How to come up with a Food Budget

Like most people, a large portion of your salary is probably spent on food each money. Maybe because you eat out a lot, have a large family, or the most common reason- you do not have a budget.

Today I will teach you the exact steps to take to successfully come up with a food budget that you can stick to for a long time.

But before you get started, there are two important factors in creating a food budget.

1. You must be the person in charge of your food shopping
2. Your food budget should not include any other consumables but know that you can use these same steps to come up with any budget you wish.

Now let us get started 😊

1

Set a Target Amount

Generally, if you wish to create a budget for a reccuring expense, it is because you think you are spending too much and wish to cut back. Other times, it is simply to be aware of how much you are spending in a specific area of your life.

Make a note of how much you wish to spend on food each month.

The next few steps will bring clarity to how much you currently spend so that you can make adjustments to get to your targeted amount.

2

Collect all your Food Receipts in an Envelop

You will not be starting off with the targeted amount right away because first, you need to have a clear idea of how much you are currently spending on food.

For this exercise, you can choose to collect receipts for a week if you do the weekly shopping, but we will use monthly shopping to explain the steps throughout this article.

Take an envelope and for every time you spend money on food, add the receipts to this envelope.

Whether you purchase food at a restaurant, a corner store, a random gas station, add all the receipts to the envelope.

Your food budget should be opened to the occasional impulsive food purchases.

If you are someone that does all-in-one purchases for the month, that is, you go to Walmart and buy baby items, clothes, pet items, and food, aim to pay separately for your food items so that you are not adding pet items or toiletries onto the receipt you are trying to save this month.

You want to have a strict sense of how much you spend on food only, so that you can come up with a proper food budget.

If you would like, you can use this step to also determine the amounts for a pet budget or self-care budget and pool all the money together to take with you when you go shopping. However, for now, we are thinking of a food budget.

If you are like me and you split your bills with your partner, then go ahead and still add all the receipts to an envelope. Then you can split the total in 2 to have an approximate amount of how much you spend on food. This way you will not only be budgeting for you but for them as well.

Unlike rent, the cost of food each month varies. Therefore, if you are someone that splits the bill with others, it is not realistic to create a personal budget for categories where the total varies.

3

Add up the Total on all your receipts

After filling up the envelope with food receipts over the past month, it is now time to whip out your calculator and start adding up the total for all the receipts.

The total might shock you but that is good.

That might just be the cue you need to start taking this budgeting thing more seriously. You might even get curious about how much you spend in other areas and start budgeting for that too.

Anyway, once you have your total, you now have your food budget for the next month.

But it does not end here.

5

Getting to your Target amount for your Food Budget

With your target amount in mind for how much you want to limit yourself to spending each month on food, start to cut back on the amount you are currently spending.

Do this slowly.

By taking $10 to $20 off your current budget each month, you will eventually get to that target amount.

Taking the time to slowly cut back on your spending can bring into perspective how much unnecessary food items you tend to purchase.

Instead of spending that extra $10 to $20, you now must make the choice to give up a few items to save that money instead.

However, if you are concern about sacrificing food items to save money, there are other ways that you can begin shopping for food on a budget.

In an article called, Eating Healthy on a Budgeting, I go over 5 tips that will help you to save money on your next food shopping trip.

Check out that post to learn more about how you can quickly get to the amount you have in mind for your food budget.

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