2017 Goals Recap - Grocery Budget - How did I do?

I'm going to start here and recap my 2017 goals, one at a time!  Because it's been months since I've looked at them, really.

I'm going to start with Goal #2, because it's the easiest!

Goal #2: Grocery bill annual total $7000.

Actual spent: $6,997.16

Wahoo!

Now, it's important to note that this is FOOD ONLY.

it's not wine
it's not paper towels or TP or toothpaste
it's not food gifts we sent for Christmas
it's not food at restaurants
it might even be missing a receipt or two from vacation, if my husband bought something at a grocery store.  But, we did it!  It was hard, and it was a nail biter.

Some graphs, because you know I'm into that:

Monthly grocery totals (by month)

Feb: traveled for long weekend

June: ? I have no idea why it was low

December: Traveling during fires and eating up the freezer

Pie Chart of where our money goes:

Mostly Costco, Local Harvest Produce Delivery, Trader Joe's

Things that helped/ hurt this year:
Helped: kids started getting free lunch in August at school.  It's a school wide thing, not an eligibility thing.

Hurt: I went gluten free in late July.  At first, it wasn't expensive, because I was testing it out.  Rather than mess with gluten free bread or stuff like that, I just started subbing oats, rice, corn tortillas, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes for the carbs that I was eating.  Which wasn't many, to be honest.

Helped: I started working on reducing plastic even more.  I read "Zero Waste Home" by Bea Johnson and it pushed me stop buying bread and start baking it (for the family).

Helped: I bought a new cookbook called "The New Fast Food" by Jill Nussinow.  She's vegan, it's a pressure cooker cookbook.  Everything I've made in my instant pot with it is fab.

Hurt/Helped: The fires.  We were eating on the run which helped as we ate out more but hurt because we bought food wherever.

So how have we been doing in the last few years of tracking?  Not bad, considering my boys are GROWING:

Groceries 2014		$10,261.00
Groceries 2015		$5,706.05
Groceries 2016		$6,864.21
Groceries 2017		$6,997.16

2014 was the "lose the baby weight" year and "to heck what it costs". 

2015 was "OMG that was expensive, let's get a handle on this budget".

2016 was "That budget was too hard.  Live a little."

So there you are, grocery budget Frugal Healthy Simple Style, family of 4 that eats a lot of produce, in Southern California.