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Old 11-17-2012, 12:47 PM   #15
laj
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I keep track of mine on quicken. When i get home that night it all gets put on rather from going ou to eat or from the grocery store. Every thing has a category , fruits, vegetables, cleaning supplies, and general household:
Soap dish soap , laundry detergent all go into general. Pretty much i don't shop in the processes sections of the store. Just one example if i were to buy a package of ready made hash browns in the frozen section 1 lb will cost you about 3.95 and good for about 6 servings. 10 lbs potatoes, 1.98 good for about 25 servings, but I do buy range free organic eggs and a few other things. Jmho
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Old 11-17-2012, 01:11 PM   #16
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3) I do find it interesting that some people find our monthly grocery & restaurant expenses to be over-the-top....however... The monthly average (excluding the dogs) is $1,265 divide by 31 days = $40 / 2 people = $20p/day/person.

Honestly....how many of you are calculating breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks (in & out) and coming-up with a figure less than $20?
I wholeheartedly agree with these thoughts. Even when we were young and dirt poor, we always seemed to spend more for "groceries" than others would boast about. Now that we do not have to be compulsively frugal and basically buy what we want when we want it, I am still amazed whenever these budgetary discussions come up and people talk about eating for next to nothing. DW and I once even looked at these budget diets and, quite honestly, neither of us would be interested in trying to adjust our eating habits to them.

I happen to enjoy eating and I am sure our food expenditures show that. I once visited a dietary consultant when my doctor asked me to. After a couple of meetings with her I finally had to ask if she ever met a meal she liked. Her answer, and I was surprised at her honesty, was that she looked upon food as a necessary chore to sustain a body and not something to enjoy. Needless to say, we did not continue meeting.

But, hey, viva la difference.
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Old 11-17-2012, 01:19 PM   #17
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About a year ago we started tracking all expenditures and found that we were spending way too much on everything. The food area was the highest one. Since neither of us eat breakfast this was a surprise.

I'm a trained chef and love to cook but we are not big eaters. We decided to make a menu for each week and buy most food at local farmer markets and local stores buying only for the week. This gives us fresh food at a lower cost.

I now make dishes for dinner that will have left overs and we can get 2 meals out of one cook. Fresh shrimp with white wine garlic & lemon sauce on pasta or rice will cost us around $14 with a salad and will make 2 meals for 2. (and 4 glasses of wine)

2 lbs of ground beef and a head of cabbage makes pigs in a blanket and along with potato pancakes and a small salad makes a 2 meals for 2.

I got lucky because when we go out to eat the DW always complains the food isn't as good as mine. LOL

We have cut our food costs in half this way and still eat good. We now spend an average of $400 a month on food for the 2 of us which includes everything edible.
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Old 11-17-2012, 01:41 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack1234 View Post
A couple of observations...

1) I wonder how many people really know & track their actual grocery & restaurant expenses. We have a budget "app" on our iPhone and absolutely everything is recorded and instantly tabulated. For us there is no guesswork about how much we spend on groceries, restaurant meals, coffee at the gas station, the occasional blizzard at DQ, the water & soft drink from the cart girl on the golf course, etc.

2) We probably could lay-off the "organic" fruits & veggies, the free range hormone free chicken, those over-priced cappuccinos at Starbucks...but life is short & good .... So we're kinda interested in staying around a bit longer than average & enjoying the ride.


3) I do find it interesting that some people find our monthly grocery & restaurant expenses to be over-the-top....however... The monthly average (excluding the dogs) is $1,265 divide by 31 days = $40 / 2 people = $20p/day/person.

Honestly....how many of you are calculating breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks (in & out) and coming-up with a figure less than $20?

Pardon my arrogance, but I have a harder time understanding how you can feed and/or survive on a monthly average of $135 or about $4.50p/day....can someone explain to me how you can eat breakfast, lunch & dinner at around $1.50 per meal!

What happens when you need laundry, hand, bath soap, how about shampoo, paper towels, TP, coffee filters,etc.

4) I'd wager a hormone free thanksgiving turkey dinner with organic cranberries that our $1,250 monthly average for groceries and restaurant meals is actually " below" what many of you are spending....you just don't know it or are afraid to track-it?

Anyway....just some observations and thoughts.
I like how you list everything. we (two of us) had breakfast at IHOP this morning and it was $21.64. That's half of your daily budget. Thanks for the info. We have not started to travel yet. New Coach, still getting it stocked with stuff.

This is good info to have.

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Old 11-17-2012, 04:27 PM   #19
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Wow, I just want to thank everyone for all their great comments. I recognize we are all different and have our own ways of doing things. I'm just trying to get a feel of where things were falling, budget wise, but I have already read a couple of things that sound delicious and have picked up a few tips to try on tracking stuff. One thing I'd like to contribute is that American Express has a program that gives up to 6% back on groceries, 3% on fuel, and 1% on everything else. I've been using that for about a year and I have about a half a month's bill worth of credit points. Please keep the comments coming.
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Old 11-17-2012, 07:02 PM   #20
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I believe you can try and set a budget, but until you settle into a way of life, you will not know what your expenses are. Just be prepared to spend a lot more than you thought initially, until you settle in a routine.
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Old 11-17-2012, 07:41 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by Davdeb1
I believe you can try and set a budget, but until you settle into a way of life, you will not know what your expenses are. Just be prepared to spend a lot more than you thought initially, until you settle in a routine.
We're not full time yet but planning on it. The OP indicated full time for 2+ years and was still curious about others. I suspect - but could be wrong - that you hit the nail on the head. Cost more than estimated. Not really important why the interest - but the variety of comments has been helpful for me.

When we first started planning we were going to keep the S&B but read so many stories of folks never going back that we decided we didn't want to carry a boat anchor with us.

Anyway - I took a years worth of expenses at home and broke them out by category in Excel. A budget if you will. Calculated the % of income going to each category - and then created an on the road budget column using 100% of at home expense rate against my retirement income.

When I put 0% in the S&B "only" columns my eyes bugged out. What had I been thinking - we don't really want to retire here anyway. Once the job is out of the way - our family isn't here even now - what a great opportunity to look for a place to retire if we want to - or just keep going.

The decision to go sans S&B opened up a whole new world of retirement thinking. Is it a mountain cabin with southern RV winters. Beach bungalow with mountain get away when we want. A deeded RV pad and casita. Holy cow. Who knew retirement was so much work?

I would suggest putting such a spreadsheet together and then playing with the percents to each category. I feel like the expense rate is at least as informative as the nominal dollar amount. For instance, if $1,200 for food/month is 1% of monthly income, you're eating cheap. If it's 40% you may want to look into extreme couponing.

Can't wait to get out there with you.
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Old 11-17-2012, 08:43 PM   #22
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Honestly....how many of you are calculating breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks (in & out) and coming-up with a figure less than $20?

Pardon my arrogance, but I have a harder time understanding how you can feed and/or survive on a monthly average of $135 or about $4.50p/day....can someone explain to me how you can eat breakfast, lunch & dinner at around $1.50 per meal!
On my $135 a month. Like I posted nothing other then food in that amount. NO candy, Pop, paper towels etc. This is by my Quicken

Today 11/17
Breakfast 1 egg 1 slice wheat bread, 1 small glass milk, then usually a couple hours later.
A bowl of shredded wheat with one banana cut up in it in and whole milk. Almost the same the other 6 days a week. Except I switch off with Corn Flakes every other day.

No lunch

Dinner 1/2 lb of Snow Crab Legs dipped in real butter.
A couple hours later a small piece of Blueberry pie with some ice cream on top. And a glass of milk.

Today may be more $ then week days. I only have the Snow Crab every Sat. Usually only have 2 meals a day.

I also use coupons buying grocery's at Walmart every week.

I made a pot of Chili Fri. night. With 1 box Hamburger Helper "Chili Macaroni", 1 lb hamburger, 1 can beans, 1/2 onion, 1 can diced tomatoes, 2 small cans tomato juice.

Had some for dinner Fri. and then put 6 more meals in the freezer. Probably will be less then $1 a meal. Helps make up for that $5.49 Snow Crab.
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Old 11-17-2012, 09:13 PM   #23
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There are always those that have costs that most of us find incredibly low. Usually when pressed you will find that there are things that they don't include, such as receiving things at a food bank, etc.

There is no right or wrong answer to such questions. What is extravagant to one is a necessity to others. For us it is good coffee and wine. We prefer coffee that isn't weak dishwater and enjoy visiting smaller unique wineries around the country and finding good bottles of wine - usually in the $20-$30 range though we do have some that were more and some that are less.

After 6 years of fulltiming we are averaging about $450 for groceries (which include paper products, cleaning supplies, etc) and around $350 for dining out. We do more breakfasts out than dinners and often will do a late lunch rather than dinner. We both have certain foods that are difficult for us to digest, so breakfast out is usually a better option for us.

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Old 11-17-2012, 09:29 PM   #24
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For us it is good coffee and wine. We prefer coffee that isn't weak dishwater and enjoy visiting smaller unique wineries around the country and finding good bottles of wine - usually in the $20-$30 range though we do have some that were more and some that are less.

Barb
X 2 - Especially the coffee but definitely the wine. Was reading a post earlier about how people pay for things - debit - credit - prepaid cards and remembered both DW and I have our own $100 prepaid Starbucks cards. Now I admit it's not the best coffee but people kept giving us cards for holidays and such so we started consolidating them and the next thing you know we were feeding them and ordering online in monthly quantities. When we travel we look for local shops and blends.

As for wine - make mine red. Medium to full body cabs - Pinots - Malbecs - I think coffee and wine are like the RV lifestyle - addictive and complement one another.

Nice to hear of a fellow traveler that puts a premium on them.
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Old 11-17-2012, 09:37 PM   #25
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The OP had asked about food and my response was directed at that. If we include all Walmart/grocery store purchases (including alcoholic beverages, detergents, etc) our expenditures, as recorded in Quicken, come out to ~$38/day or ~$1150/mo. Our restaurant meals expenditures have been running ~$300/mo, a bit more than I stated in my previous post.
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Old 11-17-2012, 09:55 PM   #26
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The OP had asked about food and my response was directed at that. If we include all Walmart/grocery store purchases (including alcoholic beverages, detergents, etc) our expenditures, as recorded in Quicken, come out to ~$38/day or ~$1150/mo. Our restaurant meals expenditures have been running ~$300/mo, a bit more than I stated in my previous post.
How do you get it to come out in even dollars?

I quit using quicken long ago. The import into Excel is quick easy but not something I do often. Different strokes. When you're dealing with variable expenses - they vary. Averages don't tell the story and depending on what comes my way - I have to adjust accordingly. I "live" some months better than others in the S&B and assume it will be the same on the road.
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Old 11-17-2012, 10:27 PM   #27
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To be clear on my comment of $350 for food in and $250 for eating out. These figures are just food, no paper products, cleaning, dog food, medicine,, nothing but food for us. It does include beverages.
I also track everything on my phone app.
Today for example we had cerial and toast for breakfast. We packed a lunch for our outings today, And we had leftover sweet potatoes, chicken dogs and cottage cheese for dinner. Far from fancy but good enough for us.
And don't get me wrong,, there are months that we do go over on the eating out. But not often on the eating in.
We know people that can spend large amounts of money each month for food however if we spent $1000 and more per month for food I'm afraid our fulltime RVing would be very limited sight seeing wise.
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Old 11-18-2012, 06:42 AM   #28
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I guess I'd like to clarify my original question after looking at all the responses. I think "consumables" which include food, paper products, etc. in other words stuff you buy at the store and throw in your shopping cart. Depending on the state this often can include beer, wine, and distilled products. But the answers and methods of tracking are great. Please keep them coming. I think we're all picking up some good tips.
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