings Fund.(Then when 2015 rolls around whatever was saved in 2013 and not spent on emergencies/extras in 2014 gets tucked away permanently into savings.)

*  January credit card bill will once again be large like December's(due to Christmas and travel expenses)but will be paid off this month.  No interest paid evah! ;-)

*  The quarterly garbage bill is due this month.

*  Semi-annual car insurance will be due in February so I need to keep an eye on credit card spending in January so we don't have to dip into the Savings Challenge funds to pay the insurance.  It's just a matter of watching WHEN we spent not so much NOT spending on something.

 

So how was your December financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in December?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out your progress too and celebrate with you!

Sluggy

My Big Fat Greek, er....I Mean My Big Fat Rite-Aid Chart for 2010

This year I kept meticulous track of all my Rite-Aid spending.
Not so much in 2009.  I just didn't take the time to keep track as I went along last year so I made an extra effort to succeed at this task in 2010.
I sat down earlier today and tallied up all my monthly numbers to make a list of a whole year of Rite-Aid shopping-from the Jan. 2010 SCR Period to the Dec. 2010 SCR Period.
12 months of Rite-Aid purchases.

Two hours later I had a big honking chart. lol

Looking at this I can see that I started off the year with a goal of receiving a larger SCR check than cash I spent OOP to get to that rebate check.  Man, I sure thought that was great!

But as I earned free gift cards, I shifted the OOP spending onto those cards instead, which gave me less OOP spending, while still growing the rebate checks.  By mid-year(except for Aug. when I didn't have a gift card with me while on vacation), I had no OOP spending due to a combination of gift cards and +Up Rewards to use in payment.

Here are the particulars.....


JANUARY
Number of Trips....31
Amount Spent....$70.20 cash
Value of  Items....$992.07
SCRebates....$78.48
Other Rebates....$91.23
Gift Cards....$55.00

FEBRUARY
Number of Trips....26

Amount Spent....$41.94 put on free gift card/$39.85 cash
Value of  Items....$961.83
SCRebates....$77.98
Other Rebates....$30.00
Gift Cards...$10.00

MARCH
Number of Trips....23

Amount Spent....$40.89 put on free gift card/$4.67 cash
Value of  Items....$908.11
SCRebates....$131.68
Other Rebates....$0.00
Gift Cards....$20.00

APRIL
Number of Trips....6

Amount Spent....$6.89 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$158.21
SCRebates....$8.00
Other Rebates....$0.00
Gift Cards....$25.00

MAY
Number of Trips....12

Amount Spent....$21.27 put on free gift card/$.35 cash
Value of  Items....$408.04
SCRebates....$33.00
Other Rebates....$0.00
Gift Cards....$90.00

JUNE
Number of Trips....16

Amount Spent....$46.87 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$672.21
SCRebates....$59.98
Other Rebates....$15.00
Gift Cards....$35.00/Other Gift Cards....$25.00

JULY
Number of Trips....18

Amount Spent....$28.58 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$669.87
SCRebates....$35.98
Other Rebates....$29.27
Gift Cards....$30.00

AUGUST
Number of Trips.....5

Amount Spent....$41.96 put on free gift card/$8.99 cash
Value of  Items....$186.67
SCRebates....$23.99
Other Rebates....$0.00
Gift Cards....$0.00

SEPTEMBER
Number of Trips....14

Amount Spent....$20.80 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$579.66
SCRebates....$16.00
Other Rebates....$0.00
Gift Cards....$15.00

OCTOBER
Number of Trips....16

Amount Spent....$5.70 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$725.56
SCRebates....$53.90
Other Rebates....$11.98
Gift Cards....$0.00

NOVEMBER
Number of Trips....39

Amount Spent....$26.30 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$1,843.52
SCRebates....$59.98
Other Rebates.....$31.99
Gift Cards....$0.00

DECEMBER
Number of Trips....41

Amount Spent....$19.31 put on free gift card
Value of  Items....$1,633.18
SCRebates....$32.00
Other Rebates....$0.00 
Gift Cards....$40.00

YEARLY TOTAL
Number of Trips....247
Amount Spent....$441.29--$124.21 in Cash OOP, $317.08 put on free gift cards
Value of  Items....$9,738.93
SCRebates....$610.97
Other Rebates....$209.47
Gift Cards....$345.00
Savings Percentage of.....98.72%

 I spent $124.21 cash money and received $9.738.93 in products, $820.44 in cash rebates and $345.00 in gift cards.
I also received $475.50 in +Up Rewards, spent $364.00 of them for a net gain of $111.50 +Up Rewards to carryover into 2011.


Here's to more great savings in 2011, for all of us!!


Sluggy