I think most of us realize that in the grocery stores, the fall months have more of the basic cooking and baking items featured on sale than the later winter months. And I myself have mentioned that I spend a lot in the fall stocking up on supplies and comparatively less following in the first couple of months of the year.
I wanted to see the actual numbers (comparing fall and winter spends) in a long-range perspective (not just one or two years). So, here they are. I have listed my spending amounts for late fall and early winter of the past 9 years.
I consider November and December to be my primary stocking up months, while January and February are my "coasting" months, where we use what we bought at a discount or seasonally-low price in the fall.
Nov. 2012 $290 Dec. 2012 $247 Jan. 2013 $137 Feb. 2013 $191
Nov. 2013 $254 Dec. 2013 $162 Jan. 2014 $119 Feb. 2014 $135
Nov. 2014 $297 Dec. 2014 $159 Jan. 2015 $94 Feb. 2015 $201
Nov. 2015 $232 Dec. 2015 $91 Jan. 2016 $118 Feb. 2016 $164
Nov. 2016 $493 Dec. 2016 $142 Jan. 2017 $129 Feb. 2017 $158
Nov. 2017 $284 Dec. 2017 $330 Jan 2018 $110 Feb. 2018 $183
Nov. 2018 $275 Dec. 2018 $265 Jan 2019 $162 Feb. 2019 $90
Nov. 2019 $157 Dec. 2019 $171 Jan 2020 (current $81, budget -- $106) Feb 2020 (budget - $105)
In the numbers below, I've combined together November and December, then January and February of specific years, to get an idea of how the higher fall spending leads to lower winter spending.
The amounts spent per month varied quite a bit, and in one or two cases an isolated month bucked the trend and either incurred less or more spending than would have been projected. However, when the fall months are combined and weighed against the combined winter months, the trend is consistent -- I spend more in the fall and less in the winter. In some years, I spent over $300 more in fall than in I spent in winter.
Part of this could be due to buying holiday foods in fall, whereas, I don't do a lot of holiday food shopping in winter. Even so, I don't spend $300 on holiday foods between Thanksgiving and Christmas, ever. My holiday dinners run about $15 to $25 per holiday. In addition, while I bake more during the holidays, I don't believe that I bake $300 worth of goodies each holiday season. My waistline couldn't handle that much baking. Also, we bake a relatively small amount of goodies to be given to others during the holidays.
The other plausible explanation for the difference in spending between fall and winter is I have found more deals in the fall (and therefore stocked up) than I have in winter.
In the fall, I find a lot of advertised sales on shelf-stable baking ingredients, canned goods, long-keeping refrigerated foods (like cheese and butter), and of course, turkey and ham (both which freeze well). In winter, my primary source of great deals is the clearance rack. Other than that, great deals on basic cooking and baking supplies are few and far between from January through February.
2012 Fall $537 2013 Winter $328
2013 Fall $416 2014 Winter $254
2014 Fall $456 2015 Winter $295
2015 Fall $323 2016 Winter $282
2016 Fall $635 2017 Winter $287
2017 Fall $614 2018 Winter $293
2018 Fall $540 2019 Winter $252*
2019 Fall $328 2020 Winter (budget of $211)
What does all of this mean? Well, it's interesting to see this typed out -- just how great of a difference the spending between fall and winter of the same "year" can be. But also, as I mentioned at the beginning of November, knowing this allows me to plan my budgeting for these four months. My grocery budget, then, is dynamic and responsive to available deals.
This past fall, I "borrowed" $30 each from both January 2020 and February 2020's grocery budget to give me a larger, stocking-up grocery budget for both November and December. January and February of 2020 are "coasting" months, meaning I will buy less and instead rely on all that I bought at seasonally-low prices previously.
There you have it -- a very geeky look at one household's grocery spending in the fall and winter months.
*to note: Our reduced grocery budget, due to my husband's employment situation, did not kick in until March of 2019. So, the fall 2018 and winter 2019 comparison does not include any cutbacks to the budget, which could have skewed this assessment for that year. The fall 2019 and winter 2020 months all contain our budgetary cutbacks, so the comparison should be accurate and again not skewed.
