>>A totally unrelated question- when you write how much you spend on your food budget each month, I know you’re able to do that because you travel far to get things. I know you mentioned how even with the traveling time and the gas it is worth it financially because of all the savings you get, but i’m just curious, if you included the gas for those trips, how much would your “food and going to buy the food” budget be?<<

I’m answering this as a post because there’s a misconception here that I think other people might also have.  That misconception is that my budget stays low because I travel far to get things.  This is accurate only to a small degree.  I’ve shared about the possibilities involved in saving money by looking for grocery discount stores as one of a number of frugal strategies I’ve mentioned; staying within a budget requires more strategies than one, and this wouldn’t even be my primary one.

So I’m going to clear this misconception up right now, because otherwise some of you will be thinking you can’t keep your budget down because you don’t/can’t/won’t travel to do your shopping!  There are many, many ways to save, and most of them will be useful to most people – I don’t want anyone giving up because they pick out a little detail that doesn’t fit them.

My food budget is firm and always has been, regardless of where I shop.  I don’t stick to it because I can get great deals somewhere, I find great deals so I can stick to it!  Do you see the difference?

About four years ago I started traveling two hours away once in a while in order to buy raw milk, which I can’t get in my state because raw milk sales are illegal.  (At that time, though gas was high, my fuel costs were inconsequential since we had converted a van to run on waste vegetable oil – we sold this almost three years ago, though.)  In order to maximize my time, I eventually began looking for shopping in the area of where I buy my milk that I could do, and after a couple of years it evolved into the way I shop now.

I’ve been blogging for over three years and sharing ways I stay within a budget.  It wasn’t until less than two years ago that I started shopping monthly for the bulk of our food, so clearly this couldn’t have been my main strategy.  Now that I’ve been doing it so long and it’s part of my routine, I probably would continue doing it even if I wasn’t getting the milk; I find monthly shopping very efficient in terms of time, energy, and money.  But I’d still keep an eye on the expenses and savings involved to be sure it continued to be worthwhile.  I doubt I’d go more often than every 2 -3 months.

I use 15 gallons of gas to do my ‘monthly’ shopping.  This is usually done every 5 – 7 weeks, never more frequently than once a month.  With gas currently at 2.50 a gallon, it costs me 37.50 for about every month and a half, which works out to a little over $6 a week.  So it would add another $24 per month to my food costs.  I have a monthly gas budget of $200, and this expense is budgeted for in that category.  When gas was up to $4 a gallon, I went about every 7 – 8 weeks instead, to keep the gas costs in check.

I also have to remind you that though I say that I spend $600 a month, it’s technically less than that since most of the staples I buy last for at least 5 – 6 weeks.  So if I were going to be really accurate, I’d have to say I spend about $450 monthly, with another $24 in gas costs.  But I budget $600 a month and whether I manage to buy  a month’s worth of food with that or enough to last a bit longer, it’s still the same monthly amount that I’m spending.  (Anyway, it’s hard enough for people to believe that I can spend $600 on a family of eleven with a bunch of adult portion eaters without starving everyone; I can just imagine the disbelief a smaller number would engender! :))

As you see, I have taken into account what the travel expenses are and determined that for my needs, it’s worthwhile.  But here’s something I often wonder about when getting questions like yours.  How many people have figured out how much they spend on gas by going shopping every day, or even more than once a day?  How much are they spending by going to several stores every week and buying the loss leaders?  How many people consider how much they spend running around to three different drug stores to use their coupons to buy things they don’t need or want to ‘save’ money?  I know that most people would mentally write off those gas costs without thinking of them as part of daily living, but it’s likely they’re not spending much less! (Most of my driving is highway driving, so it’s very gas efficient.  Lots of small trips in town use more gas because of the stop and go nature of driving locally.)  And how much time are they spending?

I have absolutely no criticism of that approach, since until I started buying raw milk I used to hit three local supermarkets weekly to stock up on the loss leaders. But the above questions regarding gas costs and time/energy output are relevant for everyone consider when determining what their true costs are.

By the way, I integrate outings for my kids into my monthly shopping; I usually I make at least one special stop for them (last time I made two, one in the beginning of the day and one at the end).  I’ve taken them to parks, a chocolate factory, a potato chip factory, a motorcycle factory, a dairy, and a living history museum.  This is another way I maximize my gas expenses; spending the money to go to each of these places on their own would be cost prohibitive, but we can enjoy it as a ‘freebie’.

Avivah