Is it so uncommon to have a strict grocery budget?

[SlackerInc]

@elbows

It’s a great thing that you’ve recognized how strict you need to be with the numbers to keep your finances on track. But people are different. Some manage without so much tight control, is all.

As I said, bully for you/them. But do you think this is common in American society? I see little sign that it is, and every sign that it is not. I don’t mean to imply that my strict control is typical, but more that people get seriously into debt, and that ends up being the rubber band that snaps back on them eventually.

I would also reiterate that it’s not at all comparable if there is only one adult in the household and/or if you have an above average income. We are two adults* and 2 to 4 children living on about $42,000 a year. That we pay all our bills on time, stay out of debt, keep nutritious food on the table, and have a little bit extra to have fun with, is, I believe, a laudable achievement and not some sort of failure, jeez.

*Again, just in game-theoretical terms a non-budgeted system is fatally flawed with more than one adult in the household, unless both are practically Buddhist monks in their lack of desire or there is just plenty of money coming in. My wife and I get $20 each as pure discretionary spending money every month. There’s no way that money would get fairly divided if we didn’t allocate it in advance. Not because of bad faith on anyone’s part, but just because it’s too difficult to keep things fair with such a slim margin for error.

[Kimera757]

@SlackerInc

I got that impression after mentioning something on social media that my family does this. I knew there were lots of people who just shop for what they are out of, at whatever cost; and even people who just throw whatever they happen to fancy in their carts, and who go shopping on any random day. But I still thought there were a decent number of people like us, going on certain days of the month and having a strict limit on how much we spend. Or is that maybe an old fashioned thing that most people don’t do anymore?

Grocery prices are too variable to budget that strictly, at least in Canada. The prices of grapes vary considerably, cheaper fruit vary somewhat too, and I don’t intend to skip a week of fruit prices are higher this week. Chicken is sold by the pound of kilogram, but I usually buy it by legs or quarters or whole chickens, and since no two chickens are exactly the same I couldn’t buy exactly the same amount of chicken every week. Worse, sometimes the selection is limited (the last time I bought chicken, there was only enough of my favored type for half a week, so I had to buy other pieces, some of which were more expensive).

Some things I buy only when on sale, or they last more than week so I don’t have to buy them every week.

I have a budget where I intend to buy X amount per month, so X amount per week. Most weeks I spend less, but because some weeks I’ll buy stuff in bulk that will last a while, the average closely matches my budget.

[SlackerInc]

@Kimera757

Chicken is sold by the pound of kilogram, but I usually buy it by legs or quarters or whole chickens, and since no two chickens are exactly the same I couldn’t buy exactly the same amount of chicken every week.

We don’t buy the same amounts of things, or even all the same things, period, week to week*. We just spend the same amount of money. Some things are higher priority and others are going to be weeded out, if the higher priority food we already have in our cart adds up to our budgeted amount. A side benefit of this is that it clarifies what we really want.

*ETA: We actually shop on or near the sixth, 13th, 21st, and 29th of the month, so it’s not always a week exactly.

[Ruken]

I didn’t notice this posted yet; here is a poll on households who prepare detailed budgets:

One in Three Americans Prepare a Detailed Household Budget

About a third do.

[enipla]

@elbows

It’s a great thing that you’ve recognized how strict you need to be with the numbers to keep your finances on track. But people are different. Some manage without so much tight control, is all.

Yep. My wife and I could each buy new cars every year. No problem. But we don’t. It’s about every 10-14 years that we each get a new car. It’s not because of a budget, it’s not because we are tight or exceedingly frugal, it’s just the way we are with money.

We stager it, so that one is newer, and used for road trips.

We shop for what we want for about a year and plan accordingly. No arguments, no fights. No budget.

[SlackerInc]

Interesting! Thanks, Ruken. We are a distinct minority, to be sure–but still a pretty sizable one, bigger than I would have expected.

ETA:

@enipla

We shop for what we want for about a year and plan accordingly. No arguments, no fights. No budget.

But come on: you said you could buy a new car every year, “no problem”. That makes you richer than over 99% of the world’s population, probably 99.9%. Which makes it a a hell of a lot easier to have no arguments, no fights, and no budget.

[elbows]

Plus, I think a lot more people go through a phase, at some point in their financial life, where they do have to budget somewhat stridently. Often when pressure eases they move away from it, they have a better feel now, it’s a titch more intuitive perhaps.

I also think we’re a tad freer now in recognition that, as our golden years grow nearer, so too the possibility that we WILL find our purchasing ability shrinking due to ever rising food prices. And strict budgeting could well be required then. So maybe a little of enjoying now is affecting how we spend too!

[Dangerosa]

@SlackerInc

If you have so much income and/or such ascetic desires that your savings just keep “growing and growing” without needing to set any explicit, quantified limits, bully for you. But at my family’s income level, I call bullshit on any implication that our “buckets” are somehow unwise or counterproductive. If we did not use these “buckets” (actually several dozen envelopes kept in a safety deposit box, with some of them having “annexes” kept well hidden at home), I can see only two realistic scenarios:

(1) We just wing it paycheck to paycheck, grasshopper style, and at the end of the month we might struggle to afford enough food to eat. Bills might get behind, and if our car breaks down or some other unexpected event hits us, we’d be caught flatfooted, maybe have to call our parents for a bailout. Unacceptable.

(2) We go into extreme penny pinching mode until we have salted away enough in savings not to feel so vulnerable (a couple grand at least). Rice and beans for every meal, cancel Netflix (we already don’t have cable or satellite), no birthday parties or gifts for the kids, turn the thermostat way down and bundle up if it’s winter, cut off the AC and sweat if it’s summer. Then, speaking of thermostats: once we have the agreed upon amount in reserve, we relax a bit and live more normally. But then if we ever have to tap into that reserve, we go back into uber-frugal belt tightening mode again until the reserve fund is refilled. Feast and famine, like yoyo dieting.

#2 is more acceptable than the first option, but I much prefer doing it the way we do. For one thing, in a household with more than one adult, there are perverse, “tragedy of the commons” incentives attached to the “thermostat” plan. With our envelopes, if I want an americano or an IPA, I can buy it if and only if I have money left in my personal spending allotment for the month. If I blow it all three days into the month, that has no impact on my wife and children. But in system #2, my incentive is to quickly buy as many “fun” but unnecessary things for myself as I reasonably can as long as the “indicator light” is green. And her incentive is the same.

Now, hopefully basic decency will prevent us from doing this in the extreme. But let’s say one month we still drop into monetary lockdown mode anyway. That will make both my wife and me cranky, and we will start to wonder “whose fault is it that we are in this shitty predicament?” And absent the amazing coincidence of our both spending exactly the same amount “frivolously”, it will be one person’s fault more than the other, even if we can’t be sure which one of us it is. So we have a marital fight over it.

Now let’s say it’s two months later and the reserve fund is restored. I get another six pack of IPAs and pop one open. My wife gives me the stink eye, like “oh great, here we go again”. Maybe we fight, or maybe we just sit there in silence, both feeling grumpy. The next time I am tempted to buy some beer, I get a knot in my stomach. Maybe I buy it anyway and stress about what she may be thinking; or maybe I don’t buy it, and feel resentful.

That all sounds lovely, but I think I 'll pass all the same.

Maybe I’m weird, but my Winter thermostat is at 65 and my Summer is at 85…the air is almost never on and we always bundle up at home when its cold. We always eat a rice and beans meal at least once a week. Also, soup and homemade bread - sourdough because once you have the starter, you really only need about $.25 of flour for a loaf. I regularly feed four adults (my kids are seventeen and eighteen) off a pound of meat. I also do a lot of my clothes shopping second hand. I think three or four times before I stop by a coffee house for coffee - which happens perhaps six times a year.

Plenty of money (we make mid-six figures a year) doesn’t mean that you don’t live frugally - it means that you choose where you are going to spend money. Spending money on air conditioning is less important than spending money on college. Its less important than spending money on vacations. Its less important than six months of income in the bank so that if something goes wrong, we aren’t wondering how we will make the mortgage payments (which are all of $300 a month - its a modest house that we’ve paid down and refinanced).

And how you live frugally - budget or don’t budget. I believe some people are naturally frugal - if I didn’t live with my husband who is a little bit of a spendthrift (he’s gotten better living with me) I’d cut even more corners - if you are a frugal person to start with - and if its possible to live beneath your means (the unfortunate reality is that for a lot of people, doing so is nearly impossible), I think you just sort of do it - without a budget. Because there isn’t much you want more than you want financial security. Certainly not a $3 cup of coffee.

[SlackerInc]

But you mentioned vacations. It’s no more frugal to spend a few hundred or thousand dollars on a vacation once a year than it is to spend that same amount of money throughout the year on Starbucks. It’s just a different preference. Neither could be classified as one of the necessities of life.

[Dangerosa]

@SlackerInc

But you mentioned vacations. It’s no more frugal to spend a few hundred or thousand dollars on a vacation once a year than it is to spend that same amount of money throughout the year on Starbucks. It’s just a different preference. Neither could be classified as one of the necessities of life.

It is, but then again, I have a few million dollars in the bank, I can choose between vacation and Starbucks. The point being - I still have to make that choice - and I’m very frugal in order to enable that choice and to get to the point in life where that choice isn’t a big deal. It doesn’t sound like you do - therefore your choices are more limited.

[enipla]

@SlackerInc

Interesting! Thanks, Ruken. We are a distinct minority, to be sure–but still a pretty sizable one, bigger than I would have expected.

ETA:

But come on: you said you could buy a new car every year, “no problem”. That makes you richer than over 99% of the world’s population, probably 99.9%. Which makes it a a hell of a lot easier to have no arguments, no fights, and no budget.

Oh I’m sure plenty of well off people argue about money. Especially those that seem be in a constant mode of acquiring more and more and bigger and bigger.

And if we where to ‘buy’ a new car every year, we would just constantly have payments, something that we don’t want.

I’ve had my lean years too. No budget then either. If I had a budget, I suspect that I would spend all of it rather than just spend as little as needed. I guess it’s just a different mindset.

[sitchensis]

@SlackerInc

…For one thing, in a household with more than one adult, there are perverse, “tragedy of the commons” incentives attached to the “thermostat” plan. With our envelopes, if I want an americano or an IPA, I can buy it if and only if I have money left in my personal spending allotment for the month. If I blow it all three days into the month, that has no impact on my wife and children. But in system #2, my incentive is to quickly buy as many “fun” but unnecessary things for myself as I reasonably can as long as the “indicator light” is green. And her incentive is the same.

Now, hopefully basic decency will prevent us from doing this in the extreme. But let’s say one month we still drop into monetary lockdown mode anyway. That will make both my wife and me cranky, and we will start to wonder “whose fault is it that we are in this shitty predicament?” And absent the amazing coincidence of our both spending exactly the same amount “frivolously”, it will be one person’s fault more than the other, even if we can’t be sure which one of us it is. So we have a marital fight over it.

Now let’s say it’s two months later and the reserve fund is restored. I get another six pack of IPAs and pop one open. My wife gives me the stink eye, like “oh great, here we go again”. Maybe we fight, or maybe we just sit there in silence, both feeling grumpy. The next time I am tempted to buy some beer, I get a knot in my stomach. Maybe I buy it anyway and stress about what she may be thinking; or maybe I don’t buy it, and feel resentful.

That all sounds lovely, but I think I 'll pass all the same.

We keep separate accounts and assign bills to make it fairly even. She has the mortgage and child care. I have everything else. Other than moving some lump sums back and forth to cover extra large purchases we don’t micromanage each others purchases.

[Corry_El]

@SlackerInc

But come on: you said you could buy a new car every year, “no problem”. That makes you richer than over 99% of the world’s population, probably 99.9%. Which makes it a a hell of a lot easier to have no arguments, no fights, and no budget.

Not to nitpick, but while it’s broad minded and all to think in terms of the whole world the cut off for world 1%-tile income has been estimated at $34k. A lot of consideration of ‘necessity’ v. ‘extravagance’ is relative, but tends to be relative to a more immediate environment than the world. I think the statement would actually somewhere closer to the US 1%-tile which is around 10 ten times higher, but depending on other expenses, what car, definition of ‘no problem’, assets as opposed to income and so on.

There’s no question in my mind though that higher income/assets tends to reduce the challenge of living within your means. We can always find exceptions in either direction, gossip magazines say Johnny Depp is going broke with a ‘budget’ including $300k a month just for wine IIRC, 40-something cars at once, etc; and people with low incomes who spend whatever they want, and that still doesn’t use up all their income.

On some more personal finance centered web forums there are people who seem to believe a ‘spending problem’ is always purely that. If the person asking advice were to go back to the drawing board on the education, skills, employment, income side of things, no that would never help according to such people: “you have a spending problem, period, no income is going to solve it!*” That’s not so realistic IME in real life.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@elbows

It’s a great thing that you’ve recognized how strict you need to be with the numbers to keep your finances on track. But people are different. Some manage without so much tight control, is all.

@SlackerInc

I would also reiterate that it’s not at all comparable if there is only one adult in the household and/or if you have an above average income. We are two adults* and 2 to 4 children living on about $42,000 a year. That we pay all our bills on time, stay out of debt, keep nutritious food on the table, and have a little bit extra to have fun with, is, I believe, a laudable achievement and not some sort of failure, jeez.

It’s true that some people are more naturally savers and some spenders. At the extremes, there are misers who die with millions, wrapped up in blankets because turning on the heat is “a waste of money”, and people who will spend any fortune into the ground.

But most people aren’t either extreme, and how much budgeting they need is more dependent on their income than on their personality. I naturally have savers tendencies like elbows, but if my income were to suddenly drop by half, I’d have to take budgeting seriously. Because all my built-in concepts of what’s worth the money would be incorrect now that there’s a lot less money to be worth.

[enipla]

@sitchensis

We keep separate accounts and assign bills to make it fairly even. She has the mortgage and child care. I have everything else. Other than moving some lump sums back and forth to cover extra large purchases we don’t micromanage each others purchases.

That’s pretty much what my Wife and I do. I handled the mortgage(before I paid it off, that mortgage money now goes in my savings for a remodel/repair we are going to do), insurance and TV/internet and electricity. She does everything else. We have separate checking, savings and retirement accounts.

Whoever shops buys the food. We each buy our own clothes and take care of our own cars. Vacations get split up too. One pays for the hotel, the other airfare and walkin around cash. There is no set way we do this, that’s just an example. It just happens, rarely does their need to be any discussion other than - “OK, you put out quite a bit more, I’ll write you a check.”

Maybe this is because we didn’t get married until we where 37. Already adults set in our ways. By no means rich, but comfortable.

[sitchensis]

@enipla

Maybe this is because we didn’t get married until we where 37. Already adults set in our ways. By no means rich, but comfortable.

We got married at 33 and 34 respectively

[BigT]

@Shodan

How do you know what your means are unless you have a budget? I am talking about sitting down and figuring out, “we take in $X per month, after taxes. The mortgage is $Y, the car payment is $Z, so we have so much for everything else. Ten percent for church, clothes, ten percent for investments, split up the rest for liquor, my cigars, groceries, etc.” That’s the way my folks did it, that’s how they taught me, I assume everyone does it that way.

Regards,
Shodan

You pay all those bills, and then see how much money you have left. Then you buy what you need, then you put the rest into savings, or use some of it to buy something you don’t really need.

I’m not saying it’s better than using a budget, just explaining how it’s possible. In my experience, only the poorest (who need ever penny to count) and the richest (who have so much money that this leaves them with way too much extra) do otherwise. Everyone else just estimates and is fine with it.

So, my answer to the OP is yes. It is rare. Most people at most do a soft budget.
Food costs what it costs.

[GargoyleWB]

@Telemark

Or they naturally spend within their means.

That’s us, no separate food budget, but we don’t fill up the cart with steaks, caviar, and saffron every trip.

[SlackerInc]

@BigT

So, my answer to the OP is yes. It is rare. Most people at most do a soft budget.
Food costs what it costs.

So you think a lot of the people cited by Gallup are fibbing, or exaggerating? I could see that, as outside this thread I think the conventional wisdom is what the Gallup writer himself (Dennis Jacobe, whose title is “Chief Economist”) said. Namely, that “good management of a family’s finances – and the avoidance of financial difficulties – usually involves creating a family budget.” (Take that, scoffers, pooh-poohers, and naysayers! :p) If people are aware this is what experts like Jacobe believe, they might lean toward giving the “right” answer even if it’s not exactly true.

@Dangerosa

It is, but then again, I have a few million dollars in the bank, I can choose between vacation and Starbucks. The point being - I still have to make that choice - and I’m very frugal in order to enable that choice and to get to the point in life where that choice isn’t a big deal. It doesn’t sound like you do - therefore your choices are more limited.

I’ve read this at least ten times, and I don’t understand it. In fact, I don’t understand a single one of these three sentences, even in isolation. My questions/puzzlement, in numerical order:

(1) Did you mean to say “I don’t *have *to choose–I can easily do them both”?

(2) You “still have to make that choice”? Why?

(3) It doesn’t sound like I do what? Have a few million dollars in the bank? If that’s what you meant, then no: no I do not. :dubious:

[octopus]

@SlackerInc

If you have so much income and/or such ascetic desires that your savings just keep “growing and growing” without needing to set any explicit, quantified limits, bully for you. But at my family’s income level, I call bullshit on any implication that our “buckets” are somehow unwise or counterproductive. If we did not use these “buckets” (actually several dozen envelopes kept in a safety deposit box, with some of them having “annexes” kept well hidden at home), I can see only two realistic scenarios:

(1) We just wing it paycheck to paycheck, grasshopper style, and at the end of the month we might struggle to afford enough food to eat. Bills might get behind, and if our car breaks down or some other unexpected event hits us, we’d be caught flatfooted, maybe have to call our parents for a bailout. Unacceptable.

(2) We go into extreme penny pinching mode until we have salted away enough in savings not to feel so vulnerable (a couple grand at least). Rice and beans for every meal, cancel Netflix (we already don’t have cable or satellite), no birthday parties or gifts for the kids, turn the thermostat way down and bundle up if it’s winter, cut off the AC and sweat if it’s summer. Then, speaking of thermostats: once we have the agreed upon amount in reserve, we relax a bit and live more normally. But then if we ever have to tap into that reserve, we go back into uber-frugal belt tightening mode again until the reserve fund is refilled. Feast and famine, like yoyo dieting.

#2 is more acceptable than the first option, but I much prefer doing it the way we do. For one thing, in a household with more than one adult, there are perverse, “tragedy of the commons” incentives attached to the “thermostat” plan. With our envelopes, if I want an americano or an IPA, I can buy it if and only if I have money left in my personal spending allotment for the month. If I blow it all three days into the month, that has no impact on my wife and children. But in system #2, my incentive is to quickly buy as many “fun” but unnecessary things for myself as I reasonably can as long as the “indicator light” is green. And her incentive is the same.

Now, hopefully basic decency will prevent us from doing this in the extreme. But let’s say one month we still drop into monetary lockdown mode anyway. That will make both my wife and me cranky, and we will start to wonder “whose fault is it that we are in this shitty predicament?” And absent the amazing coincidence of our both spending exactly the same amount “frivolously”, it will be one person’s fault more than the other, even if we can’t be sure which one of us it is. So we have a marital fight over it.

Now let’s say it’s two months later and the reserve fund is restored. I get another six pack of IPAs and pop one open. My wife gives me the stink eye, like “oh great, here we go again”. Maybe we fight, or maybe we just sit there in silence, both feeling grumpy. The next time I am tempted to buy some beer, I get a knot in my stomach. Maybe I buy it anyway and stress about what she may be thinking; or maybe I don’t buy it, and feel resentful.

That all sounds lovely, but I think I 'll pass all the same.

Hmm. All good points.

I don’t think budgeting is inferior in any ways to not budgeting other than the amount of time it takes to budget.

If you have financial goals it seems like a proper accounting and budgeting would help meet them more efficiently. The only question is do you value time more than money? Some people demonstrate by behavior that they value the time they free up by not budgeting more than the money they would have saved or earned via investing.

Now, when these same people hit 65 or 70 they tend to value the money they don’t have. Strange isn’t it?

We have the current luxury of earning enough to not need to do a detailed budget at the food or buying a pair of socks level. We also have the luxury of both being 99% on the same page with financial and life goals. That said, we’d be better off if we took the 3 hrs/month to do a proper budget and spend more wisely.

ETA: I find it interesting the married couples with separate accounts.