YNAB You Need A Budget

[MALMomma]

A friend on the Grocery Game message board posted a thread asking if people budget their budget. It was a great thread and inspired me to try something new. Sure, I budget my grocery spending in total, but I never broke it down. I wanted to give it a shot and see if that helped me keep within my budget overall. So far, so good. I'm actually more aware of what I'm spending our grocery money on!

Here's my breakdown - the left amount is what I've spent so far & the right amount is total budget for that sub-category. I have a $400 budget for everything - food, health & beauty, dog food, diapers, cleaning supplies, etc. On a 4 week month, that's $100 per week (so divide the budget total for a category by 4 to get my weekly budget). I went over my weekly budget on Meat and Investing, but I barely had anything for dinners and picked up inexpensive ground turkey at a local store and chicken tenderloins at BJ's (the big cost, as it was a 4lb pack). Investing, I only went over because I HAD to buy flour - I bake our bread, so flour is a true need. (I am a little snobby when it comes to my flour and only buy King Arthur brand. It's just better in so many ways, so I use what I love. It's cheap at BJ's at $5.79 for 10lb bag.)

May Grocery Budget Challenge:

Deli: $11.32 / $60.00
Dairy/OJ: $21.75 / $100.00
Produce: $15.79 / $100.00
Meat: $15.96 / $40.00
Dog Food: $0.00 / $40.00
Investing: $23.22 / $60.00

TOTALS: $88.04 / $400.00
REMAINING: $311.96

[rollercoaster]

At this point in time, I have a hard enough time wrapping my head around a grocery budget, so I don't budget my budget yet. I still hate meal planning, grocery shopping and clean up. I don't mind cooking...if someone else told me what I was cooking and purchased all the supplies for me.

Just a question though, why do you call it "investing" instead of "staples" or something like that?

[MALMomma]

Teri, founder of the Grocery Game, uses the word investing. I picked up on it and use it because I view it the same way - I'm investing in food at the best cost for my dollar for future use. Others simply call it stockpiling.

[malisab]

I mentioned in my journal that I'm going to track my grocery category this month. I wouldn't begin to know how to budget it. I'm concerned about how much of our "grocery money" is going for snacks, adult beverages, and other frivolities. Basically, how much is non-essential and how much is essential. I also lump my health and beauty and cleaning stuff in here. Pets get their own category. They're much more predictable in terms of food and supplies.

I'm tracking it on a spreadsheet for the month. I'll decide from here whether I want to split it out and track it in separate categories going forward after May. It may just be a month or two of watching it and 'seeing what it does'. Or I may decide that I want/need to budget for separate parts of the grocery category. We'll see.

Just got back from the store. Now I get to dice up the receipt.

[Trevor]

I'm not quite ready to budget within a budget yet, but I've always been impressed by the receipts from my grocery store. Stop and Shop prints the receipt after all the transactions have been rung up and it groups them by category. The only downside is that it lumps a lot of things including pet food into "Grocery Other" but it does sort alphabetically within each catgegory, so items are easier to find.

Even though I don't budget the budget, I do use splits for things like pet food because I prefer that to be under my Pet Care category and not groceries. Now that I am thinking about it, I do so many splits at the grocery store that I am practically budgeting that budget.

I'm going to be watching your thread to see how well this approach works for you.

[jjsouth]

My individual grocery categories are:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Baby
Cat
Toiletries
Snacks

It's nice to have a basic idea of how much I spend on each section during a month. I should consider a stockpiling section... I'd have to reduce something else, but usually I put the stockpiling in the category for which it will be used... hmmm... good thread. Gives me more to think about.

Joyce

[lang510]

If I had to keep track of the subcategories, it would drive me nuts. That is just too much work.

Here's the problem I see with keeping track of everything in detail. I am a big time couponer and use the Grocery Game for a couple of stores. If you do it right and when there is a sale, you stock up on that item. Therefore, I might buy 10 bottle of juice if it is buy one get one free which will last me about three months. If an item is seasonal like barbecue sauce, I try to buy enough of my favorite brand to last a year. So in order to really get a good picture of what you want to see, you might have to track your details for 6-12 months and take an average.

Personally, I would just take your budget and divide it by 4 and keep a mental note what you are allowed to spend each week. If you spend more, try to cut down the next couple of weeks. I have found that since I have been with the Grocery Game, that I have been more open to try different foods/papergoods which are less expensive. This has made a huge difference in my budget. I am actually buying more fruit now than I did a year ago but only purchasing what is on sale. Everyone knows in my family that if it isn't on sale, I won't get it (at least 80% of the time). Another thing, there are categories that you would not cut down on like toilet paper, milk, napkins, etc. The trick with these items, is finding a good sale and/or trying less expensive brands.

I do, however, keep a separate category for my husband's lunch so I can nag him if he goes over budget

This is just my opinion and it might not be right for you. As I have been told many times on this forum, do what is best for you. What works for me, might not work for you.

[CoderMom]

I'm doing something a little different with the grocery and eating out budgets this month. It isn't quite the same as your example but I am doing it in hopes of not overrunning these categories every month and having the last week of the month be so tight.

I made a holding category for both grocery and eating out and am only moving over the amt for each week when the week arrives. Also, my grocery budget is very loose and covers pet food and cleaning supplies as well. Here is how it looks with $600/month for groceries and $150/month for eating out...

Groceries: $150
Eating out: $37.50
Grocery holding: $450
Eating out holding: $112.50

This is working so far because I don't see a big number and buy a lot at the start of the month. I'll have to see how it works long-term

[YYC27]

I separate out grocery store purchases by food, health & beauty, cleaning supplies and pet supplies. I could delve further into food with meat, produce, junky food, etc., but I haven't seen much of a need for that.

I'm considering splitting off a certain amount to set aside for stock-ups at Costco and the tea shop. Both are irregular, but large relative to normal grocery shopping, when they come up. I would just budget part of my regular grocery budget there every pay. When I make the big purchases, I'd still charge it to the regular categories, but I'd transfer the amount out of the savings category to cover it. The idea would be to make it easier to know when I can safely harvest money out of the food category, or whatever, without worrying that it'll be too low when I need to do a Costco run.

[woodnboats]

The only value I can see to breaking down a food budget to this extent would be if you had categories designed to show alternatives for comparison. For example, I have a Restaurant category as well as Grocery so that I can compare the two. They both represent food we need to eat, of course, but when we see that two take-out nights a month represents nearly 20% of our total Food budget, it makes us pause and think about it before spending.
The same might apply to prepared foods vs. ingredients.

Kirk

[MALMomma]

If I had to keep track of the subcategories, it would drive me nuts. That is just too much work.

Here's the problem I see with keeping track of everything in detail. I am a big time couponer and use the Grocery Game for a couple of stores. If you do it right and when there is a sale, you stock up on that item. Therefore, I might buy 10 bottle of juice if it is buy one get one free which will last me about three months. If an item is seasonal like barbecue sauce, I try to buy enough of my favorite brand to last a year. So in order to really get a good picture of what you want to see, you might have to track your details for 6-12 months and take an average.

Personally, I would just take your budget and divide it by 4 and keep a mental note what you are allowed to spend each week. If you spend more, try to cut down the next couple of weeks. I have found that since I have been with the Grocery Game, that I have been more open to try different foods/papergoods which are less expensive. This has made a huge difference in my budget. I am actually buying more fruit now than I did a year ago but only purchasing what is on sale. Everyone knows in my family that if it isn't on sale, I won't get it (at least 80% of the time). Another thing, there are categories that you would not cut down on like toilet paper, milk, napkins, etc. The trick with these items, is finding a good sale and/or trying less expensive brands.

I do, however, keep a separate category for my husband's lunch so I can nag him if he goes over budget

This is just my opinion and it might not be right for you. As I have been told many times on this forum, do what is best for you. What works for me, might not work for you.

I've been a Grocery Gamer for 6.5 years now. I've done a straight out monthly budget since using YNAB back in Aug 2008, but I really wanted more detail & better control of WHAT I was buying. This method is perfect for me and really isn't a lot more work. A couple minutes extra each week to break it down in my spreadsheet.

The only value I can see to breaking down a food budget to this extent would be if you had categories designed to show alternatives for comparison.

The value, for me, is an awareness of essential category spending vs non-essential spending. And, like I said above, better control over what I buy.

Joyce, glad I've given you some "food for thought"! I know, I know... that was SUCH a bad joke.

As far as the budget's budget goes... At this point, I've decided that my essentials will remain a weekly budget. But meats, dog food and investing are monthly budgets. In the end, it all ends up being monthly, but I like knowing what I have to spend on essentials each week.

[MALMomma]

Oh, and I'm not sure if I said this already, but in YNAB, it is JUST a "Groceries" category. I do the breakdown in OpenOffice.

[CoderMom]

Well, I tried splitting up my grocery and eat out money so I only see 1 wk at a time. The week ends tomorrow and here are the results:

Groceries: $21.76 still in the fund - I don't think I've ever under-spent on groceries so that is pretty cool
Eat out: $-.71 - We overspent by 71 cents which is A-OK in my book.

I think I'll keep this up so we can avoid what has happened for the last few months where we overrun groceries by approx $200 and eat out by approx $100. It isn't that the budget is too small because I have tried increasing it and we still overrun it every time. I think it is the cycle of "woohoo tons of money" at the beginning of the month after stressing at the end of the previous month because we woohoo'd at the beginning of that month. So the cycle seems to be woohoo, ugh, woohoo, ugh

[ckuptime]

I think I'll keep this up so we can avoid what has happened for the last few months where we overrun groceries by approx $200 and eat out by approx $100. It isn't that the budget is too small because I have tried increasing it and we still overrun it every time. I think it is the cycle of "woohoo tons of money" at the beginning of the month after stressing at the end of the previous month because we woohoo'd at the beginning of that month. So the cycle seems to be woohoo, ugh, woohoo, ugh

That is sooo true. That just happened to me at the beginning of this month with stressing over last month, then spend spend spend! LOL

[MALMomma]

haha Codermom! Too true!!!!!

Ok, here's my update... I spent $100.33 this week - $.33 over the $100 a week budget, but within budget overall. I also EARNED money today on two deals at a store I love, so hey, life is GOOD!!

May Grocery Budget Challenge:

Deli: $11.32 / $60.00
Dairy/OJ: $53.35 / $100.00
Produce: $38.63 / $100.00
Meat: $31.33 / $40.00
Dog Food: $0.00 / $40.00
Investing: $53.74 / $60.00

TOTALS: $188.37 / $400.00
REMAINING: $211.63