How to Make a PDF Grocery Budget.

Food. It’s a basic need that we all have. Even so, groceries always seem to have a way of costing more than you’d think they should. Whether you’re single, part of a couple, or a family, or sharing the cost of buying groceries with flatmates, creating a grocery budget is an important part of managing your money and eating well.

Creating a food shopping budget helps you control your spending, cook healthy and nutritious meals, reduce waste, and make informed choices about the food you buy. Using Adobe Acrobat to create PDF grocery budgets is a versatile way to go.

Photo of full shopping basket with groceries on top of an itemised receipt.

What you’ll learn

In this article, we take you through how to make a grocery budget PDF step-by-step —

Why create a grocery budget as a PDF file?
Work out how much you can spend on groceries
Create a grocery budget spreadsheet
Track your current grocery spending
Compare what you spend against your budget
Review and adjust your shopping budget
Plan and be prepared for grocery shopping

Why create a grocery budget as a PDF?

There are very good reasons why PDF files work well for grocery budgets —

PDFs are accessible.
You can open PDFs on any smartphone to review your budget and grocery list while you’re out shopping with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader Mobile App.

PDFs are interactive.
Make your grocery budget come to life with fillable fields, buttons, calculations, and checkboxes.

PDFs are shareable.
Share the load of grocery shopping. Adobe developed PDFs to be secure and shareable files that can be viewed across devices and systems without losing formatting.

PDFs are convertible.
With Adobe Acrobat you can easily convert PDFs to and from different file formats, including shopping budgets created as Excel spreadsheets.

Work out how much you can spend.

Start by creating a spreadsheet with an overall budget that includes all your income and expenses, by week, fortnight, or month. Knowing how much money you realistically have available to spend on groceries is the first step.

Creating a budget that corresponds with how often you get paid, or do your shopping, shop can help with managing your money. Once you have your budget that itemises line-by-line everything you earn and spend, you can review and adjust it as needed.

Create individual files to convert to PDF or one document with detailed budget breakdowns. If you have one master budget file, it’s simple to add PDF pages or extract PDF pages as and when you need to.

Create a grocery budget spreadsheet.

Creating a grocery budget spreadsheet is one of the simplest ways to keep track of your spending and help you save. With a spreadsheet, you can easily look at what you buy and identify areas where you may tend to splurge or waste food.

Photo of a couple sitting in a kitchen looking at the screen of a laptop with copies of receipts on the table.

Divide your grocery budget into various categories of food and other items you regularly need such as —

Fresh/frozen produce
Meat and fish
Dairy
Canned and packaged foods
Drinks and beverages
Snacks
Personal care items
Cleaning supplies

Set spending limits for each category and total these in your spreadsheet. Remember to prioritize essential items but be flexible. Try to allow occasional treats or special occasions.

When you convert Excel to PDF your formatting and fields transfer across. You can do further calculations when you edit a PDF if you need to.

Track your current grocery spending.

For a month or two, keep track of your grocery expenses. Save all your receipts to give you a clear picture of your current spending habits and help you identify areas where you can cut back or reallocate what you spend money on. Add columns to your grocery budget spreadsheet to include your actual spending on each category over the past few months.

Check out the free Adobe Mobile Scanner app to convert your receipts into digital PDF or image files from your phone.

Compare your budget versus your spending.

Once you know how much you’ve spent on groceries, compare that number to how much your budget allows.

Challenge yourself when you compare your grocery budget versus your actual spending. Think about —

What food you may have bought or prepared that went to waste. If you’re not eating foods or leftovers before they spoil, learn what you can freeze for another day.

How much you spend on eating out or takeaways. Creating a separate budget or line for dining out or takeaways within your food budget can help.

The brands you buy and where you shop.

Review and adjust your grocery shopping budget.

Take the time when you review whether you’re spending within your grocery budget to compare what you’re paying for grocery items as well. Following these tips as you learn how to budget for groceries can help you spend less and still enjoy good healthy food.

Compare prices at supermarkets, smaller local stores, and farmer’s markets.

Consider buying non-perishable foods in bulk.

Buy fresh fruits and vegetables in season, they’re usually cheaper.

Try store brands over better-known brands, they often taste just as good.

Think about getting your groceries with an online pick-up order instead of in-store to prevent buying things you don’t necessarily need impulsively as you walk the aisles.

Plan and take your grocery budget with you.

Convert your Excel spreadsheet to PDF. Whether you do online grocery shopping or shop in-store, have your PDF grocery budget open while you shop. You can keep your grocery budget open on your mobile phone or have it open in another window when you’re shopping online to check that what you’re buying is on track with what you’ve budged for.

Photo of a person in a supermarket with shopping trolling holding a mobile phone with a grocery list displayed on the screen.