Fourth Quarter Pennies Review: Wrapping Up 2022

 

Well, 2022 is at an end, I have tallied the numbers, and we are both looking ahead to what 2023 holds on the grocery front. Let's just say there were some surprises.

In the 4th quarter of 2022, we spent $704.29 on groceries. $644.70 of that was on food, $59.59 was on household items (toilet paper, dish detergent, parchment paper). Average per month in the 4th quarter? $234.76.

Average monthly spending on groceries for 2022? $240.62.

Food prices continue to fluctuate and baffle. After oatmeal jumped to $3.49 at Aldi earlier this year, it was down a dollar when we did a stock-up shopping in December. A dollar. That was not due to shrink-flation either; those were the prices on a 42 ounce container of old-fashioned rolled oats. Mayonnaise is up another dollar since midyear; it is up over a dollar and a half since early 2022. Flour, which rose 50¢ midyear for a five pound bag of unbleached Kroger brand, came down 20¢ by year's end. Milk has leveled out from midyear highs. On the other hand, eggs continue to be staggeringly expensive.

The egg prices reminded me of a long-ago colleague who took the California bar exam unsuccessfully four times in the early 1980s and finally shelved her dream of practicing law. A single mom, she told me that when she was trying to pass the bar and would have to cut back on her work to study for it, her kids had to live on ramen and eggs because money was so tight, and it just wasn't fair to her kids to do that for her to pursue the lawyer dream. Fast forward 40 years and I'm thinking she wouldn't begin to be able to feed her kids the eggs she relied on for protein during those lean times.

There was a 4th quarter goof that, in the name of transparency, I have to share. In too much of a rush during one morning shopping trip, I reached for and bought not the Kroger ground turkey one pound in the tube (with the special coupon driving its price way down) but the Simple Truth (Kroger's "pure" brand) ground turkey ($5.99) and (again, reaching far too fast and not paying attention) the organic Simple Truth ground turkey (($7.99). I did not realize my error until we were driving home. (Warren to me: Should I turn around so you can go in and fix it? Me: No, I'm embarrassed and it's my own fault.) That was a $9.00 error. (So what did I do the special ground turkey? Divided it into half-pound portions, which I then froze, and have been doling out very slowly since then, that's what.)

Moral of that story? Match the sale coupon item with the RIGHT product!

We (well, especially me) had a much bigger grocery buying discovery (well, shock) that happened just this weekend on the very last day of 2022. The shock came at home, not at the store, and it is all entirely our (again, primarily my) doing. We had gotten several free bread items that would need stored in the freezer so as to not go bad before we could eat it all. I asked Warren to help me with the basement freezer (an upright, 10 cf freezer); I would reorganize the kitchen freezer (the refrigerator freezer) before we tackled the one in the basement. 

The basement freezer was in pretty good shape in terms of organization. We had rearranged it a few months earlier, so much of what we did was just move some items around to free up some space.

The kitchen freezer? Oh. My. God. As I excavated it, I learned just how much GOOD FOOD I had squirreled away in there. Yes, I knew I had hot dogs in there. And some other items like popcorn and buckwheat flour. But bean soup? Diced pork frozen in meal-sized portions? Grated orange peel that I could have used in making biscotti this past holiday season? 

What. The. Heck?

I follow Hope and Larry Ware of Under the Median on YouTube. Inventorying your pantry, cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer regularly is a directive Hope often gives. I always credited myself with doing a mental inventory, although I knew I should be better as our pantry sometimes reveals surprises after we have bought a replacement at the store, but I didn't think I was too bad. Having now gone through my kitchen freezer, I now have Reasons #2931208 as to why Hope says to inventory what you have. 

Facepalm.

After all these, ahem, discoveries, I said to Warren, "Except for perishables, we should be able to go ALL of January with no groceries." That was yesterday. This morning, after thinking about it some more, I said, "Heck, we may make it through February without buying anything except perishables!"

On the bright side, as food waste rightfully gains more attention, we continue to keep ours to a minimum. Except for a very recent loss of about six celery sticks that had gone too long in the fridge to salvage (they hit the compost), and two opened, three-quarters empty jars of salsa that managed to mold, our food waste due to spoilage is about zero. And our food waste due to boredom ("Oh, let's not eat that again...") IS zero. In this country, residential (home) food waste is about 39%, or 21 million tons, of the total food waste a year. In addition to the savings of not wasting food, it really does make a difference. 

Goals looking into 2023?

One is the short-term challenge of getting through January without any grocery purchases except perishables. Looking into the refrigerator right now, that would be milk (me) and maybe orange juice (Warren).

The year's challenge is to bring our monthly spending down to $200.00 a month despite the higher food costs. There will be a garden, of course. And knowing now what I do about my squirreling-away tendency, and knowing that we are well-stocked on all fronts, I think that is doable.

Here's to 2023.