Health Tip: Microbudgeting

 Maybe this doesn't work for everyone's vices, but if you are like me and your vices are $5 chocolate bars, then it works great. Every month I've been looking at my budget on mint.com. I used to just have a lump sum for "Groceries" but I've found it's better for my budget and my health to break that down. My categories are

- Cowpooling/meatshare

- Other good things like condiments, vegetables, and fruits

- Treats

Once you start doing that, you realize that every time you buy a chocolate bar it takes away from better things you could be buying and eating. It's also been helpful to microbudget for Meatshare because while the sum for purchase often is huge, if I use Mint to spread it out it doesn't look so bad. I guess this is less applicable if you actually make a decent amount of money, but just seeing how much money goes to junk can be enlightening. For example, in October I spent $60 on chocolate! That was the first month I tracked it and since then I have curbed my spending on that. Of course this also doesn't account for chocolate received as gifts :) 

Overall, my food expenses are quite high as percentage of spending. But since the rest of my health budget is so low, I don't mind. I also had cut other budgets like for clothing because food is so much more important. 

How do you budget for food? Do you find it a useful tool for eating healthy?