Well, after February’s exciting drop in spending, it went back up. I did go to Costco twice, but felt like I kept it fairly under control, so it seems to me it was more of a natural evening out of spending than a true savings.

However, it also was a longer month in the sense that I fit a whole extra week of grocery shopping right at the end of the month (3/31) for the following week so I essentially paid for a week of groceries in March that I didn’t use until April.

Two other factors at play:

• Protein. David is on a super health kick right now. I’m tagging along and supporting whatever way I can. One way is ensuring he (really, we) are getting enough protein. It’s hard to get the optimal protein goal we are shooting for muscle growth (roughly 30g per meal for me, more for him), so grocery spending is up to try and accommodate that. Eggs, cottage cheese, chicken breakfast sausage, steak, protein shakes… pricy! I’ve been taking advantage of Butcher Box’s member deals though. I just stocked up on free range chicken breast for roughly $5.75/lb.
• The kids are eating more. Which is great. How lucky am I to have healthy, growing kids that are running and playing and needing to be fueled through it? Truly! But gosh, it seems every week we are going through the bag of oranges, bunch of bananas, loaf of bread, yogurts, bag of bell peppers, etc faster and faster.

I will say, as a positive, that our eating out is staying low. We have a meal out roughly 6 times on an average month, including lunches (like Jimmy Johns) and/or dinner. That means every other meal and snacks are at home, so that’s a lot of at-home cooking, prep, and snacking. OK, the total:

$1,378 spent in March 2023. Funny enough, I just looked back to March 2022 and I spent $1,373.85. How insanely close is that? Ha.