So, I recently started following a blog about saving money. Through my reading on this blog, I’ve discovered how much money can be saved by doing little things… like clipping coupons. Chris and I are notorious for spending a crap ton of money at the grocery store. We have definitely gotten better about it in our old age, but we can still spend $150+/week on just the two of us. I don’t know how this compares to other people, but it definitely seems like a lot to me. Especially when the lady on the aforementioned blog can spend $40-$60/ week and feed her family… including 3 children (one of which is on a gluten free diet!). With that figure, you would think that she’s feeding her family Ramen Noodles for every meal, but she posts about their weekly menu and the items she picks up at the store. Very little of it is processed crap and junk food. And preparing gluten free meals is not cheap either.
Her blog has inspired me. I’ve decided that I’m going to work on being better about planning our meals and budgeting our shopping trips. This week was my first experience shopping with coupons, and I think I did pretty well. I have set a budget of $100/week for food to start. I hope to decrease that amount as we go. I haven’t come up with a budget for household items (cleaning supplies, toilet paper…etc), as I’m trying to get a handle on the food part first. I think the key to all of this is planning. I sat down on Sunday afternoon and started figuring the next week’s meals based on what we already had in the house. Here’s the weekly dinner menu:
Sunday: Steak, green beans, salad
Monday: Garlic Chicken with Dan Dan Noodles (frozen Pei Wei meal)
Tuesday: Pot roast (made 2 weeks ago and frozen), peas, rolls
Wednesday: Homemade tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches
Thursday: Baked chicken and veggies
Friday: Pasta
Saturday: Probably eat with the family
Chris and I have been really good about making a weekly menu for dinners, but I realized that my planning was all wrong. I wasn’t utilizing what we had in the house to figure out what we should eat. I would just sit down and write down what I wanted to cook or what sounded good and go from there. This is one reason why our grocery bill has always been so much.
I only planned out dinners because breakfast and lunch are pretty much fend for yourself. We keep cereal, eggs, and bacon in the house for breakfasts… and lunch meat and bread for sandwiches for lunch, but a lot of the time we will eat leftovers.
From there I made a shopping list, started scouring the coupons in the Sunday paper and online, and then looked at store ads for sales and deals. Then, several of the couponing blogs I follow will post about good deals, so I added a few things to the shopping list that I can add to the pantry to use in the future. Here’s how we did:
First, Logan and I went to Target. Yes, I did all of this shopping with a 5 week old baby. By myself. (I’m actually pretty proud of how well he did. Thank God for the MobyWrap!) Target had lots of sales going on. I clipped coupons for everything seen in the picture (except the laundry detergent) and paired most of them with store coupons or sales. We spent $35.63.
Then we went to Market Street. We usually do most of our grocery shopping at Albertson’s since it’s the closest to our house, but since I was already planning on being in the Lewisville area (Target), we decided to go to Market Street. I WISH there was a Market Street closer. I (again) had coupons for the majority of the items and paired them with store sales. I think the heavy whipping cream was the only thing I paid full price for… and I needed that for the tomato basil soup I’m making on Wednesday. We spent $20.06.
Last stop on our shopping excursion was Walgreen’s. We had to stop and pick up prescriptions for Chris so we took advantage of the deals you can get at drug stores. We got some soup (I tried to choose soups that are used in recipes a lot), some almonds for snacks, and some eye drops for Chris. We spent $11.95 out of pocket, but since we got back $8.00 in Register Rewards, it’s really like we only spent $3.95. Register Rewards print out at the end of your transaction… it’s like a gift card for $8 towards your next purchase at Walgreen’s.
Our grand total for the week is $67.64. Not too shabby for our first go ’round. Luckily, we have a well stocked freezer, thanks to a meat sale at Albertson’s last week… so that’s one reason we came in under budget. Let’s hope next week goes as well. Now… I just have to figure out what I should do with the $32 overage. I’m thinking I should buy another cloth diaper to reward myself for all of my hard work. 🙂