Unlike the restaurant experience, where you enjoy your decadence and then have to face the bottom line at the end, grocery shopping demands that you pay first and enjoy later. I appreciate the principle, though I can't say I'm fond of the bill.
As fuel prices have increased, so have our grocery bills, and while I do make an effort to look at prices in the grocery store, I couldn't remember the last time that I looked at the bill to see how much individual items cost and what their percentage of the total was. Tonight after another astronomical bill, I decided that it was time to figure out where our money is going. So here it is, grocery shopping 101.
Produce: 41%
This number didn't surprise me--we each eat about 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies each day, and we buy most of them fresh from the store. The surprise from this category was the $19.31 that I spent on cherries. Cherries! I did get two different kinds, but $20 on cherries is a tad over the top. Though they are heaven...I'm not sure if I have any regrets here.
Dairy: 25%
This number includes yogurt (our weekday breakfast) and milk--and that's it. I drink chocolate Lactaid milk with dinner every night. It's not cheap, but milk helps even my emotional keel. This is a small price to pay for maintaining equilibrium.
Meat: 8%
This category is just for deli meat--we buy our meat monthly from a local farm. We eat deli meat for our lunches, but this number seems unnecessarily high for such a small portion of our food intake. We might have to re-evaluate this one.
Grocery: 7%
This category is terribly undescriptive, but it includes juice (also an important part of my diet), fruit jars (in case we run out of fruit--it does happen, even when you spend $20 on cherries), and some soup packages that looked tasty (ok, their main appeal was their easiness factor, and I'm just hoping that they're slightly better than edible).
Natural foods: 6%
I couldn't resist the $6 all-natural, half-fruit cereal. If history is any indicator of the future, I will eat one bowl and leave the rest for B to mix into his daily plain yogurt. I also got delish-looking roasted red pepper salad dressing and organic tomato sauce (but only because they rearranged the grocery store and I couldn't find the pasta/sauce aisle).
Food bazaar: 6%
This section is near the deli. I got two kinds of cheeses--an enormous chunk of mozzarella (cheese tends to disappear when B is home alone, so I've learned to buy it in bulk) and an exotic-looking chive cheese from South America (I admit, an impulse purchase).
Frozen foods: 3%
This category is for ice cream and only ice cream. After last night's 500-calorie Chunky Monkey debacle, I had to replenish the stores. Good thing B doesn't travel all the time or I'd have to take up a real workout routine.
Deli: 2%
Sub rolls for our deli meats.
Prepared foods: 1%
I generally try to avoid prepared foods, but I'm still scared to make my own pizza dough, so I buy it pre-made (and I'm not convinced that mine would be any better or healthier, and it would certainly be more time consuming, so I'm a big fan of this convenience food).
Bakeshop: 1%
This is why I should not grocery shop alone. The carrot cake single serving was calling my name--I couldn't resist! The devil on my shoulder reminded me of the twelve-layer chocolate cake that B desserted on last night, and in the cake went to my cart. I intend to enjoy it thoroughly.
So that's the most recent grocery bill, and I suspect it's indicative of other bills (with the exception, I hope, of the $20 cherries). On the one hand, I'm not fond of the cost of those expensive fruits and veggies, but on the other hand, I'm proud that our highest expense is produce and not salty, preservative-laden boxed foods. I've come a long way from my Hamburger Helper days.
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