A New Grocery Habit

It's been such a long time since I've posted. Between crazy weather, extra evening plans, and more kinds of sickness than I'd like to share, my time for blogging has been pushed aside!


So groceries. The majority of my contributions to keeping our budget on target is mostly in terms of grocery planning. We had been budgeting $300 per month, but I felt confident that once we were a little more established that I could whittle it down. So starting in November, it became my goal to get it down to $250. That number includes all food, of course, but also paper products, personal hygiene, cleaning supplies, kitty care, etc. We've been striving to meet that number, but had been still going over by about $20 each month.

Well,  my total for February 2014 amounted to $249.50!  So I'm definitely getting more comfortable with the lower budget.  But it took a lot more work than I'm use to putting into it. Usually my process is just to buy the things we need and the things that are on sale at the cheapest price possible with as many coupons as I can find.

I found this month that in order to keep it under $250,  I had to REALLY pre-plan based on sale prices and coupons on my final shopping trip of the month. So I made my list in the form of a table including the price per item found in the ad, minus the amount I could find in coupons, and with the total plus tax. It was very intense.  I also was going to 3 different stores, so I had to set a strict budget for each store: $15 for meat and produce to last the week at the farmer's market, $6.50 for 2 gallons of milk at Kroger, and the rest of the budget (about $26) for sale items and items we desperately needed at Publix.

Of course things changed once I got to Publix, so yeah, I walked around the market with my phone out doing calculations. I ended up spending just a little more than I anticipated because one of the items I bought was mispriced in my ad.  But luckily I was able to make up for it because I'd over-estimated for the farmer's market. And by the time I got to Kroger, the milk was on sale for a better price than I'd anticipated and I was even able to get some ice cream for B.

I believe I'm going to have to be this particular and specific on the last shopping trip of each month to stay faithful to the budget. Stay tuned for more info on if this proves to be more tedious than my patience allows for!