... in saving.
I did double duty on Sunday and hit our best priced local grocery store, WinCo, for all the items I needed that weren't a deal at Albertsons according to the grocery game. I got primarily produce and dairy/deli items (cheese, deli meat, yogurt, sour cream, etc.) and bread.
Spent $53.97
Saved $.98
Items 43
While I didn't even save $1.00 over the day-to-day prices, WinCo is probably 30% less across the board every day than Albertsons. So I know I'm saving by making this extra trip. And items like cheese and yogurt are not exactly cheap these days are they?
Then I headed to Albertsons to hit all the grocery game deals.
Spent $36.50
Saved $54.81
Items 26
I got several stock pile items as well as 2 packages of steak, 2 packages of ground beef and 2 packages of chicken breasts. Those alone would have normally been what my total was.
** Monthly Total as of 10-24-08 $183.15 ($8.15 over my 2 week budget of $175 for groceries AND Walgreens) **
** Monthly Savings as of 10-24-08 $119.52 on groceries and $86.48 at Walgreens for a grand total of $206.
Now honestly, I have a suspicion this is going to be boring for me to post on every week. So I thin I'll just keep the one Walgreens post per month and then maybe give you a little "financial savings" re-cap for the month. I don't know about you, but I like to see real life examples of how people are saving money ... it spurs me knowing I can do the same.
Tightening our budget ...
Today also marks the start of tightening our spending. We are by no means going without, in fact there is still SO much we could cut from our monthly spending and be more than fine. So, we're balancing the two, cutting out more wants and creating more savings for needs.
We've made good financial choices for the last 10 years that have allowed us to live on one income with only one debt, our home. That in itself makes it easier to sleep at night in the midst of all this financial uncertainty. However, through our choices and situations out of our control, our savings has dwindled. I don't like this, I don't like that I've contributed to this and I'm ready to change that. So for the next 2 months, if not more, we're being for purposeful about where our "extra" money goes. We've decided what we want to spend extra on (like Starbucks more than eating out) and what our extra amount will be for the whole month. Wish me luck! My biggest piece of advice ... stay out of stores! Throw away catalogs as soon as you get them! And delete e-mails from stores before you open them! You'll be amazed at how much temptation is lifted in those conscious acts.
Anyone else saving money or tightening their budgets? Am I boring you with these posts? Are they helpful? Would you like more details? Not like, I'm going to put out our entire budget for you to read, I don't think that is prudent or necessary, but I think it can be helpful to see where your monthly spending falls in comparison with others on basics. Let me know, otherwise I'll figure you've fallen asleep from boredom and I'll move on with the everything and anything about nothing of my life :).
Happy Saving!
7 comments:
I personally think it's encouraging to see how others save so I say keep these posts coming!
We went to a (mostly) single income almost 3 years ago when Bryson was born. I supplement some in with babysitting and now photo shoots. What we do do stay on budget is we are on a cash system. Take for example our weekly entertainment money (which includes going out to dinner, buying extra fun stuff, birthday gifts etc) comes out of an envelope of cash. When the cash is gone we are done for the week. It's worked well for us for 3 years now.
I am inspired by your "savings stories" and have found your desire to be more frugal a bit contagious. I too have been more careful about sticking to my list and only buying what we need (including stocking up). I am the queen of impulse buys and am trying hard to break the habit. I recently switched our personal finance software over to iBank. It has a great feature called Budget Monitor that shows you at a glance where you are within your budget for the month, this should help a lot since for me just being aware is usually enough to keep me in check.
I'm loving it too, Now I just need you to come on over and sit down and walk me through it ;0)
Funny thing is David saw the Oprah, and I missed it! I was so bummed. I'm trying to find what works for me and do the best we can. This has been an area of challenge in our life since neither David or I are especially wired that way.
Sorry bout the beeping.
You know I'm not at all bored. I love it! I was thrown a bit this week by our sickies and I actually felt pretty well stocked for now. But I will be back on track next week :)
I think I will join you in the spending moratorium. Although I have Halloween and lots of birthdays in the next 2 months so I'll have to get creative. More on that later for sure!
I like reading what you're doing to cut back and what exactly you're getting at the different stores. I think we're all feeling the need to save and it's inspiring to hear others doing it.
Thanks for sharing!
Definitely keep the money saving posts coming. I too am inspired by you and have the tendency to want to go shopping whenever we are home from work on the weekends. I tend to tell myself that it is something we NEED when we don't. Seeing others dedicate time to saving money is encouraging. My friend and I tried to have a weekly accountability time to ask each other questions about our lives and one question was: "What new ways did you discover to increase your finances this week?" This was a good challenge! Thanks!
i am so not bored. my question, and if you wanted to do a post on it i wouldn't turn away, is how do you find all tehgreat savings. i was watching oprah and the 'coupon mom' was on there but her strategy is a bit overwhelming for me. do you look online at albertsons to see what is on sale or do you just go and see what you find.
jen
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