How to Budget Food Expenses for a Single Person
- 1). Track your food spending for a three-month period to determine your average monthly food budget. Add up each time you went to the grocery store, ate from a vending machine or ate at a restaurant. Total up the entire amount and divide by three to get an average per month. Be sure to note when you ate at a restaurant if the food was just for you, or if you bought the meal of a date. Additionally, if you are dating and your significant other pays for your meal, consider that in your calculations as well. It could vary greatly depending on your dating situation each month.
- 2). Analyze your spending to see if there are ways to reduce the costs. Are you eating out a lot? Could you spend less at the grocery store? Set a reasonable goal to reduce food spending for a month. Track your progress and see if you can find ways to stretch your food budget. If you, like many other single individuals, find it hard to cook for one at home, attempt to freeze extra portions of your meal for later meals when you are too busy to cook and so avoid eating out.
- 3). Create a budget for all areas of spending, including housing, entertainment and transportation. Place every expenditure for a month into a category and total each category to create an overall budget. Analyze your budget and look for ways to reduce spending. If there are not enough funds to cover your food budget, remove extra spending from nonessential categories -- such as entertainment -- to make extra funds available for food. Remember to balance your needs versus your wants; certain things should represent more of your budget than others.
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