November savings...

11/2-11/8 (Aldi and Meijer)
Spent 63
Saved 12

11/9-11/15 (Meijer)
Spent 99
Saved 65

11/16-11/22 (Meijer)
Spent 59
Saved 36

11/23-11/29 (Meijer and Aldi)
Spent 80
Saved 45


Total monthly spent: 301
Total monthly saved: 158
Average weekly grocery bill: $75.25

Yes, this was a great budget this month. I do have to be honest that I didn't do much cooking this month. It really seemed like a fix it and go month. It seemed like our family was running in all different ways this month. I did make a "real" dinner about 8 times this month.
We also ate about about 4 times this month.

I know that many of you wonder how we do it on such a small budget. I wanted to share a few reasons.

1. My children refuse to bring their lunch to school. They love the school cafeteria so very rarely am I buying groceries to take for lunch. This saves my grocery bill, but I still have to pay the school for their food.
2. I bring my lunch to work. This saves some money. Lately, I have been bad and have eaten out more than I should have. :)
3. I force myself to stick to a budget and force myself to cook from my stockpile. Very rarely do I fix a meal that I feel like unless all of the items are available. I challenge you to try to create meals out of food you already have in your home. It is amazing how much food we have but we don't feel like making it....You must have felt like making it at some point because otherwise the food wouldn't be in your house!
4. Very rarely will I buy an item that is not on sale. So almost everything that I fix for meals or snacks was purchased ON SALE!!! If you haven't gotten to this stage yet, it will happen. I have begun to learn that I can wait for something until it goes on sale. Usually, the item I want/need will be on sale in a week or two. I find that when I buy items that I have to have to make a certain meal, it is almost always on sale the next week or I didn't get around to making it that week and could have purchased the item the next week and saved sooooo much more money.

I hope some of these tips and/or strategies help! Remember the key is that if you are reading this blog and are now a coupon clipper, you are saving more money now than you had before.

Think about what you can do with your extra savings each month!