No, not like that!!! I am really bummed out though. I have started eating Healthy Choice frozen dinners for lunch at work. I can eat in the cafeteria for $2.60 but the food is really bad for me. I have to watch sodium and of course fat and all of their items are cooked in heavy butter, etc. So, I found some HC meals that were also $2.60. I still had to pay tax on that but to me it was worth a little extra money for something a bit healthier.
Well, I was really excited when the price was down to $2.00!! I still only bought my weekly amount which was a big mistake. I should have stocked way up. The next week the price went back up to two-sixty but I had a coupon which helped a little. This week the darn things are up to $3.16!!! I had my coupon again and was all ready to buy until I saw that. I decided not to get any at all as I still have a few in my freezer. Now, I don't know what to do. I can't keep making trips just to check and see if they have gone on sale. I have no idea if or when Walmart decides to mark those things down. I was thinking of trying again on Tuesday since I am off and I heard many stores mark down on that day. If I ever see them down to $2.00 again though I am going to have a cart full of green boxes... that is for sure!!!
I guess the lesson here is... if you see something you use a lot of at a low price it really does pay to stock up.
The MATH- If I buy the meals at $3.16 plus tax I am going to spend an extra 0.78 cents a day. That works out to $3.90 extra a week. If they stay at that price it will add almost $16 to my grocery budget a month. Not cool!!! So, do I keep eating healthy or go for the less expensive food? I guess my best hope is they go back on sale!
Showing posts with label groceries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label groceries. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Saving money on Dinner
How many times do you forget to pick up enough food for the week at the grocery store and end up ordering out or stopping by a fast food joint for dinner? If you are me? All the time.
Lack of planning can be a huge budget drain in any category, but with groceries it is especially a big deal.
I have found a great site that helps you plan and can help you save money in the long run. It is called savingdinner.com. Created by Leanne Ely with some prodding from the famous FlyLady, Saving Dinner is a site where you can purchase a weekly emailed menu mailer. There are a ton of choices. You can get low carb (best one in my opinion), heart healthy, the regular menu, crock pot menu, vegetarian menu, it goes on and on. Best of all, on the site you can download samples of any category for free. With that alone you could get a month's worth of free menus. It is well worth the price. For a year it is under $20 and you can try it for only a few months for less than $10.
Now, I don't always use the mailer recipies. See with this deal you get a log in that will take you to all of the menus you have purchased... even when your subscription runs out!!! Totally cool!
Also, she has several freezer meal kits you can buy. THey com with downloadable pages to keep up with what you have eaten, prepare the meals, tips on freezing etc. Plus they all get frozen as "pancakes" which means lots of freezer space left over, and less thawing time. These come with a month full of meals.
All of the meals have grocery lists that come with them. You can mark off items you already have, scratch through those for menus you don't want to try (each item has a number after it that tells what menu it goes with), and then just run off to the store and have a week or month worth of meals!
I do not get any money from this site and I am not affiliated with it at all except that I am a happy customer of several years.... now if I could just make myself do it as often as I used to!!!
The main reason I think it is so great is because you have the planning done for you which saves you time, the recipes are easy to make, and you don't buy extra junk you don't need.
Problems you may find at first- Your bill may be higher at first as you buy some staple items for your kitchen (ie vinagers, cooking wine, spices, etc) But you often get choices on those too so you can choose the less expensive option if necessary. Like I said, sample menus are available online so what have you got to lose?
Lack of planning can be a huge budget drain in any category, but with groceries it is especially a big deal.
I have found a great site that helps you plan and can help you save money in the long run. It is called savingdinner.com. Created by Leanne Ely with some prodding from the famous FlyLady, Saving Dinner is a site where you can purchase a weekly emailed menu mailer. There are a ton of choices. You can get low carb (best one in my opinion), heart healthy, the regular menu, crock pot menu, vegetarian menu, it goes on and on. Best of all, on the site you can download samples of any category for free. With that alone you could get a month's worth of free menus. It is well worth the price. For a year it is under $20 and you can try it for only a few months for less than $10.
Now, I don't always use the mailer recipies. See with this deal you get a log in that will take you to all of the menus you have purchased... even when your subscription runs out!!! Totally cool!
Also, she has several freezer meal kits you can buy. THey com with downloadable pages to keep up with what you have eaten, prepare the meals, tips on freezing etc. Plus they all get frozen as "pancakes" which means lots of freezer space left over, and less thawing time. These come with a month full of meals.
All of the meals have grocery lists that come with them. You can mark off items you already have, scratch through those for menus you don't want to try (each item has a number after it that tells what menu it goes with), and then just run off to the store and have a week or month worth of meals!
I do not get any money from this site and I am not affiliated with it at all except that I am a happy customer of several years.... now if I could just make myself do it as often as I used to!!!
The main reason I think it is so great is because you have the planning done for you which saves you time, the recipes are easy to make, and you don't buy extra junk you don't need.
Problems you may find at first- Your bill may be higher at first as you buy some staple items for your kitchen (ie vinagers, cooking wine, spices, etc) But you often get choices on those too so you can choose the less expensive option if necessary. Like I said, sample menus are available online so what have you got to lose?
Monday, September 3, 2007
The Grocery Game is Over!
Whew... I will be glad not to have to keep up with those receipts this month. But seriously, I did learn a lot from tracking my spending. So here are all the weeks added up (they may not all be in order but you can click here to see all of the posts together.
$80
$72
$95
$84- This is for the final week that I did not post here. It actually was exactly $84 once all of the extra expenses were taken out.
Total- $331
Now this is way more than I had budgeted for but not as much as I suspected it was. I also did not count the very first spending spree my husband accompanied me on because I know we bought a lot of stuff that was not related to grocery shopping. Plus it came out of his budget and I will continue to shop at least once a month from "his" money. (we don't really keep it seperate, but I do keep it seperate from my own budget)
So what did I learn? Here are some of the best things I learned.
1. Budget more. It will save me a lot of trouble in the long run having to transfer money in and out of my accounts. Plus if I have any extra at the end of the month it can be added to the next month's budget or put away into savings.
2. Buying store brands saves cash. I only tracked it once but the savings from one grocery trip was over $6.00 That was on my usual purchases too. Stuff I buy all the time, so I know I can continue to save that much by buying store brands.
3. Pay attention to how you are feeling before you go. Everyone knows you should not go shopping if you are hungry. HOwever I would like to add a few more. Don't go if you are- with your children and you are not able to say NO a LOT... with your husband/wife if he or she is an impulse buyer (mine is a HUGE impulse buyer).... not feeling well, be it morning sickness or a runny nose, if you don't feel well you will just be wanting to get out of the store.
4. Definitely go with a list. Also, make yourself stick to it. You should only put something in your cart if it is something you really do need and just forgot to add to the list.
5. Keep track of it for a month. It really will open your eyes. Not only do I now budget more to my grocery shopping but I have also added an "other" category for things like shampoo, dog food, etc. THose things that we don't buy every week but somehow they bust the budget every month.
6. Maybe this will only works for me- Shop one week at a time. I used to try to shop for two weeks,but let's face it. If you have two weeks worth of snacks in the house the kids will eat two weeks worth of snacks in a couple of days. I may try buying my meat and baking stuff for two weeks but I will still need to go once a week for snacks and produce.
While I will not be adding weekly updates to the grocery game this month, I will be keeping track and hopefully I can post it at the end of September. If you have any tips of your own please post them. I am sure we can all use some more tips.
$80
$72
$95
$84- This is for the final week that I did not post here. It actually was exactly $84 once all of the extra expenses were taken out.
Total- $331
Now this is way more than I had budgeted for but not as much as I suspected it was. I also did not count the very first spending spree my husband accompanied me on because I know we bought a lot of stuff that was not related to grocery shopping. Plus it came out of his budget and I will continue to shop at least once a month from "his" money. (we don't really keep it seperate, but I do keep it seperate from my own budget)
So what did I learn? Here are some of the best things I learned.
1. Budget more. It will save me a lot of trouble in the long run having to transfer money in and out of my accounts. Plus if I have any extra at the end of the month it can be added to the next month's budget or put away into savings.
2. Buying store brands saves cash. I only tracked it once but the savings from one grocery trip was over $6.00 That was on my usual purchases too. Stuff I buy all the time, so I know I can continue to save that much by buying store brands.
3. Pay attention to how you are feeling before you go. Everyone knows you should not go shopping if you are hungry. HOwever I would like to add a few more. Don't go if you are- with your children and you are not able to say NO a LOT... with your husband/wife if he or she is an impulse buyer (mine is a HUGE impulse buyer).... not feeling well, be it morning sickness or a runny nose, if you don't feel well you will just be wanting to get out of the store.
4. Definitely go with a list. Also, make yourself stick to it. You should only put something in your cart if it is something you really do need and just forgot to add to the list.
5. Keep track of it for a month. It really will open your eyes. Not only do I now budget more to my grocery shopping but I have also added an "other" category for things like shampoo, dog food, etc. THose things that we don't buy every week but somehow they bust the budget every month.
6. Maybe this will only works for me- Shop one week at a time. I used to try to shop for two weeks,but let's face it. If you have two weeks worth of snacks in the house the kids will eat two weeks worth of snacks in a couple of days. I may try buying my meat and baking stuff for two weeks but I will still need to go once a week for snacks and produce.
While I will not be adding weekly updates to the grocery game this month, I will be keeping track and hopefully I can post it at the end of September. If you have any tips of your own please post them. I am sure we can all use some more tips.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Groceries
Wow, I really need to look at a calendar before I work out my budget from now on. I totally forgot that there were essentially 5 weeks in this month. I was off on daycare, gas, and my grocery budget. I am actually having to tap into the emergency fund this month which sucks.
Okay, so on to groceries. I have a cold or bad allergies today so I didn't keep up with my store brand savings this week... sorry! My grand total was just below $124 Here is how it broke down.
94.41 was all grocery
29.49 was other expenses. This week it included cold medicine and upholstery cleaner because one of my little darlings spilled milk in my car and neglected to tell me until I got in one morning and almost threw up from the smell.
If nothing else, I guess I can say that I did well on "other" expenses this week. I will be back to post more later!
Okay, so on to groceries. I have a cold or bad allergies today so I didn't keep up with my store brand savings this week... sorry! My grand total was just below $124 Here is how it broke down.
94.41 was all grocery
29.49 was other expenses. This week it included cold medicine and upholstery cleaner because one of my little darlings spilled milk in my car and neglected to tell me until I got in one morning and almost threw up from the smell.
If nothing else, I guess I can say that I did well on "other" expenses this week. I will be back to post more later!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
An Extra $6 Lost!
Yesterday I posted about my $6.90 savings at the grocery store from buying store brands. Well, today I realized that I had $6 in coupons on my refridgerator. I have no idea why I didn't think about it when my husband said we were out of dog food. I forgot it the last time also. I had one for pull-ups too, which I almost always have because most diapers give you a coupon inside. I am so upset with myself for missing out on yet another opportunity to save some cash!! Oh, well, it isn't like I "lost" the six bucks, I can always use it later.... if I remember!!
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Grocery Update- My Budget is inadequate!
My total receipt from the store this week was:
$125.93..... eeek! How much of that was groceries.... not much.
I broke it down like this:
$71.52 was honest too goodness grocery expenditures.
$54.41 was stuff we needed but had not budgeted for at ALL
So what did the 54 consist of? dog food, shampoo, magazines and pull ups for the little one.
I am beginning to realize my budget needs a serious overhaul. I may have to limit my debt payment a bit more so we can afford to eat. Well, not really eat, but obviously shampoo is a necessity (I will go into greater detail with that in a seperate post. Of course the magazines were 9 dollars.... ouch. I thought I was going to get a discount on them but apparently not as much as I thought.
Now, last week I told you I was going to add up the total I got for buying store brand vs. name brand. My total this week was $6.45. I could not believe that!! It would be higher but I bought only two cans of veggies to try out. Next week I will buy more if we like them. The true total is $6.90 because if I consider the extra tax I would have paid on the savings it brings it to an extra 45 cents. Not too shabby in my opinion.
So, the grocery experiment really is going close to what I had planned, the problem is that there are extra expenses that need to be budgeted for. So even though I am spending more than I planned, I am also learning a lot about myself and my finances. I will be posting soon what my action plan will be to deal with this and about the shampoo problem....
$125.93..... eeek! How much of that was groceries.... not much.
I broke it down like this:
$71.52 was honest too goodness grocery expenditures.
$54.41 was stuff we needed but had not budgeted for at ALL
So what did the 54 consist of? dog food, shampoo, magazines and pull ups for the little one.
I am beginning to realize my budget needs a serious overhaul. I may have to limit my debt payment a bit more so we can afford to eat. Well, not really eat, but obviously shampoo is a necessity (I will go into greater detail with that in a seperate post. Of course the magazines were 9 dollars.... ouch. I thought I was going to get a discount on them but apparently not as much as I thought.
Now, last week I told you I was going to add up the total I got for buying store brand vs. name brand. My total this week was $6.45. I could not believe that!! It would be higher but I bought only two cans of veggies to try out. Next week I will buy more if we like them. The true total is $6.90 because if I consider the extra tax I would have paid on the savings it brings it to an extra 45 cents. Not too shabby in my opinion.
So, the grocery experiment really is going close to what I had planned, the problem is that there are extra expenses that need to be budgeted for. So even though I am spending more than I planned, I am also learning a lot about myself and my finances. I will be posting soon what my action plan will be to deal with this and about the shampoo problem....
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Grocery Update- A good week?
Well, this week's grand total $80 and some change. Not bad considering last week's total. Also, there were a few purchases that were NOT groceries but we needed like shampoo, etc. That should have really come out of my envelope budget but that hasn't really gotten off the ground yet. I bought a lot of store brand, in fact I bought everything store brand that I could. Next week I plan to add up all of the small savings from buying that way and see exactly how much it adds up to.
If nothing else, I am finding out this month that my budget is a little off. We just cannot feed our family on the amount that I usually budget. At the same time, I also realize that we spend way to much when we go as a family, without a plan, or when we are tired or hungry. It was really hard to get out of the house by myself this weekend, but I figure it saved us AT LEAST $50. So far here is an estimated rundown of what we have spent in my little experiment:
Trial Run- $50
First real week (but out of husband's budget not mine, with entire family)- $200
Second week ( by MYSELF) -$80
If nothing else, I am finding out this month that my budget is a little off. We just cannot feed our family on the amount that I usually budget. At the same time, I also realize that we spend way to much when we go as a family, without a plan, or when we are tired or hungry. It was really hard to get out of the house by myself this weekend, but I figure it saved us AT LEAST $50. So far here is an estimated rundown of what we have spent in my little experiment:
Trial Run- $50
First real week (but out of husband's budget not mine, with entire family)- $200
Second week ( by MYSELF) -$80
Friday, July 27, 2007
More on Groceries
Let’s see. Do I really have to count today as the first week of my “new” way of grocery shopping? Yes, I guess I do. And, how did I do? TERRIBLE! First, I took my husband and kids with me. MISTAKE NUMBER ONE! I also bought a few items that were not grocery but we needed, like diapers for the baby. However, I also bought some things that we did not need at all. Add in to that my daughter begging for junk food, my husband saying yes most of the time and well, we spent just under $200. However we definitely bought more than a week worth of food. So when I go back next time, BY MYSELF, I think it will be much much better. Let’s hope!
Funny, when I posted my last post on groceries, Trent at the Simple Dollar and JD at Get Rich Slowly both had grocery articles up too. Here they are because they were both really good and related. Trent’s article JD’s article I have deemed August “Grocery Savings Month” because, well, I want to. I will try to keep everyone updated on MY progress. Please share your own tips too!
Sorry if the updates are a bit slow this month. I will be starting back to school ( and have actually been working the last two weeks ). The first few weeks of school are always hectic and library is a new position for me. If you don’t want to miss any updates you may want to subscribe so you will be notified by email. Thanks!!
Funny, when I posted my last post on groceries, Trent at the Simple Dollar and JD at Get Rich Slowly both had grocery articles up too. Here they are because they were both really good and related. Trent’s article JD’s article I have deemed August “Grocery Savings Month” because, well, I want to. I will try to keep everyone updated on MY progress. Please share your own tips too!
Sorry if the updates are a bit slow this month. I will be starting back to school ( and have actually been working the last two weeks ). The first few weeks of school are always hectic and library is a new position for me. If you don’t want to miss any updates you may want to subscribe so you will be notified by email. Thanks!!
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