Will I make my grocery budget this month?

Hmmmmmmmmm. Not sure. I guess I didn't think about how tight $300 was when I decided to include things like paper products, personal products and diapers in it. Wow. I have only $17.17 remaining for the next 11 days.

Fortunately, we'll be eating at my mother-in-law's tonight. At my parents' houses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (although I need to bring a shrimp platter which cost $9.99). Then, on the 27th we leave for Texas.

I won't need to do a big shop before the end of the year. I've got plenty of food for the meals, but need some other stuff. Here is my list . . .

Milk -- $2.59
Hot dogs -- $2.00
Graham crackers -- $1.50
Pretzels -- $2.50
Chips -- $4.00
Vinegar -- $2.00
Syrup -- $2.50
Shrimp platter -- $9.99
TOTAL -- $27.08

This also doesn't take into account that we are out of bananas, grapes and almost out of apples. Many of the snack foods are for our trip to Texas to keep the kids occupied. We might have to see if we can get by without the hot dogs, vinegar and syrup. That will cut $6.50 out. We might be able to avoid buying milk too. We've got 1 and 3/4 gallons in the fridge. We should be able to make it on that. That would keep us in our budget. Barely.

My miscellaneous budget is another story. It's gone. And more. If I hadn't done Christmas cards though, we'd be okay. And, I did buy some things we didn't really need. It doesn't include gas though. I've bought about $150 worth of gas gift cards this month. I buy them through my son's school and we get some money back on them towards tuition. We'll use all of that this month with the holiday traveling we'll be doing. We'll spend more than that because of trip to Texas.

Oh well, my budgets were a nice idea. Better luck next month. My goal for 2009 is to not use my credit card (except for things that only take credit card or online purchases). Hopefully I'll be able to make that goal!

Strict Budget Experiment-- a partial flop

The next step in my experiment was to try to strictly stick to my grocery budget of $100 for the big weeks and $50 for the mid-cycle shop. I started this about a month ago. The first big shop I did, I chose not to buy a bunch of snack food. Snack food is expensive. It is nearly $4 for a bag of chips which my family can eat in 2 days. No granola bars and no desserts. Instead, I bought more fruit hoping that my boys would eat this instead of junk food.



This was my first flop. By not buying some snack foods for my family, my husband became desperate for junk. So desperate that HE stopped at the gas station and bought a small bag of chips for several dollars. He did this a couple times each week. Suddenly we were spending MORE money on junk food. Lesson learned. I can't be so strict that I cut out all junk food. My family is too addicted.



It was a partial success. My boys are eating more good things. More bananas, apples, apple sauce, grapes, etc. This makes me happy.



Now I buy one bag of chips each week and a bag of pretzels. The pretzels often last me two weeks. They eat the pretzels when the chips are gone. The pretzels are cheaper and healthier.



So, I'm happy with my experiment and the results, even if I had a flop.

Bi-Monthly Grocery Shopping Experiment

After about a month of weekly grocery shopping with a list, I'd been able to reduce my weekly grocery budget to about $80. That was fabulous as I'd been previously spending about $100-120 per week (I think). I was very pleased.

The next step of my experiment was to shop for 2 weeks at a time. I knew I'd still need to stop in between to get fresh fruit and milk though. So, I started making my menu plans for two weeks and making a 2 week grocery list based off the menu plan.

I headed off to the grocery store for the first time after making my 2 week shopping list and when I checked out, I was disappointed to see my bill was $80. I didn't save anything. Then it struck me, I'd just picked up groceries for 2 weeks, not 1!!! Wohoo!

To date, I've continued doing the two weeks of shopping at one time. I like it that way and I seem to spend less time at the grocery store. I still go in between for a mid-cycle shopping trip to pick up fruit, milk, etc. At that time, I also pick up things that are on sale as well.

Big Grocery Shop

In spite of the fact that it isn't my usual shopping day, I decided to go grocery shopping tonight because it was double coupon day. My local grocery store (Copps) doubles up to 5 coupons (up to a $1 value) with a separate $25 purchase. This could add up to an extra $5 savings. So, I decided to head out tonight. MISTAKE!!!!

I've fallen for this before and I can't believe I fell for it again. I get so angry every time I go. Since I work on Wednesdays, I always wait until after the boys are in bed. It's around 9 pm by the time I get there. Since there ad cycles end on Wednesday, they are busy tearing down the old ads and putting up the new ones. This means that other than to hunt and compare to the ads, I have no way of knowing what's on sale and if I'm purchasing the correct items. Plus they are regularly out of what is on my list. Like bread. It drives me crazy!

So, while I did get doubled coupons which saved me an additional $4.50, I did not find many of the other sale items which would have saved me as much money and a lot of frustration. So, I think I'll end going to Copps on Wednesday and go back to my usual Friday grocery shop.

I also spent quite a bit of time at Walgreens today. I couldn't pass up the spectacular deal on laundry detergent. You can probably tell because I bought 12 of them yesterday!! I got them for $8.51. This was for the 32 load arm and hammer liquid detergents. Fabulous deal! That's a bit over $0.70 a piece.

Here's how I did it: Walgreens is having a special where if you spend $25 (before coupons and discounts), you get a $5 Register Reward (essentially a $5 coupon towards anything in the store). I purchased 4 detergents at a time. Original price is $6.99 each. That rings up to $27.96 plus tax. On the back of their 3 day flyer that runs from December 10-13 there is a Walgreens coupon for the detergent bringing the price down to $1.99 each or $7.96 plus tax for the 4 of them. For one transaction, I used a$1.00 off coupon too but for the other 2 transactions I did not. Anyway, after you pay, the $5 Register Reward prints. So, while you'll pay $7.96 plus tax the first time you do the transaction, the next time you'll pay only $2.96 plus tax. Since I already had a $5 Register Rewards from last week (toilet paper), I never did pay the full $7.96! Yay!

I also bought Campbells Tomato Soup because it was on sale 4/$2, plus I had a coupon for $0.40 off 4. We use quite a bit of tomato soup. So I bought 4.

I got 3 boxes of Reynolds Wrap for free as well. I had a coupon for $1 off Reynolds Wrap. Walgreens has Reynolds Wrap (the 20 foot roll) for $0.99 after Walgreen's Coupon which was found in their ad. So, I actually made $0.03 on the rolls.

I bought two 3 packs of scotch tape because Walgreens had them on sale for 2/$2. Then, Walgreens has a rebate of $2 on 2. So they were free.

Finally, I bought 3 boxes of mead envelopes. Normally they were $1.09 each, but with a Walgreens coupon they were $0.59/each. Since we need envelopes, I bought 3.

Whew. That's a lot of shopping for one day. I might have to hit up another Walgreens tomorrow for some more detergent. We go through a ton of detergent here with 3 little boys. Can you believe it?

Grocery List Experiment

After creating my first weekly menu plan, there were obviously items that I needed to round out the meals. This included things like milk, fruit, etc. Plus a few basics. So, I decided that in addition to my meal plan, I should create a shopping list for the grocery store.

I couldn't believe how much it cut down my grocery bill to have a shopping list! It was amazing. At first, I didn't stick strictly to the list. Nevertheless I saw improvement in my grocery bill.

Additionally, I didn't find myself wasting time running to the store mid-week because I didn't have something I needed for a meal. Not only did I save myself time, but money. Every time I went to the grocery store, I found something else I "needed" besides what I'd gone there for. Things I definitely didn't really need.

Overall, I'd call the grocery list experiment a success!

My Weekly Menu Plan Experiment and This Week's Plan

I usually have my meal plans run from Friday to Saturday. I usually plan 5-6 meals per week figuring that the other we end up eating either leftovers, eating at my in-laws or grabbing McDonalds or something (usually if I'm gone Lance will do this with the boys). I don't assign days of the week to the meals. That way I can just pick whatever I'm in the mood for or works into our schedule off the meal plan. It works for me. I think that if I planned certain days of the week, that I'd get up that day and not be in the mood for whatever I'd planned. Then I'd be tempted to stray from my carefully planned meals and order out.

I also don't bother to plan lunches, even though we're home 4 days per week. I just keep the house stocked with macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, macaroni noodles, spaghetti sauce, cheese slices and sandwich bread. Sometimes I buy ham or turkey cubes or frozen chicken nuggets. I never really know what the boys will be in the mood to eat at lunchtime and I like to let them call the lunch shots. I often just eat leftovers from the night before. If there are no leftovers, I usually make a sandwich.

This weeks menu plan is:

1. Cheesy Chicken over Egg Noodles
2. Steak, potato and corn
3. Beef Roast, potato and beans
4. Grilled chicken, potato and corn
5. Enchiladas

I made enchiladas for dinner tonight. My husband was gone all weekend on a guy's fishing trip. So,despite the fact that I usually get enough leftovers for two lunches, today I only had enough leftover for one lunch. Apparently he was hungry for something that wasn't fish and was homemade.

At night I usually look at my weekly meal plan and decide what we'll have the next night. For the 3 nights per week that I work, I plan easy meals such as scrambled eggs, something in the crockpot or something else that is pretty quick. Tomorrow will be steaks. I'll take them out of the freezer tonight and put them in the fridge so that they are thawed by dinner time. Of course we're in the middle of a HUGE snowstorm. My husband doesn't think there will be school tomorrow. I wonder how he'll feel about grilling outside in the middle of the storm.

Menu Planning Experiment

After completing my inventory of my freezers and pantry, it didn't take much thought for me to conclude that we HAD to eat up all that food. Much of that food was going bad before we could eat it. It was crazy how much we had. The solution? Make a meal plan that included everything we already had.

For the first month or so I only had to buy minimal things from the grocery store. Milk, bread, fruit, etc. I had plenty of boxed potatoes, frozen vegetables and meat in the house.

But I quickly realized that we were eating the same thing over and over again. Apparently I lack imagination. So, I made myself a list of all the meals my family likes to eat. I found it really helps me to plan a variety of meals. I can look through the list and determine what we haven't had in awhile.

Today I still use that list of meals to make my menu plans. Occasionally I add things. Occasionally I take things off the list.

Sidebar features and Budget Goals

I've added two sidebar features to help me budget and keep track of my progress.

Grocery Budget

The first is the grocery budget. I've established a bi-weekly budget of $150 for groceries or roughly $300 per month. Typically I spend $100 buying all my food for two weeks. The next week I've budgeted $50 to pick up the in-between stuff plus some cushion. I could probably get by on less on the in-between week, but I use the extra money to stock up on things. I intend my grocery budget to include all paper goods (toilet paper, kleenex, etc.) and toiletries (toothpaste, shampoo, etc.).

The prime example of stocking up is the chicken breasts that I bought. Those are great chicken breasts that are perfect for grilling or baking. I use this type when I'm not cutting up the chicken or putting it in something else. Typically at My Menu those 3 lb pages sell for $12.99 each. I got them on sale for $6.99 which is the cheapest I've ever seen them. We have chicken breasts about every other week. I calculated that we needed 24 lbs to carry us through the whole year. Because I was thrifty at the grocery store in the previous week (during November), I was able to fit these chicken breasts in my bi-weekly budget.

While I've successfully been sticking to the bi-weekly budget for about a month now at the grocery store, I've never included what I pick up at Target, Walgreens or anywhere else when it involves grocery items. This is my new goal.

Miscellaneous Budget

I've set this budget at $400. I've not been working on this budget and don't intend to focus on it for right now. My philosophy is one step at a time so as to not overwhelm myself. The main reason that I added this sidebar feature is to start keeping track of my spending on other items. I will include everything here except food, gas and my monthly bills. All entertainment, eating out and miscellaneous purchases. My guess is that I'll blow this in a big way. Especially this month when we've got a trip to Texas planned for the end of the month which will involve a few hotel room stays, gas and food.

This will be an interesting experiment for me. Right now I'm going to focus on bringing ALL food, toiletry and paper products purchases into the $300 monthly budget. Of course, just today I bought enough toilet paper to last us a full calendar year!!

Freezer Burned Food Experiment

When I found all that freezer burned chicken in my freezer, I just couldn't bear to throw it away. After all, it had probably cost me around $6 per bag or $36 total. Thus, being the cheap person that I am, I held onto it. One day I decided to try to cut the freezer burn off of the chicken. I let it thaw for awhile until just the outside was thawed and the inside was still quite solid. And low and behold that freezer burn came off! Quite easily too.

I cooked up that chicken in a crock pot meal with sauces and it was perfect! You couldn't even tell it had been freezer burned. Wohoo! I probably wouldn't want to make it without being in a meal which masks some flavor of the chicken. Plus, the crock pot helped to make it more tender.

I've thrown freezer burned chicken into the crock pot without cutting off the freezer burn. Again, as long as it was in something, I couldn't tell. I usually make it in a chicken and rice meal or cheesy crockpot chicken recipe.

It took my family almost 7 months to eat all that chicken. But, I'm pleased to say that we did it. We didn't waste any of it.

Genesis . . . the Beginning of the Experiments

I always think the best place to start is at the beginning of a story. So, let me rewind approximately 8 months for you . . .

On St. Patrick's Day (March 17), 2008, I gave birth to my third son. My other two sons were 4 and 1 (today they are 5 and 2). While on my maternity leave from work, I was pumping milk for my son and freezing it. However, when I went to put it in my stand-alone freezer, I realized there was no room. But what was in there? I had no idea.

I immediately decided to find out. It was like a great expedition into the Arctic! Sadly, I found that I had 6 bags of badly freezer burned chicken, 15 packages of hot dogs, 10 ring bologna and about 8 packages of pork chops. This doesn't include all the various bags of frozen vegetables and other miscellaneous things (like the 6 boxes of margarine). What a potential waste! I compiled this list in a small notebook.

Then, since I was so motivated, I came inside and inventoried our refrigerator freezer. Imagine my surprise when I found even more chicken, hot dogs, ring bologna (4) and pork chops. Along with frozen breast milk from my second son!!!

I threw out some of the obviously bad and old stuff. But I just couldn't bring myself to throw out all that meat. Even though it was freezer burned. This lead to my very first experiment . . . and my next post. I'll continue telling this story along the way between my other posts.