(Don't forget to read how you can vote for my reusable Kroger shopping bag here!)
There are a ton of things that I keep reminding myself that I really need to get done because I haven't done them in a while.
Things like balancing the checkbook... updating our budget spreadsheet... I have a million and one things I want to blog about...
And today I'm taking the easy one: checking to see how well I did with my grocery spending in April.
My first week was a major pocketbook emptier. I kept that in mind all the rest of the month, but it was H.A.R.D. Man, it was so hard. I don't know that I could ever shop with less than $25/week regularly. Some weeks it's easy to do, but in April it seemed like every week had some really great deals that I couldn't pass up or I'd end up paying out the nose for some stuff later. It all panned out o.k. Not under budget, but not so over budget that I feel like I have to lock up my coupons, checkbook and car keys.
It came out to $27.12 per week for the month of April.
Just for kicks, here's what I would have spent if I had bought all of those groceries without the sales or coupons: $394.31
What I did spend: $135.57! My April savings were $258.74 or 67%!! Woohoo!!
I have been checking out different websites and blogs recently and 67% is the average that the big couponers out there save! I must not be doing too bad :) Granted, I've never gotten $200 worth of groceries for $5, but even they themselves admit that trips like that are not the norm.
I am hoping that my percent saved will creep up a little, though. I've made some minor changes that I'm hoping will help me get even more groceries with my budget. We'll have to see how things are at the end of May to see if they worked or not :)
Showing posts with label Monthly Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monthly Review. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
February Review
Wow, February is over! I'm not sure where it went, but the days on the calendar just flew past.
Having been over budget several times in January (mostly due to bad coupon experiences), I knew I was going to need to be really careful in February to make sure and not go over. And I didn't :)
Total spent: $88.86 (averages out to $22.22/week), $11.14 under budget.
While I'm really happy that I didn't go over budget in February, I'm also hoping that March will be a little nicer to the pocketbook (meaning: hoping Daniel's company will have more work). It's looking like we'll have to dip into our Emergency Fund to help pay the next round of bills :( That's what the Emergency Fund is for, but it's one of those things that you want it there for when you need it but you don't want to touch it. I'm sure it's a mental thing that "if I dip into it once, it'll all be gone in a *POOF*." And of course it won't all be gone in one poof :P
Having been over budget several times in January (mostly due to bad coupon experiences), I knew I was going to need to be really careful in February to make sure and not go over. And I didn't :)
Total spent: $88.86 (averages out to $22.22/week), $11.14 under budget.
While I'm really happy that I didn't go over budget in February, I'm also hoping that March will be a little nicer to the pocketbook (meaning: hoping Daniel's company will have more work). It's looking like we'll have to dip into our Emergency Fund to help pay the next round of bills :( That's what the Emergency Fund is for, but it's one of those things that you want it there for when you need it but you don't want to touch it. I'm sure it's a mental thing that "if I dip into it once, it'll all be gone in a *POOF*." And of course it won't all be gone in one poof :P
Friday, February 6, 2009
January In Review...
Ahh, January. The month of recuperating from Christmas and New Years, wild and crazy coupon experiences at the store, and getting back on track with my daily housekeeping.
In the grocery budget department, we averaged out to 25.85 a week. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'm 100% sure that it would have been under budget if there hadn't been the great coupon fiasco. I'm glad that I do have a little play room in our grocery budget since I budget $30/week to include the papers, but they don't take up the whole extra $5. I still pretend that $25 is my limit!
This week and last week it was alot easier to get what I needed and stick in the $25 range. I think it's probably something that will come and go. So, for now, I'm going to leave it at $25 a week. It's working out fine so far and we're eating normal, everyday food :)
I do need to make a confession. At some point in December I did buy a large family pack of ground chuck from WalMart. It came out of the food budget, but it wasn't a regular grocery trip and I didn't blog about it. I also bought the lunch meat that we didn't use at our NYD get-together. And while we were up there for NYD, I bought 15lbs. of deerburger from my sister and her husband for $1/lb. And didn't blog about it. Considering that I didn't buy other groceries for 2 weeks in December, I'm sure I stayed within my budget for those meat purchases. But just in case you have been sitting there scratching your head going "when did you turn into a vegan?", we didn't. I just haven't had to buy meat for a month! I am on a major lookout for chicken or whole chickens to go on a super-duper sale. We're about out of chicken (though we do have some picked turkey on hand) and I want to replenish our supply. I'd like to find some on sale for $.39 - $.69/lb. That's my target price for buying chicken.
I've also learned - or maybe realized is more like it - that one of the top key rules for couponing is to NOT buy the item just because you have a coupon. Thankfully I didn't have to learn that the hard way, but I imagine alot of people do it. Instead, hold on to the coupon, wait for the item to go on sale, and THEN use the coupon.... but only if the sale + coupon make it a steal. In other words, I have a general idea in my head of what I'm willing to pay for something... Cereal, less than $1 and I'll start thinking about it. Veggies, $.50 is expensive - I aim for free. Milk, while there aren't coupons for it, I don't buy it unless it's marked down. An expired coupon that you have to throw away because you didn't use it is alot cheaper than buying something overpriced just to use the coupon!
And of course in our effort to be debt free, we threw a nice chunk at our mortgage principle with our January payment :)
There's our January in review! I'm excited to see how we do in February :)
In the grocery budget department, we averaged out to 25.85 a week. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'm 100% sure that it would have been under budget if there hadn't been the great coupon fiasco. I'm glad that I do have a little play room in our grocery budget since I budget $30/week to include the papers, but they don't take up the whole extra $5. I still pretend that $25 is my limit!
This week and last week it was alot easier to get what I needed and stick in the $25 range. I think it's probably something that will come and go. So, for now, I'm going to leave it at $25 a week. It's working out fine so far and we're eating normal, everyday food :)
I do need to make a confession. At some point in December I did buy a large family pack of ground chuck from WalMart. It came out of the food budget, but it wasn't a regular grocery trip and I didn't blog about it. I also bought the lunch meat that we didn't use at our NYD get-together. And while we were up there for NYD, I bought 15lbs. of deerburger from my sister and her husband for $1/lb. And didn't blog about it. Considering that I didn't buy other groceries for 2 weeks in December, I'm sure I stayed within my budget for those meat purchases. But just in case you have been sitting there scratching your head going "when did you turn into a vegan?", we didn't. I just haven't had to buy meat for a month! I am on a major lookout for chicken or whole chickens to go on a super-duper sale. We're about out of chicken (though we do have some picked turkey on hand) and I want to replenish our supply. I'd like to find some on sale for $.39 - $.69/lb. That's my target price for buying chicken.
I've also learned - or maybe realized is more like it - that one of the top key rules for couponing is to NOT buy the item just because you have a coupon. Thankfully I didn't have to learn that the hard way, but I imagine alot of people do it. Instead, hold on to the coupon, wait for the item to go on sale, and THEN use the coupon.... but only if the sale + coupon make it a steal. In other words, I have a general idea in my head of what I'm willing to pay for something... Cereal, less than $1 and I'll start thinking about it. Veggies, $.50 is expensive - I aim for free. Milk, while there aren't coupons for it, I don't buy it unless it's marked down. An expired coupon that you have to throw away because you didn't use it is alot cheaper than buying something overpriced just to use the coupon!
And of course in our effort to be debt free, we threw a nice chunk at our mortgage principle with our January payment :)
There's our January in review! I'm excited to see how we do in February :)
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