I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘groceries’ Category

But, I knew that going into it. I only had $30 left in November’s grocery budget and a week more to shop for. Luckily, my utilities budget is $70 under budget for the month of November, so I knew I would be able to manage the inevitable grocery overage. And overage there was, for this week I spent $78.58 on groceries, $17.60 at Walmart and $60.98 at Aldi. I actually did not buy a single impulse item, so 0% of my budget for that. Heh.

I did stay ~$11 under my weekly grocery budget of $90, but I ended up about $48 over my monthly budget, or about $12/week over. That would bring my average grocery spending back up to about $102/week. Part of that was due to last week’s purchases for Thanksgiving dinner, and this week I spent about $12 on snacks for my son’s preschool class, for it is my week to provide them. I did stock up on a few things this month, and I have enough chicken in the freezer to last the whole of next month and a lot of turkey-related leftovers that should supplement quite a few meals in the weeks to come.

So, I think I will leave the grocery budget at $90/week for December as well. There are 5 Saturdays in December but we will be traveling to visit our families for a week around Christmas, so there will only be 4 shopping Saturdays for us. So $360 again for the grocery budget – and maybe next month we’ll actually hit it. I have to be judicious with my use of leftovers .

When I went to pay at Walmart today for the groceries I’d bought, I handed over a bunch of internet coupons from coupons.com. Well, I have an inkjet printer so the bar codes don’t print as crisply as they need to to be read by the scanner. In the past, with much grumbling, the employee has manually entered the number code on the bottom of the bar code and the coupon has rung in correctly.

Well, no more. I learned today that our Walmart has changed their policy so that it it won’t scan, they don’t take it. No ifs, ands or buts. That has basically ended my use of internet coupons in the future, for the prices are generally much higher at my other supermarket option (Kroger) and the savings with the coupon wouldn’t be worth the higher price.

I was very proud of myself today though. When my coupons wouldn’t scan and were refused, after the cashier manager came over and told me in no uncertain terms they would not be accepted, I went through my bags, took everything out that I had been using a coupon for (except laundry detergent because I needed to buy that today or else), and told the cashier to take it back. I get all embarrassed feeling though and I am sure my cheeks turned bright red, I felt them getting hotter the longer I stood there. I hate that. But I did it, I returned a bunch of things that I was only buying right now and the name brand vs store brand because I had coupons, and I am proud of myself. For that.

What I’m not so excited about is the basic demise of our entire grocery budget this week. I spent $83.42 at Aldi and $57.25 at Walmart for a total of $140.67. Ouch. There are a few big reasons for that. One is that I have been buying cat food in 4 lb bags, which is the exact same price per pound as the 8 lb bags, but the 20 lb bags are significantly cheaper per pound (about $0.50/lb less) and today I bit the bullet and bought a 20 lb bag for $25. Another reason is that my spouse decided this week to run out of every toiletry at once, which added quite a bit to the bill. I am hoping as I start to figure out this whole CVS thing I will be able to get most of the toiletries there for a lot less and that won’t happen again. And finally, I had a number of side dishes related to Thanksgiving to buy. I knew when the grocery list was twice as long as it usually is that I was in trouble.

I really didn’t buy a huge amount of impulse items, a jar of spaghetti sauce for $0.99 and a new shampoo and conditioner at Aldi to try for $1.49 each ($2.98 total) so $3.97 or 2.8% of my spending was impulse items. As I said, this week was a really long list.

Now that I can’t use internet coupons I guess I am really going to have to bite the bullet and start getting the Sunday paper. Argh.

There is only one more shopping Saturday in November, thank goodness, but I am still going to go over budget for the month I think. I only have about $30 left and although all the shopping this week did stock a lot of things up, I think our weekly perishables spending (dairy, fruits, veggies, breads) is probably at least $30 alone, even if I didn’t buy any non-perishables at all and lived off the pantry. And my week to supply school snack for my son is that week.

What a week. Ack.

So once upon a time (at the end of last month) I set our weekly grocery budget at $90. Then I stockpiled diet Mt Dew and spread the cost over the whole month so I reduced the weekly budget to $87. Then I went to Kroger and stocked up on chicken, and CVS to stock up on toothpaste, and I am spreading the cost of those combined (about $18) over the rest of the month, so that reduced the weekly budget to $81. Then, finally, since I am trying to cut back as much as possible due to the loss of an income stream, I’m reducing my weekly budget by another $5 which brings up to $76/week. This is starting to look like the August budgets that never worked out…

Well, I went out today with my $76 budget and I spent $74.93 on groceries – $54.62 at Aldi and $20.31 at Walmart. I bought two impulse items – Halloween funfetti frosting for sugar cookies for $0.99 and butterscotch chips for some oatmeal scotchies for Thanksgiving dessert for $1.39, so a total of $2.48 or 3.3% of my total spending was impulse items. So definitely under the 5% target. Yay!

One big thing that contributed to staying under budget this week is that dairy products seem to have come down slightly in price here – milk, cheese, and yogurt were all a little bit less than they were last week. I don’t think that is a trend I can count on but it was nice now, anyway. There was nothing in this week’s Kroger circular on a big sale that we usually buy so the budget should stay at $76 for next week too. I printed out some internet coupons for next week’s trip to Walmart… hopefully they let me use them and don’t complain. I am going to have to start paying attention to which cashier is in each line, some complain more than others.

So this month, I was originally going to have a $90/week grocery budget. And then I lost my major source of income. Although it is not our family’s main source of income, it does put a huge kink in the whole debt-reduction project and make things a lot tighter all around. So in an effort to preserve any debt reduction I can, even though I kept the grocery budget at $90/week for November, I am going to make every effort to spend less than that if possible. So it might surprise you to find out that this week, the very first grocery day in November, I spent $51.34 at Aldi and $44.66 at Walmart for a total of $96.00.

However, Diet Mountain Dew was on sale at Walmart for $1/2-liter, so I bought 12 of them, all I could reach on the shelf. I tried to climb up to get the last two left but then decided I would probably fall and it wasn’t worth it. The normal price for it is $1.38/2-liter so this was a significant savings and will last for the next 5 weeks. So I’ll be trying to spend $87 or less instead of $90 for the rest of November since I will not have to buy the Diet Mountain Dew. I am not the one drinking it! My spouse takes it to work with him, he dislikes coffee and he stays up too late with the littlest one.

I bought two impulse items, a box of julienned potatoes for $0.88 and a book for my son for Christmas for $1.99 (I could separate that out and put it in the Christmas budget but I am lazy) so $1.87 of impulse spending or 1.9%. That seems pretty reasonable. I am really trying to control the impulse spending so I can continue the debt reduction with a vengeance. Hopefully it will work! I am looking forward to the free turkey from my spouse’s work this year, I am going to use that turkey for all I can get out of it. All turkey recipes welcome .

So $87/week (or less) for the rest of November. I think we can do it. I am feeling very optimistic .

So it’s been a month of the new $100 a week budget, and it seems if I give myself a little room, I spend less. At least this month. Odd. I look at our pantry and it seems pretty stocked, maybe not up to pre-budgeting levels, but there are plenty of all our staples in there, and our fridge and freezer seem to be doing okay, and yet, I spent significantly (~10%) less a week this month than last. I guarantee prices have not been going down, so maybe I’m just more disciplined now… or lucky. Only time will tell.

This week I spent $61.79 at Aldi and $18.44 at Walmart for a total of $80.23. That is almost $20 under my $100/week budget! I stuck pretty closely to my list, but did buy a few impulse items:

• $1.49 for lemonade drink mix (I am seriously craving something more than water)
• $1.79 for Ghiradelli’s brownie mix on sale… yum
• $0.85 for a caesar salad kit marked down 50% for quick sale (lunch today)

for a total of $4.13 or 5.1% of my total spending on impulse items. Almost under that 5% level!

I think one thing that has been helping the grocery budget is that I have been pretty successful at limiting impulse buys to sale or bargain items, which makes each item cheaper even if I am not buying less items. I also spread out big purchases over several weeks if possible: I bought about half of the items I need for Thanksgiving dinner today, and still stayed way under budget. My spouse’s employer provides a turkey so I just need to get fixings. I got gravy, potatoes, and stuffing today.

For the month of October, I spent an average of $91.87 a week (taking into account the week we were away as a “half budget” week, so I divided our total October spending by 3.5 weeks not 4 to determine that number). Last month we averaged about $103 a week so I did much better. I am going to set the November budget at $360, or $90 per week, and see how we do. This gradual stepping down is the way to go I think. At some point I’ll hit the number I just can’t get below and then I’ll know it is time to start examining the list instead of fighting the impulse buy war.