The placemat my daughter made for the 1st Grade Nutritious Breakfast at school
(picture cropped to remove her name)
My challenge for April is to re-stock my freezer and pantry, as well as provide healthy, interesting meals to my family. The budget for accomplishing these two tasks is set at $400. Hubby gets 3 paychecks this month and we got our income tax return, so it seems like a good time to give it a try. I started my challenge today - ok I know today is the last day of March but I really REALLY needed to shop or nobody was going to eat tomorrow! My spending today is going to be applied to the April budget.
The little man and I spent about an hour and a half in Stop and Shop this morning and I spent more in one shopping trip than I have in quite some time. I had a coupon worth $8.00 off my total order, 4 Stop & Shop Dollar Doubler Coupons, a slew of $1.00 coupons and quite a few under a dollar that doubled.
Included in my purchases are:
Easter Ham
2 Rings of Keilbasa
2 Packs Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Family Pack of Cube Steaks
Family Pack of Boneless Pork Ribs
2 Packs Oscar Mayer Bacon
1lb Deli American Cheese
1/2 Lb Deli Turkey Breast
2 Jars of Hellmans Mayo
4 Boxes of General Mills Cereal
FREE Hood Sour Cream
Coffee (Maxwell House and Starbucks)
1.5 Gallons of Milk
2 Dozen Eggs
6 Boxes Green Giant Frozen Veggies
2 Packs of Fruitables Juice Boxes
5 Cans DelMonte Diced Tomatoes
7 Cans Campbells Cream Soup
Lettuce
Red Peppers
Broccoli Crowns
Grape Tomatoes
Strawberries
5lbs Potatoes
And….here is the picture of the $273.61 worth of groceries that I purchased for…….$145.77!!!!
Ok here’s another picture of my little cutie with all the groceries informing me with gestures that he wants a snack….I couldn’t resist!
As I said, I did spend more than I have in quite a while, but with shopping sales, using coupons and getting some marked down meat I managed to save 47% on my groceries today. If you consider the hour and a half of shopping along with about an hour and a half of prepping (scanning circular, making list, matching coupons, etc) I earned $42 an hour (3 hours to save $127.93). Not too shabby eh?
Do you have any grocery spending goals for April? Have any questions on finding coupons, shopping sales, creating a stockpile or other grocery related stuff? Drop me a comment with any questions you have for me or tips you might have for me and my readers.
My next shopping trip is CVS….stay tuned for those results later this week.
I'm starting a grocery budget in April of $400.00 a month to. We have a family of 6 and we usually spend at least $600.00, so it's going to be a challenge. I've been meal planning and making lists though, so I think I can do it. You got a great deal at your shopping trip!
ReplyDelete$400 a month with a family of 6 is going to be a challenge! We have a family of 4 - I do include cleaning, toiletries and pullups (but not dogfood). I think meal planning helps a lot - esp if you can figure out leftover planning - we use ours for lunches or 'remakes' during a couple days later.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting me here!
Dawn: you took home a great haul for that amount (especially considering all the meat you purchased). I was going to try a budget of $200 again this month (food only, not including toiletries, cleaning products, and diapers) but we'll see because I have a couple of little birthday parties to throw for my girl this coming month so that will likely put me over budget (again...).
ReplyDeleteWe're on a fixed income, and we have been trying to cut corners where ever possible. After going over or grocery spending habits, I found out we were being pretty wasteful and depending on processed food to much. Since I started menu planning and making most of our food from scratch, our food cost have went down a lot. Thanks for dropping by my blog. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Dawn: just a quick "HI" and wanted to let you know that I nominated you for the Kreativ Blogger Award! Stop by my site to check it out. :-)
ReplyDelete