Today is my Mom’s birthday, which means we are fast approaching the end of the year. I am already in the process of looking and working on a budget for 2016. I will do a final update and set new goals hopefully this week but today I want to focus on Food.

• Menu planning is still happening although I have not been posting the last couple of weeks have been about a couple of special meals and using up leftovers. This week we have already had a meal using meatballs my sister in law brought, tonight we made a roast and used some the sides we had left-over and tomorrow the plan is to use and make pork fried rice from leftover Christmas Eve shoulder. I am also adding some “convenient” meals to the freeze with the extra time we have this week.
• Our grocery spending for the month is close to $900 which is way over budget. I have been taking advantage of some sells and stocking up, in addition to some extra meals and appetizers.
• Our average monthly grocery spending for the year is at $691.59. I am totally amazed and excited for this number as it is under my $700 a month that I started in July.
• I have been looking into some “average” numbers for grocery spending for our size family a “thrifty” plan is $770 and a “Low” plan is $1028 per month.
• After finding these numbers I am very comfortable with maintaining our grocery spending to $700 a month. I am going to continue to focus on each month but not beat myself up for spending over now that I know it averages out within the year!
• I was also able to find that the “average” family spends about $200 a month on eating out. In the past, I have not budgeted anything for eating out but this will become a regular expense in the year 2016.
• We are starting the year with lots of meat in the freezer. I have already paid for 80# of pork that Matt will pick up the first week of January. We also just recently purchased chicken and a large order of ground beef. I am hopefully to not purchase any additional meat until March.
• Our garden this year did well and we have been enjoying a variety of things. We have enlarged the garden to it’s capacity and hopefully will be able to multiply our freezing stock for the year.
• I did not even attempt to lose weight with our trip to Disney and the holidays so I will back on track with eating healthier again in January.
• Total random thought but at least it is food related. I just received in the mail a total of 6 free 12 packs expiring March 31. I will hold on till CVS offers ECBs or I just need them.