Money Spent on Food

I need to create a budget or standard for how much money I'm spending on food. One of my Missions this week was to track how much money I spend on food. I haven't been watching my spending on food very closely the last two months.

Through doing a Google search, and looking through a LifeHacker post, I found a food plan by the USDA - http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/CostofFoodAug2015.pdf. This plan shows food costs at home on a weekly and monthly basis, and divides up the information into different spending plans. I fall into the Male 19-50 year old category. According to this category, if I followed the following plans - the thrifty plan, low-cost plan, moderate-cost plan, and liberal plan, I would spend $43.40, $55.90, $70.20, and $86.50 per week, respectively.

I spent $70.08 at the grocery store on Sunday. With this cost alone, that would put me in the moderate-cost plan. I've spent more money eating out, so I can't say confidently if the $70.08 would last me a whole week, but it probably should. I definitely need to create a standard for myself, continue to analyze my food costs, and look into making bulk meals.

I think for next week I'll set my spending standard for $65 and be in between the low-cost and moderate-cost plans.

Signed,

Mitch