A $300/month Grocery Budget?

I mentioned back in December that we were considering setting the grocery budget at a mere $300 for a month and that we were going to switch to cash while doing so.  And then we were hit with some dietary challenges that will make this budget a lot bit harder to stick to.  I will get to that in a minute but for now let’s look at the numbers…

Yes, we were OVER budget by $105.24. Let me break it down as to WHY I’m still convinced we can make $300/mo happen.  Let’s first remember that January was 5 pay weeks instead of the normal 4 so even sticking to a $75/week budget that would have been $375 allocated to groceries for the month.  Ok so maybe the $405.24 isn’t looking soooo bad now.

In January, we ran into some great stock up pricing on ground beef, chicken and pork.  We took advantage of this and currently our freezer has 12lbs of ground beef, maybe 6lbs of chicken and 18 pork chops and one pork roast.  This will save us money in the coming months when we use our stockpile rather than purchasing new at over $1.50 more per pound.

Also in January, I decided to jump on the freezer cooking bandwagon.  Sticking to our new dietary restrictions I purchased spices and ingredients for a Paleo plan that will provide us with 8 dinners and approximately 12-15 leftover lunches.  The spices and recipes were through Tastefully Simple and are amazingly easy!  I managed to put all the meals together with no pre-prep in about an hour!  Most of the meals can be prepared in the crockpot and since all the prep is done, all you need to do is remember to thaw – absolutely fabulous for working days! And most of the meals included 6 servings which is at least 2 meals for our small family.  The best part is they all fit in my tiny freezer! We have no deep freeze and I was able to fit them in our refrigerator freezer along with our stockpile of meat!  Contact me if you are interested in this plan and I can put you in touch with my Tastefully Simple consultant (who also happens to be my sister) for more details.

And as mentioned above, we are eating differently.  Due to some health considerations, we have gone to a lower carbohydrate diet. This means less processed foods (less opportunity for coupons!), more meat and produce.  Meat is expensive in general and produce can be.  Pasta, rice and beans are out… these are the backbones of every budget friendly meal plan I have ever found on Pinterest! I’ve gotten boxes of pasta for as little as $0.25 with sales and coupons and now they are sitting in my pantry useless.  But the dietary changes are working and eating this way will stay for a while.  I’m now challenged to find the best deals on whole foods like meat, fruits, veggies and dairy and am cutting out most processed food items (basically most anything with a brand name).  Thankfully, Grocery University – while being a coupon heavy guide to saving money – has provided me with valuable tips to saving money even on these non-branded items.

And possibly our saving grace to keeping positive about our $300/mo grocery budget is the opening of Aldi in our town!  They have had amazing prices on fruits, veggies and several other items we buy. Some items have been less than half the cost of our local grocery store.   It’s time for me to peruse some of those 25 Meals for $150 pins I’ve saved and see if they will work for our family!

So while technically we lost the $300 grocery challenge in January, I’m looking forward to the challenge in the upcoming months.

Do you have any special dietary restrictions that make meal planning challenging?  Have you found any tricks to stay within a small grocery budget while meeting the dietary needs of your family?

Budget Leak

One of the best things I ever did for our budget was making the switch to cloth diapers when our daughter was around 6 months.  I had looked into cloth diapering before she was born and was intrigued but Hubs wasn’t completely convinced. Once she was here and we were going through $50-70 per month just for diapers (not to mention diaper genie refills, wipes, rash creams..), the switch to something more economical just made sense. 

Lately though, our budget has taken a hit again as I “fell off the wagon” with my cloth.  Travel, the holidays, sickness… I haven’t used them much since November started and it’s cost us around $215!!! WHAT?!? Our Gazelle budget can’t handle that and I’m getting back on the wagon. Immediately. 

If you haven’t ever considered cloth diapers but need to trim your budget, I highly suggest you look into them!  When I started my research it was about how to use, the different kinds/different brands, how to wash… but I hadn’t truly looked into the cost savings until right before I made the switch.  This post by I Heart Budgets was my favorite cost comparison by far.  It was a simple breakdown but made so much sense.  We took the plunge.  And even though our daughter is still in disposables at night and at the grandparents on days I work, our cloth has (and will) save us so much!  Here is a look at our numbers (if we had started from birth and I hadn’t fallen off the wagon):

First Baby	Disposables	Our Cloth Experience
upfront costs	Diaper Genie – $30	Around 60 Diapers with approximately 120 inserts @ ~$10 each (various brands/styles) Wet Bags/Pail Liners – $30
Monthly Costs	Diapers – $70/month average Wipes - $10 DG Refills – $6 Rash Cream – $4	Disposables – $20/month average Wipes – $10 Rash Cream – $2 Diaper Liners – $2 Water (well) – $0 Electric – $5
Cost for 2.5 Years	~ $3,240	~$1800

Ok, so I went a biiiiit overboard when purchasing my diapers and have way too many currently!  And since we still use disposables half the time, our savings is a mere $1440 over the average span of diapering.  BUT… I can sell back my cloth diapers when I’m done (rough estimate of resale value $450)  which brings the savings to around $1890.  If we have a second child, I can use the same cloth diapers and diapering a 2nd child would only cost us approximately $1,170 if we continue with disposables part time.  Taking into account a 2nd child, we would save over $3,500 just on diapers!

Just look at all that cuteness! What’s not to love?  Oh ok, yes I realize there is the added laundry.  But really its an extra 2-3 loads a week for us. And it’s really not such a bad thing when you have such a cute little helper!  This mama is back on the wagon starting today!

Paper or Plastic?

This post contains affiliate links from Grocery University.

During the month of September, I decided to tackle out outrageous $600 grocery budget and using a little planning and the tips learned from Grocery University we were able to cut our spending by $200!  Since then, I’ve lightened up on the planning a bit BUT have still managed to use the tips to keep our spending at just $400 per month.. well actually October was $415 but November was a paltry $175!  So where do we go from here?

I’m considering setting a goal of paying only $300 per month for groceries!  Since I’ve been able to maintain $400 or less for a couple months with minimal effort I think I can do some extra planning and stick to a $300 budget.  I also pulled out household and baby items into their own line items in the budget so the $300 will be strictly for food related expenses.

Another change we will be making in the new year?  Paying CASH for groceries.  It’s easy to overspend when you can just swipe the plastic, but handing over those paper bills  makes that shopping trip much more real.  If you head to the store with a plan for the cash, you need to stick to that plan and not give in to impulses as much.  This will be a real challenge for me as I use my debit card for everything and rarely carry cash. 

As I plan to cut our budget even further, I’m looking over and listening to my Grocery University materials again to really ingrain the tips into my brain.  I really believe that this program helped our family save $200 a month and that it can help us to save an additional $100!  And let me add that my savings didn’t happen with stores that double $1 coupons or at ones that allow a high dollar coupon to be used on trial sizes.  If you watch the extreme couponing shows you know that’s often what gets them to a $1 total for $1000 of groceries but that just isn’t realistic.  One of my regular grocery stores doubles up to $0.50 coupons, another doesn’t double, and another doesn’t even take coupons!

If you haven’t checked it out yet, or know someone who could use a little help in trimming some spending, I encourage you to check out the program or share the link with a friend because there is a SALE going on TODAY!!!  Normally, Grocery University is $9.97 but TODAY ONLY the price is just $4.97!! It’s a great deal and could make a great gift for someone struggling with this area.

Another great deal for today is Financial Peace University!  The home study course is just $129 (normally $399!!) and the online format that Hubs and I are going through is just $109.

Check out these two great deals to get your 2015 off to a great start!

Holiday Havoc

Hey y'all!  Wow.. nearly 1.5 months since I posted!  Life certainly gets in the way when you let it but I have NOT given up on our quest to become debt free.

I have been updating the little total ticker there on the right sidebar, and if you look you can see we've paid off $3,220.13 since I started this little blog in September.  That's just 3 months worth of effort. Not included in that total are 2 medical bills that popped up, incidentals on a trip to Michigan, baby shower gifts, Thanksgiving expenses, and the fact that we have gotten ourselves a baby emergency fund in place.  I've started a side Avon business (link on the side) to bring in some extra income and Hubs and I have been working our way through Financial Peace University Online. Oh and there's this little thing called CHRISTMAS coming up so a little extra income has been allocated toward gifts the past month as well!  Whew… it has been a busy month but I'm feeling really encouraged about where we are right now even if this month's snowball payment was fairly small.

The plan for December?  Pick up those few last minute Christmas gifts, pay cash for 2 new tires on our car, and hopefully attack the snowball a bit harder.  Also this month we have 3 family birthdays and Christmas!  I’m planning a little extra for restaurants and fun things like going to see the lights in Gatlinburg or other Christmas-y things we can do as a family.  The holiday season has a way of wreaking havoc on the budget but we are trying to be as prepared as possible!  We also plan to finish up our FPU classes and move forward in 2015 with a more complete budget.  This will make us cut back a bit in some areas but will also help us save for a those inevitable rainy days.  Things like new tires or dryer repairs or unplanned medical expenses will have their own sinking funds monthly so that when these kinds of expenses pop up, we will be ready for them.  Even with these extra categories, we will have money leftover to apply to the snowball and will continue to push toward becoming debt free. 

We are wrapping up this year faster than I would like but we feel good about our plan for the next one!

Are you making any special budget considerations for the holiday season? Do you have any budget related goals for 2015?

Cutting The Grocery Budget–Wrap Up

We’ve had a little break in posting because we had a somewhat surprise visitor in the form of my 90year old grandpa!  We hadn’t seen him since early June so this was quite a treat!  At that point Baby Wee had just started walking.  Now she’s running and climbing everywhere, displaying more of her personality everyday!

But I promised a wrap-up with tips and tricks that I had learned during this process and so here we go!

Here are the top 5 easy to do things that helped me to cut our grocery budget by 33% in just one month!

Menu Planning -  Ok, I was already doing this before we set out to cut our budget BUT I made one small change in HOW I planned.  I planned my menu around the items that were on sale that week.  See, I told you it was simple!  Somehow, it had never occurred to me to do this before I bought the Grocery University program. Once I read that I was like “DUH!!”  While we still might decide on a meal or two that just sounds good at the time, switching to mostly on sale ingredients helps immensely!

Shop Your Pantry -  Another simple and obvious tip!  Most of us have shelves and freezers with food purchased and then forgotten.  It’s always a good idea to take stock of what you already have on hand before heading to the store or even before menu planning!  This also comes in handy if you need to whip up a plan B one night because a quicker, easier dinner is warranted.

Use Coupons -  I told you these are easy to do right? Get a paper and get some scissors and start clipping!  Then get on your computer and start printing and clipping some more! Ask friends and family to give you their leftovers, pick up those coupons in the grocery aisle displays… It’s worth it, I promise.  I used to think coupons were a hassle but they really can save you big money – especially when you combine them with store sales and double coupon policies.

Know Your Prices – You may very well need to shop around to get the best prices.  I’m working on creating a Price Book so I can quickly reference prices of commonly purchased items.  It’s worth it to know what the normal and sale prices are on certain items so you know if that week’s sale is actually a “good deal.”  Currently, I have a general idea of prices but over the 4 weeks of tracking I know there are things I got at less than a “good deal.”  Some things could be cheaper at Sam’s Club even without a coupon, but unless you know the normal price per serving or ounce you might end up paying more.  Also, stores generally have sales on a cycle.  If you can figure out that your favorite pasta sauce is on sale every 4 weeks, you know the ideal time to stock up and use your coupons!  Knowing prices and sales cycles is really beneficial when you use it to stock up on things like meats – things for which you generally can’t find coupons.  If I see pork loin for $1.99/lb, I’m going to stock my freezer with self cut chops and roasts. If I see hormone and antibiotic free chicken breasts for $2.99/lb you better believe I’m buying a bunch! Stocking up when you know the price is low is a great way to save money even if you spend a little more during that trip.  Remember, we are shopping from our pantry and fridge/freezer before spending a dime at the store that week!

Get Organized – Know what is in your pantry and fridge. Know your “good deals.” Organize your coupons so you can find them quickly and easily.  Make a menu board with your favorite recipes to make menu planning faster.  With a toddler in tow, I need to be able to menu plan and grocery shop as quickly as possible.  I also don’t want to miss out on an unadvertised deal because I can’t find the coupon I know I have somewhere. 

My process looks something like this:

• Clip coupons from Sunday paper and file.  Pull coupons that will expire this week to the front.  Discard any expired coupons.
• Peruse the grocery store sale flyers when they come out on Wednesday. 
• Make a list of all “good deals” that I see or items we need to restock and print.
• Use the lists (usually 2 from 2 stores) and my pantry/fridge to make a menu for the week & highlight ingredients needed on the lists.
• Match highlighted items from the lists to coupons. 
• Hit the store(s)!

It really can be as simple as that!  Just a few small and easy changes made a big change in our budget.  There are even more tips I learned from Grocery University and implemented over the month, but these 5 tips are the easiest things I did.  They are also easy enough that pretty much anyone can do them!  I hope they can help you and your family too.

Getting a Handle on Spending

I came clean a few weeks back on our total debt and our deadline to pay it off, but I didn’t really discuss how we plan to pay it off.  Honestly, I really didn’t know how we would.  I figured we would start a snowball type plan to get it done but I didn’t know where we could get any extra money to do this with.  I spent the last 4 weeks focusing on our grocery budget because to me it was the easiest place to cut.  I knew we were overspending in this area and I was right!  The extra $200 a month is a great start but I want to be more aggressive in getting this done.  You Dave Ramsey fans out there might call this getting “gazelle.” 

I’ve read Dave’s books and looked into his methods. I know they work for a lot of people and I know some of it can work for us. The one thing I was struggling with was how to live on a cash only basis.  My credit union that I’ve had an account with for over 30 years has no branches here in the state so cash can’t be taken out to be re-deposited at specific times to pay bill categories.  But I liked the thought of having “envelopes” and having set amounts for those categories.  I needed a way to keep my accounts electronic while still tracking specific category spending.

Enter You Need A Budget – or YNAB.

This is an actual screenshot of my budget in YNAB.  The “budgeted” amount is the total amount I’ve placed in that “envelope” for the month, the “outflows” are what I’ve actually spent from that “envelope” and the “balance” is the amount left to spend in my “envelope.”  This is all separate from my checking account yet helps me track my allocations without the money ever leaving the account.  I can also track the spending just like you would with a check register – remember those?  The best part is you can load the program on as many devices as you like!  I have the free app loaded on my Android phone that let’s me quickly see how much is currently in my envelope AND enter transactions as they happen to immediately update the totals across all devices. 

For example, I’m at grocery store A and I check to see I have $100 left for the week in that category.  I shop and I spend $75.  I enter that amount on my phone before leaving the store and immediately my husband who is at store B can see on his app that we now only have $25 left for groceries and adjusts his spending accordingly.

Since I started using the program about 4 weeks ago, I’ve been much more aware of what I’m spending and where.  I get a paycheck and immediately prioritize where the money gets allocated.   Then I don’t worry about if we have enough to get gas or go out to eat because I can always see exactly what I’ve already earmarked for that purpose.  If “Murphy” happens, and he always does, you can adjust your categories as needed but still know you have enough to cover everything.  I can’t say enough about YNAB it is the easiest and most liveable plan I’ve ever used.   And in the short time I’ve used it we have “found” over $400 to use toward our snowball this month!

YNAB has a FREE trial – and I mean completely FREE for 34 days – so you can see if the program is right for you.  They also have free online classes to help you customize the product for your needs.  I just bought the program before our free trial ended because I love it so much!  It has made budgeting…. FUN! Yes, I actually said that.   So try YNAB by using their free trial, and if you like it, please come back here and click through my link to get yourself a $6 discount on the program. (out of full disclozure - I might also get a $6 bonus if you do!)

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 4

This is the last week in my grocery challenge to trim $200 from our grocery bill and I am happy to report – I DID IT!!  The goal was to go from spending roughly $600 per month to just $400 – about a 33% reduction. The total I spent for this month on groceries (including household and baby items) was just….

In my budget, that is a savings of 37% or an actual $222.09!  I will be putting this extra cash to paying down our debts and to hopefully get us to our goal even sooner.  To me that total above is simply amazing.  Amazing because I always thought I was a smart shopper before. Amazing because I didn’t think we had anywhere to scrape extra dollars like that from. Amazing because it was so much easier than I thought it could be! 

I even saved money this week when I was feeling overwhelmed and tired and didn’t really get the greatest of deals.  This way of shopping and the simple act of using coupons is really saving our family money and is sustainable.  That is the important thing to me -  that this will be something I can achieve consistently if I keep at it.

This week I spent $90.13 between 2 stores – under budget by almost $10.  So without further ado… where did I shop and what did I get? 

First we went to Target – now I admit we mostly went here to get a deal on Starbucks coffee and ended up with other things entirely. This is my problem going to “big box” type of stores where they have more than just grocery items – BUT -  they do tend to have better prices on the household and baby items. I guess it’s a tradeoff and I just need to get more willpower not to scour the entire store!  So, back to the shopping… we went to pick up Starbucks beans that were on sale AND had a $5 gift card offer.  Most of the bags were gone, completely cleared out.  The ones that were left were blends Mr. Wee doesn’t like so we didn’t get any coffee.  Bummer!  By the way, did you know there are smartphone apps that will pay you to snap a pic of empty shelves and upload them?  Holy crap I would make so much money around here…. if only the apps were compatible with my phone! (iPhone users – check out gapNsnap if you are interested)  So what did we buy here then?  Baby Wee was out of Hylands Teething Tablets – best invention ever – so we picked those up using a Cartwheel offer.  We also used a Cartwheel and Target coupon to purchase Plum Organic baby food packets.  Finally, they had a sale on a giant jar of Jif for $5 – normally the same jar runs $6.99 at the grocery store.  Total spent: $24.99, total saved: $6.37.

The bulk of our shopping was done at Kroger.  I will admit I had been in a sort of love affair with Kroger the past few weeks after getting some great deals.  This week, I even decided to skip looking at my local Ingles ad because I was certain the better deals would be here – mistake.  Ok, I did still get some good deals here this week but I’ve become slightly disenchanted.  I got caught up in the 10/$10 promotion but found many of the items cleared out from the shelves… other shoppers informed me they had been empty since the day the ad came out.  Maybe they restocked during the promo, maybe they didn’t.  Either way, I was disappointed.  I was able to get greek yogurt, frozen veggies, organic mac n cheese, pasta and condensed soups (yes, I know making them is healthier but time is sometimes a premium!) for $1 or less when combined with coupons. I also stocked up on organic chicken broth for soups for fall!  Overall I spent $65.14 here and saved $33.94 – a 36% savings.  After the last few weeks of saving 40% or more, this felt like a fail.  But I still saved money – that is the most important thing to remember!

Next week I plan to recap some of the biggest things I’ve learned over the last 4 weeks but if you want to start saving now, I really want to encourage you to check out the banner link to my affiliate below:I know I’ve mentioned Grocery University in previous weeks of this challenge, but I cannot stress enough how great this program has been for our family!  I bought the program figuring I would at least recoup the cost of the program with a tip or two, so what was the harm?  The program costs $9.97 and over the last 4 weeks I’ve saved $222.09.  Seriously, how can you not love that?  Some of the tips are common sense or things you might know if you’ve been on a tight budget, but I think there are at least one or two tricks your family might benefit from in there too.  I encourage you to check it out!

What does your grocery budget look like? Could you stand to trim it?

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 3

Disclosure policy: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive compensation if you make a purchase using this link.

Here we are over halfway into my mission to cut our grocery budget by $200 this month. I am finding it easier and easier to save money at the store without making huge sacrifices and so I know I will be able to continue sticking to the new grocery budget and maybe even challenge that a bit to get it down even further!  Again I came in under budget and spent just $80.42 between 3 grocery bills. That puts the monthly total at $287.78 at week 3!  

I knew this week would be a challenge because we needed quite a few “big ticket” items for the house like toilet paper and detergent.  I knew this week would be a challenge because we needed quite a few “big ticket” items for the house like toilet paper and detergent so I decided to get a little creative and “shopped” from my fridge and pantry first.   I was shocked at what we already had on hand… especially in our little freezer.

Freezer Inventory:
Meats – keilbasa, 3 chicken breasts, sausage log, homemade sausage from the neighbors, ground chicken, 8 filet mignon, bacon, 4 sirloins, cube steak, 5 pork chops, chicken thighs, 2 cooked chicken breasts.
Vegetables – lima beans, sweet carrots, peas, corn, broccoli, peas & carrots, mixed veggies, cauliflower, tater tots, crinkle fries, chopped green pepper, chopped onion
Fruit – mixed berries, blueberries, black bananas
Cheese – swiss, parmesan, 2 bags of cheddar, mozzarella
Drinks – rum ,gin, tequila, moonshine, Tastefully Simple Ruby Orange Slush, breastmilk
Random – 4lb butter, ice cream, sugar cookies, yeast, pork gravy leftovers, bean & cheese burrito, chicken tenders, taquitos.

Yes… allllll of that fit in this tiny freezer you see in the picture.  I was vaguely aware of the contents but I was even taken by surprise on a few items.  This was more than enough to feed my family for the week if not for a few weeks!  Some things may not be our first choice but we definitely would not starve.  Let’s not forget I still have my fridge and pantry to find additional ingredients and round out the meals!  So where else did I shop and what deals did I get?

First I scoured the internet for deals on toilet paper.  Hubs is kinda picky about this one because of our septic tank and the best deal I could find was through Amazon.  We ordered Scott Extra Soft Double Rolls (36 rolls) for $19.74 shipped. We used subscribe & save, a $1 digital coupon and our Amazon Prime membership to make this item a decent deal. It works out to about $0.55 per roll and I’m pretty good with that price. This purchase will last us a while too so spread over 2-3 months the cost isn’t bad at all!

Then we went to Wal-Mart where I stocked up on toothpaste, new toothbrushes (for our upcoming trip!), mouthwash, deodorant and aluminum foil.  I spent $25.25 here on house/grocery items and saved about $4 using coupons. I have decided I really need to stay away from Wal-Mart though because I spent an additional $35.72 on shoes for baby and a hooded zip sweatshirt for me.  That came out of the clothes budget so technically doesn’t count for the grocery totals!

Last up was Kroger. I used my Kroger card and digital coupons and saved $22.58 to make my total bill $35.43!  Again I saved 40% on my main grocery trip!  I shopped a lot of the mega savings event items and managed to get deals like General Mills cereal for $1.49, Tide for $3.99 and my lovely raspberries for $0.99!  We also purchased staples like milk and eggs.  Kroger is quickly becoming my new favorite grocery store even though it’s a bit further to drive!

Let’s tally up some totals for the past 3 weeks, shall we?  I’ve spent a total of $287.78 of our grocery/household budget.  Without using the tips learned from the Grocery University program, I would have spent $400.65 on those exact same items.   I’ve saved $112.87 so far on the items I’ve bought.  I’ve also spent approximately $162.22 less than I normally would have spent from this budget at this point in the month!  That is a huge savings in my book!

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 1

My goal for this month is to cut our grocery budget by $200.  That is a huge amount but we were also spending a huge amount.  This week it will probably look like we aren’t doing so hot in the savings department because I spent $134.55… just $15.45 less than my original spending of $150 per week.  BUT… we stocked up on some things that *should* save us on grocery costs throughout the month and it’s still a savings for the week!  Oh, and I think I should mention that our “grocery” budget includes personal care items.  I also should mention, we have taxes here on groceries and it ranges from 5-7% depending on the item so that is included in my monthly budget as well. So what did I buy and what “deals” did I get?

First up was Sam’s Club.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, warehouse clubs can be a great place to find deals. Personally, I prefer Costco but we only have Sam’s in our area.  There are deals to be had but you need to really check the prices at your local grocery stores to know if you are getting a good one or not.  For example, Campbell’s tomato soup runs $0.79+/can at the grocery store and at Sam’s I can buy it in a 12pack for $0.66/can.  We do not make a weekly trip here and generally buy just a few choice items when we do go.  So stocking up on a few items for the month, we spent $68.76… ugh… ok let’s break that down a bit with our price so it doesn’t hurt so much…

We bought:
5lbs of 90/10 ground beef – $3.65/lb (6+meals & cheaper per lb than the 80/20 at the grocery)
2 32oz flavored International Delight coffee creamers – $2.03 each (my vice)
3 Classico Pasta Sauces – $1.82 each
2 Simply Orange Orange Juice – $2.94 each
4lbs Butter (in sticks) – $2.87/lb or
2lbs Starbucks Beans – $8.99/lb (Hubs is a coffee snob and this runs us $13/lb at the grocery)

Next we went to Walmart.  Yes, I know allll about the evils of Walmart but for things like personal care items, they have the best prices in the area.  I spent $6.50 here and saved $4.25 using coupons! (That’s an almost 40% savings!) I will add that going here I also bought things I didn’t need that were *not* grocery budget line items so are not included in the total.  This will always be the downfall of shopping in a supercenter type setting.

We bought:
Carefree pantyliners – $0.44 (used $0.50 off coupon)
Stayfree pads – $1.86 (used $1 off coupon)
TRESemee Hairspray – $1.98 (used $2 off coupon)
Caress Body Wash – $2.22 (used $0.75 off coupon)

Finally, we went to Ingles (our local grocery store). We spent a grand total of $59.29 on just grocery items and we saved $31.96.  That’s right, we got $91.25 worth of food for just over $59!!  (A 35% savings!)  I’m not going to detail my entire grocery list here but our savings came from a few places.  First, we used our store card to save $25.76.  Big ticket items included in this savings were hamburger buns for $0.68, ground chicken for $3/lb, grapes for $1.40/lb and 33oz of olive oil for $6!  I used store card savings on some Gerber baby items that were 2/$3 or 3/$4 and stacked that with $1 off coupons bringing those down to $1 per meal or snack saving about $0.60 on each.  I also got catalinas for $1 off more Gerber items and $3 off my next shopping trip! (Catalinas are the coupons that print at the register with your receipt) In total I used $6.20 in coupons.

So did I save the 90% that you see on the extreme couponing shows?  Heck no!  But I do think I learned some helpful tips that will get us to the $400 or less monthly grocery budget. (Thank you to my affiliate, Grocery University)  I also think saving 35-40% off is a pretty good first effort. 

A few things I have learned from this first venture out? 

• The tips I learned from Grocery University have already saved me more than I paid for the download – seriously, go buy it now! 
• My local grocery store runs their ads from Wednesday to Tuesday every week so I can plan for my weekend shopping trip by looking at the online ad. 
• Running to town to pick up the “big city” newspaper (in our case, the Knoxville News Sentinel) is worth it for the extra coupons they offer. 
• I have a ton of coupons for non-food items and not so many for food items – I need to focus more on the food coupons when printing them from online. 
• I need to make a price list so I can better judge if items are a “good deal” or not – especially when shopping at Sam’s club. (ex: I should have bought the soup!)

What is your favorite grocery shopping tip? What was your biggest grocery shopping deal?

The Ugly Truth

So if I’m going to be talking about paying off debts, I have to come clean about the total of those debts.  In order for me to stay home with our little one, we decided we need to eliminate all but my student loan debt.  The number we are looking at is {deep breath}:

$18,838.39

I hate seeing that number.  It’s much easier to stomach in individual credit line balances than to add it all up into one.  The breakdown is about 50% credit cards/store cards and 50% car loan.  I read somewhere that the average American family has $8,000 in credit card debt so we are apparently decidedly average. I’m so not proud of that fact.

Why aren’t we including my student loans in the total?  Well I’m ashamed to admit, the amount is ridiculously high and it will be a very long time before those are paid off.  Luckily, my interest rates are low.  Once the above debts are taken care of, we will be putting any extras toward tackling this beast.
So what is the goal? 

Pay off $18,838.39 by December 31st, 2015 or about 16 months

With our current budget, if everything goes perfectly, this should be achievable by October 2015.  If something goes wrong, like losing a couple weeks of work, December gives us a little leeway.  I’m hopeful that I will be able to shave $200 off our monthly grocery bill using the Grocery University program (a 33% reduction!) and will then apply that to our debt.  In doing that, these debts will be eliminated by September 2015 or just over a year.  
There you have it in writing.  Here’s to hoping what they say about putting your goals in writing is true!

Do you have any current financial goals? What are your strategies to help you achieve these goals?