Grocery spending 2022
Jan. 29th, 2023 01:32 pmJust over a year ago, I read this Citizen column by Kelly Egan, in which he discussed Canada's Food Price Report for 2022, an analysis led by Dalhousie University predicting a 5 to 7% over the course of the year:
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-we-see-it-everywhere-the-covid-creep-on-inflation-food-on-the-table
It occurred to me that as we have been limiting our grocery shopping to once a fortnight since the pandemic began, it should be relatively easy to keep track of how much we, a couple in our late 60s, plus a cat, spent on groceries during 2022.
So I assembled all 26 of our Loblaws grocery receipts and added up all 26 total grocery spends. And the answer was (drum roll) ... $9566.24
This was actually $940 less than we would have spent if we hadn't redeemed any PC-Plus points
Now for a few of the footnotes, endnotes, ifs, ands and buts.
First off, what it does and doesn't include. As well as food, it includes most items relating to personal hygiene such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, Kleenex and toilet paper. It includes things like waxed paper, plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Cleaning products too, like laundry and dishwasher detergent, and pet food. Sometimes the odd miscellaneous purchase like batteries, lightbulbs or stationery items.
What it doesn't include: paper towels (they never have the full-sheet type, so we buy those at the drug store). Kitty litter (they don't sell our preferred type). Most alcoholic beverages (although we did buy some cheap beer for making shandies and beer bread). Maple syrup (and other maple products)
During the summer and early fall, we bought fresh seasonal produce at Parkdale Market and the Shouldice fruit stand on Prince of Wales Drive. We also had our own garden. During strawberry season we were buying a large basket of strawberries (which I think was $25) once or twice a week, so that would certainly up the grocery bill quite a bit.
The handful of restaurant meals, whether take-out or dine-in (or outside on a restaurant patio) are not included here either.
Going back to the Food Price Report, the forecast was that in 2022 a family of four (two adults, a boy between the ages of 14 and 18, and a girl between the ages of 9 and 13) could be expected to spend about $14,767 on food, an increase of almost $1000 over 2021 prices. Frankly I think they'd be doing vey well to manage even that - our bill of $9566 for the two of us is 64.8% or just under two-thirds of that amount.
I should perhaps mention that we weren't really going out of our way to minimize grocery expenses. If we wanted something and it was available, we generally bought it. We have a few rather expensive tastes: our Kicking Horse coffee, Amy's Soups, fancy cheeses, fresh tomatoes all year round. On the other hand, we always shop with a list, we don't buy meat, we look at the weekly fliers and we use our PC Plus points. If there's a deal on something we buy regularly (or what looks like a reasonably palatable substitute), we stock up. We usually manage to use up food before it goes bad.
Unfortunately I didn't keep a complete set of 2021 receipts, so I can't say how much more we spent in 2022 compared to 2021. Maybe I'll be able to comment further at the end of 2023.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-we-see-it-everywhere-the-covid-creep-on-inflation-food-on-the-table
It occurred to me that as we have been limiting our grocery shopping to once a fortnight since the pandemic began, it should be relatively easy to keep track of how much we, a couple in our late 60s, plus a cat, spent on groceries during 2022.
So I assembled all 26 of our Loblaws grocery receipts and added up all 26 total grocery spends. And the answer was (drum roll) ... $9566.24
This was actually $940 less than we would have spent if we hadn't redeemed any PC-Plus points
Now for a few of the footnotes, endnotes, ifs, ands and buts.
First off, what it does and doesn't include. As well as food, it includes most items relating to personal hygiene such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, Kleenex and toilet paper. It includes things like waxed paper, plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Cleaning products too, like laundry and dishwasher detergent, and pet food. Sometimes the odd miscellaneous purchase like batteries, lightbulbs or stationery items.
What it doesn't include: paper towels (they never have the full-sheet type, so we buy those at the drug store). Kitty litter (they don't sell our preferred type). Most alcoholic beverages (although we did buy some cheap beer for making shandies and beer bread). Maple syrup (and other maple products)
During the summer and early fall, we bought fresh seasonal produce at Parkdale Market and the Shouldice fruit stand on Prince of Wales Drive. We also had our own garden. During strawberry season we were buying a large basket of strawberries (which I think was $25) once or twice a week, so that would certainly up the grocery bill quite a bit.
The handful of restaurant meals, whether take-out or dine-in (or outside on a restaurant patio) are not included here either.
Going back to the Food Price Report, the forecast was that in 2022 a family of four (two adults, a boy between the ages of 14 and 18, and a girl between the ages of 9 and 13) could be expected to spend about $14,767 on food, an increase of almost $1000 over 2021 prices. Frankly I think they'd be doing vey well to manage even that - our bill of $9566 for the two of us is 64.8% or just under two-thirds of that amount.
I should perhaps mention that we weren't really going out of our way to minimize grocery expenses. If we wanted something and it was available, we generally bought it. We have a few rather expensive tastes: our Kicking Horse coffee, Amy's Soups, fancy cheeses, fresh tomatoes all year round. On the other hand, we always shop with a list, we don't buy meat, we look at the weekly fliers and we use our PC Plus points. If there's a deal on something we buy regularly (or what looks like a reasonably palatable substitute), we stock up. We usually manage to use up food before it goes bad.
Unfortunately I didn't keep a complete set of 2021 receipts, so I can't say how much more we spent in 2022 compared to 2021. Maybe I'll be able to comment further at the end of 2023.