April Roundup

As many of you may have seen from my various tweets I have been spending some money here and there. I have been sticking to eating what I already have (for the most part) and only went grocery shopping a few times in order to prevent scurvy from taking over. I did realize as well, that since I went home for the weekend for Easter I didn't have to make meals all of those days which may have prevented me from going to the grocery store earlier. But hey who cares. I ended up eating a lot of the things I already had, but spent way too much on food at work (clearly). And for those of you keeping tabs, I spent almost $75 dollars less this month..(which probably ended up going towards my lost student card and new bus pass..)

Here's the breakdown of my food spending over the last month.

So basically I didn't spend as much as I had been in the past, but I still spent way too much when it came to food at work.
Also as a cost cutting tactic I am hoping that by posting this before the end of the month it will force me not to spend any more money on groceries so I don't have to fix the spreadsheet...

Does anyone have any great tips to share when it comes to saving money on groceries?
I am going to continue to work on this in order to cut down on my costs and save more of my current paycheck from my co-op job.

Hope everyone's exams went well!

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Food Saving Updates

For this months feature I will be doing short updates on Twitter using the hashtag #CSfoodsave 

For an easy to view version of all my tweets you can view them through this blog post as well as on Twitter.

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April

Since it's the beginning of a new month and the winter semester is almost done, I finally decided to start recording how much I'm spending when it comes to food. I had this nagging feeling like I was spending way too much. So here begins my first month of trying to spend less. This post is more in the style of a personal finance blog, which I am sure some of you will really enjoy. So here goes a little change in blog post direction and a change in my food spending habits.

I decided to go through the bills that I did save (yes I have a bit of a hoarding problem...) and go through my MasterCard and bank account statements online. I compiled a list of all my expenses, including what I have spent on meals at restaurants and at work (which I clearly need to cut out). This months worth of posts will consist of my journey to reduce my food spending.

Here's the food expenses I incurred during the month of March 2012.

According to a few sources including studyincanada.com the average person spends about $200-300 per month on food. My total does fall into this category but I still want to decrease this number. With additional food charges at restaurants, my cafeteria at work etc. I took my month total to approximately $260.

And since I often to spend way too much, here are just a few strategies I am going to use to help lower my amount.

• Making meals with what I already have
• Buying only the few things that I need, once a week (ie. fruits, vegetables and the staples)
• Buying products on sale or purchasing private label/generic brands
• Continuing to write a list
• Bringing coupons to the grocery store when I go
• Not buying so much that my food goes bad and I have to thrown it out

Throughout the month I will be tweeting @CheapStudents using the hashtag #CSfoodsave This is where quick updates with on food related purchases, or any interesting discoveries will be posted.
These tweets and other posts and thoughts will be summarized on a weekly basis on the blog.

Here's a few tips as well found here

Additional Information
Check out the Study in Canada site here to see what the cost of living should be approximately for a Canadian

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