My family has happily settled into a monthly grocery shopping routine. We prefer this method because we’ve found that it saves us time and money.

When we first began our adventure into once a month grocery shopping, I took so much delight in seeing just how low I could get that total to be each month. Then I would proudly pat myself on the back for feeding our family of 6 for $130/month. Except the funny thing is, it never really worked out like that. We’d run out of coffee in 4 days, then potatoes 2 days later, butter, eggs, crackers, oatmeal and flour 5 days after that. I had all of our dinners planned out before shopping, so I typically didn’t run out of that stuff. But for some reason, my family likes to eat 3 times a day, with a snack thrown in here and there for good measure.

When my husband finally questioned me about why he was always having to stop at the store on his way home, I really took a look at things with a new perspective. As good as it sounded, I was not even near to spending only $130/month. When each little trip was added to that grand total, the total more than tripled! By attempting to spend so little that first trip I was actually spending way more than I wanted to throughout the month. I knew we needed to come up with a new plan.

Since then, I’ve found that upping my monthly grocery budget to save money really works for me. When I approach the shopping with the thought that I need to buy enough to last us through the month, and that I can spend up $300 on that trip, I don’t run out of anything except dairy and produce items. And those are already planned into the budget at another $50/month, bringing our total to $350. We have yet to go over that amount for a month, whereas before we would have been hovering around $375-400 for the month.

Photo by livinus.

Kate is a happy wife and stay at home(schooling) mom of 4. Her family strives to live a life of simplicity and frugality in order to give back and focus on what is truly important. Kate blogs at A Simple Walk, Cooking During Stolen Moments, and is one of the founding “3 Moms” of Happy To Be At Home.