Even if you don’t consume a lot of news, it’s hard not to hear stories about inflation. And nowhere has this been more prevalent for most of us than in our monthly grocery bills. The supply chain issues which arose from the pandemic resulted in soaring inflation, peaking at 9.06% in June of 2022. And while the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index inflation rate of 2.6% for the 12 months ending in December of 2023 is a major reduction, many of us still see prices at the grocery store that haven’t come down for some items. There are a lot of reasons for this which would be a whole separate article so I won’t go into them here. Yet despite inflation and supply chain issues, we have found ways to save over $700 a month on groceries!
The Household Pulse Survey was created by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020 as a means to quickly collect and deploy data regarding how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected peoples lives. According to this data, the average family in the U.S. spends $1,170 per month on groceries. The number rises to $1,434 per month for families with kids. Which having raised a teenager I’m surprised that number isn’t higher! These were national averages, with some variances between states, with California taking the top statewide average at $1,287 per month and South Carolina at the bottom at $1,152 per month. I was surprised to see these numbers when I looked at my February expenses and found that we had spent just $393 on groceries for the whole month!
In 2022 my wife and I sold our house in Southern California and moved to Washington state to be closer to our son and his family. When it gets cold in the Pacific Northwest my wife and I hit the road in our RV. When it warms up, you’ll find us playing with our new grand baby in Vancouver. When we moved I stopped working, my wife wants me to be retired, I want to call it a break from work. I will probably lose that argument. However you classify it, we are living on a fixed income. Now at age 59 I’ve got a few years before I can start drawing from Social Security or other retirement accounts.
When we started our travels I set a budget for our spending. I went back through the last 10 years of our spending on groceries in my home accounting software. I found that in 2022, my last year in California, that my average monthly grocery spend was $392. Then something unexpected happened in 2023, my monthly grocery spend dropped to $333, a 15% decrease. I attributed that to three factors:
- Buying in Bulk – In 2022 it was just me and my wife. But living with the kids we were doing almost all the grocery shopping for them to help out. With 4 adults and a toddler, we went through things like milk, eggs and bread much faster. So were able to to buy larger quantities at a lower cost per ounce.
- Costco – When we lived in California we had a nearly 50/50 split between buying groceries at the grocery store vs. buying at Costco. This dropped to 40% grocery spend at Costco in 2023 but when we did, we would often shop at the Portland Costco where there was no sales tax. While groceries are not generally subject to sales tax, in many states pre-prepared food, such as frozen food, is taxed.
- Winco – This is a low-priced employee-owned supermarket found in 10 western and southwestern states. They don’t take credit cards, just cash and ATM cards. Prices here are lower than Walmart and Kroger on most items. And here too we would buy in larger quantities. 53% of our grocery spend in 2023 was at Winco. For example, on a recent trip to Winco in Phoenix I picked up one of our new favorite treats on the road, a pre-made fresh lasagna from Rana for $10.68. The last time I bought the same item at Walmart a few weeks ago it was $12.49. A 14% savings.
Creating a Budget
I accounted for my grocery spending separately from what we spent on the kids so that when I created our travel budget their spending would not skew the budget. I built the budget adding 10% to the 2022 number, and adjusted for inflation, to account for the way we would be shopping on the road. The final budgeted amount came to $450 a month. I knew that some of our groceries may cost more because of a couple of reasons. One being that the freezer in our RV is only 3 cubic feet so we can’t go to Costco any more and load up on frozen goodies in bulk. The other reason is that there will be times we’ll be traveling in remote areas where prices could be much higher than in urban areas.
The first 3 months on the road we averaged $432 per month, well within our budget of $450. Though each month it seemed to be getting steadily higher. Then in January 2024, our grocery spend ballooned to $536 despite not changing what we were eating. I attributed this to two things. First, we did a big shop close to the end of the month, and part of that spend will be used in February. But the major reason for the increase was that we were mostly shopping mostly at Walmart in January.
Walmart is Sometimes a Necessary Evil
In 2022 when we lived in California we did not have any grocery spend at Walmart. And in 2023 only 7%. But in January of 2024 we had 64% of our grocery spend going to Walmart. There were a couple of reasons for this. For starters, we were doing more remote camping that month and there are many places where we camp that Walmart is really your only viable option other than going to a dollar store, or a mom-and-pop country market where the prices are even higher. The other reason was convenience. Most grocery stores are located in neighborhood strip-centers, with extremely limited parking. Whereas Walmart Super Centers are located almost exclusively in large regional shopping centers with more than ample parking. If we are driving our RV from one remote camp to another it’s simply easier to shop at Walmart simply because of the ease of parking.
Achieving our $725 Monthly Savings
With the national average monthly spend for groceries being $1,170, and even with our increased costs for shopping at Walmart and in food deserts, our monthly spend of $536 for January was still a $634 savings. 54% lower than the national average. In February we returned to the Phoenix area where we had access to Winco, and our average monthly grocery spend dropped to $393, a $777 monthly savings over the national average. Even our $445 average in the 5 months we’ve been on the road is still $725 below the national average.
Where You Shop Matters
The term ‘food desert’ first appeared in the early 1990’s. It describes areas where residents have limited or no access to nutritious, affordable food. Living in Orange County, California, and then Vancouver, Washington, we never had a problem finding a supermarket. But on the road we have encountered many food deserts, mostly in small towns and rural areas. One such example was when we were camping at Maryhill State Park in Washington in October. We ran out of eggs and a few things, so we drove across the bridge to the town of Wasco to do a small shop. But the only ‘markets’ in the town were little convenience stores.
The nearest actual grocery store was 40 minutes away in The Dalles, Oregon. The convenience stores in Wasco, some which called themselves markets or mini-marts, had little or no fresh food. It was on the third store we stopped at that had a little milk, and 3 dozen eggs which were $5.99 per dozen. The current national average price for eggs is $2.09 and we usually paid about $2.59 in Vancouver. But it was cheaper than the gas to drive over an hour round trip so I happily paid the $5.99 so I could have scrambled eggs and sausage the next morning.
What You Eat Also Matters
In 1993 when I learned that I was going to be a dad my life changed in many ways, one was my diet. We were young and ate a lot of junk and drank soda. We bought the What To Expect When You’re Expecting books, both the mommy and daddy versions. Us old folks used to get parenting knowledge from books, not Tik Tok. And please, no one should be getting parenting advice on Tik Tok! The books said that mommy should go on a mommy diet, and it is easier for mommy to do it if daddy does it. So I did. We eliminated soda completely, got rid of the bread maker and bought a rice maker, reduced our portion sizes, ate more beans and vegetables, added sautéed onions and peppers to many dishes, and added a green salad to dinner. We also made meat an ‘accent’ to meals, instead of a feature.
This gave us two positive results. The first was in our health, I lost a ton of weight that I’d put on since leaving my first military enlistment, of course the walking we do everyday also helps. The second was in our grocery savings. By moving meat out of the center of our plates and over to the side, and by buying more fish and chicken, and less beef, we were able to substantially reduce our grocery costs.
What you Drink Also Matters
Another big savings for us comes in what we drink, or actually what we don’t. My wife only drinks water and I only drink water and iced tea, which I brew myself in my tea maker. We’ve not had soda in decades. According to Forbes Business Insight, the 2023 U.S. non-alcoholic beverages market was valued at $150 billion. That equates to $75 per month for a family of two not including coffee and non-flavored bottled water.
My wife doesn’t drink alcohol, and in 2023 I had a total of 3 beers. The only alcohol we even have on board our RV is one bottle of Stella Artois left over from last 4th of July, and a small bottle of Jack Daniels to make bourbon sauce for salmon. According to statistics by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 2023 market for off-premises alcohol sales was $225 billion. With 258 million adults in the US according to the U.S. Census, that equates to $872 per adult per year, or $145 per month for a family of two.
Waste Not Want Not
According to a 2020 study in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. US households waste an estimated 31.9% of food. This equaled $1,866 per household annually, or $155 per month. That is 13% of the $1,170 monthly average. For us, our food waste is very near to zero. Leftover food gets put into containers and then every 3-4 days we have “Leftover” night. Sometimes this is called “Clean Out The Fridge” night. Because we are limited on space we tend to buy in smaller quantities and shop more frequently. For example we buy canned tomato products in smaller cans. While we may have to use two 2-ounce cans of tomato sauce on a recipe, it’s better than opening an 8-ounce can and having to throw half of it away. When we buy food that can spoil such as milk or fresh fruit, we make sure that gets eaten first, before shelf-stable foods. And if the bananas do go brown before we eat them all, they get turned into banana muffins!
Saving Money Isn’t the Only Goal
While this may seem contrary, there are things that are more important than money. Until her passing in 2022, every Sunday for the last 35 years we had dinner with my wife’s mother. For the last 15 of her 92 years, she was a widow, and on a fixed income. She lived on a social security benefit of less than $900 a month, so for her saving money on groceries was critical. She purchased almost exclusively the store brand or the cheapest brand she could find.
One day she served tacos for dinner and set out a container labeled ‘sour cream’ which had a metal spoon standing completely straight up out of the middle. She set it on the table and the spoon didn’t move. I picked up the container to read the ingredients and gave up after about the 12th item, most of which I could not pronounce. It might have started as sour cream but who knows what it was now. It was a wake up call for me. What ever was in this stuff was going into our bodies. It was after this Sunday dinner that we started paying more attention to labels. Sometimes this means we pay more for something to get a higher quality item. For example, we no longer buy salad dressing off the shelf, we only buy it fresh from the refrigerated case.
There are however times when you can get both savings and high quality food. This week we are back in the Phoenix area so I stopped into WinCo for a few things. I noticed that a pound of freshly sliced ham from the deli counter was $3.99 a pound, vs $5.67 a pound for a bag processed ham. Add to that a loaf of whole-grain bread, green leaf lettuce, spinach and onion, and I’ve got great sandwich makings at an affordable price.
Life is Choice
There is no ‘right’ way to save. In the end everything will come down to the choices we make. For us, our choices have resulted in a $725 monthly savings on groceries.