Sunday, January 6, 2008

Disappointing Results in Food Spending for 2007

Sad, but true: I spent 26% more on food (groceries and dining out) in 2007 than in 2006. The one consolation is that I spent 5% less last year than in 2005 (which was an expensive year for me).

While I'm not sure of the exact reasons, my best guesses are:

1. Inflation - I have notices prices creeping up.
2. Being lazy - There were quite a few weeks in 2007 that I didn't go to the grocery store on my regular schedule which resulted in either eating out more or making a fast trip to grab whatever I could eat right away.
3. Not sticking to the spending plan - I know I ate out far more this past year than I should have.

I did save an average of 40% at the grocery store this year. (That includes whatever I bought, not just my food. My other numbers in this post are only food.) However, on 15% of my grocery trips I saved nothing at all! On a third of my grocery trips, I saved less than 25%. I can do better than that.

It's a new year! And I know what has happened in the past year. So, I'm going to work harder to keep my food expenses down and my savings up. I can do it!

Sphere: Related Content

2 comments:

Bryan said...

Hi Betsy,

Just wondering - what do you use to track your spending? I have MSMoney and have used it for several years, but have never done a year-to-year comparison. I typically just look at my month-to-month and yearly numbers. And I always archive at the start of a new year (making the past data inaccessible unless I reload it). I should probably keep it available for comparison.

Thanks - and keep up the great work on your blog!
-Bryan

Betsy said...

I used the MS Money report called "Spending by Category" to analyze my food spending that I mentioned in this post. If you want to archive your data, you can just download the numbers you want to have access to for annual comparison into Excel before archiving.