Many of the bloggers I have been following do their shopping once per week, so I decided to give it a try. I planned my meals for a week, included all household items I need for this week, let each of the kids pick one snack for just them for that week, included "staples" of goldfish, apples, the norm. I had first gone through the sales circulars for Reasor's, Warehouse Market, Walgreens and Aldi. Next week I need to remember to include Target. I tried to plan some meals around them. Then I went back through them after my list was done to look for sales on other things I had added to my list. I didn't use any coupons this time, because I didn't have any and had forgotten to get a Sunday paper. I'm not a big coupon-user, though, so that's something I'll have to work on more. My experience, so far, is that women tend to buy things just because they can get them cheap, even if they don't appear to need them. My budget is so tight that I can't do that.
Over the past couple of years I have had a grocery budget of $250, twice a month. I am now attempting $75 a week. If I am successful I will be able to save about $200 a month. As of now I am still giving myself the full $250 in cash twice a month, but am shopping with a $75 per week limit. It's going to take some refining and I don't want to overly stress myself out.
Most of the bloggers that I follow that do this come back from the store and take a picture of all they bought, then break it down. I do think I will start doing that next week because it's interesting to me to actually see it. But yesterday I ran in the door and needed to unload groceries, eat and get everybody ready to get out the door for our New Year's Eve plans. I just didn't have the time.
But here is the breakdown. I didn't do too bad, but I really wanted to stay at $60 so I could still get milk bought under the $75 limit. I didn't accomplish that.
ALDI
Chocolate frosting 1.09
Artificial sweetner 1.19
Devil's food cake mix .79
Tortilla chips .99
Chili season mix .33
Pizza rolls 2.49
(2) Tomato sauce .50
Spaghettios .79
Stewed tomatoes .49
Bran cereal 1.49
Syrup 1.39
Cream mushroom .49
Total $13.09
WAL-MART
Bulk goldfish 5.98
Bag cereal 2.56
Chips Deluxe cookies 2.50 (Dawson's snack)
12 ct Doritos 3.50 (Brynne's snack)
Tomato soup .60
Ranch beans .68
Diced tomatoes .48
Sugar free koolaid 1.76
Apple juice 2.27
(2) frozen pizzas 2.00
Waffles 1.25
Junior lunchables 1.94
Bulk spaghetti .92
Oatmeal cream pies 1.26 (Eli's snack)
Fruit snacks 3.88 (Kyndal's snack)
Hamburger helper 2.00
Hamburger (5lbs) 7.50
2-pk deoderant 2.94
bell pepper .50
(3) Lean Cuisine 5.00
18 lb Cat Chow 8.49
Total $62.96
Grand Total Spent $76.01
This does not include milk or cheese (we are spoiled with Brahm's), so I think I will probably spend another $10 to get us through the next week. That would have me spending $86-90 instead of $125 which is still a $35-40 savings. If I just did that every week I would save $140-$160 a month. Awesome!!
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