Thursday, September 9, 2010

Holy food bill Batman!!!

As previously mentioned I have been working in dispatch at work to help out while they are short handed. This week I have been scheduled overnights and let me tell you, overnight shift in a 911 dispatch center can be quite long (& boring). I decided to check some books out at the library to occupy my time. While looking at cookbooks I came across the book: Feed your Family for $12 a Day. I thought - why not! I can't believe I hadn't looked into this before. I just sat down and calculated all the money we spent on groceries (or other walmart/target expenses like shampoo, etc) and also how much we have spent eating out between August 9 and September 9. HOLY CRAP.

Groceries:   $836.07
Eating out/bar related:  $481.85

THESE ARE NOT TYPOS PEOPLE! WE ACTUALLY HAVE SPENT THAT IN THE LAST 30 DAYS! The sad part is this is typical for us. Nothing extraordinary has happened in the month. We always use our charge card for groceries/going out and then pay it off every payday. We never really paid much notice to what exactly we were spending it on. This does not include ANY of Alec's formula or baby food as I had bought all of his formula on sale when he was a month old and made all his baby food. This is what we spent on two adults and a two year old. We don't eat like complete pigs either. I don't understand where this all is at because we both constantly complain about our cupboards being empty. Our biggest down fall is I NEVER write a list. I just go and pile stuff in my cart. Then when I go to cook something is missing so we run to the store and instead of buying one $5 item we spend $45 on whatever we see. In my defense I did stockpile diapers this month also. Ugh. I could just cry right now. It also doesn't help Chris and I are on opposite schedules right now so we have a lot of "convenience" foods and don't cook often.

The Fix:
I am only 14 pages into this book and I already have come up with several ways to save money. First being writing a weekly meal plan. Then writing a list mapping out all that we need (checking cupboards for what we already have), then scoping out the Aldi which is located 10 miles away. I am also going to look into a Cosco membership and search for online coupons for items I TYPICALLY USE, not purchase things just because I have a coupon. I will also set a certain weekly dollar limit and forcing my meal plans to fit this budget.

ANY ADVICE/TIPS?  WHAT WORKS FOR YOU???

1 comment:

  1. We also just started a weekly meal plan to save some $$$. It's was getting crazy as to the amount we were spending eating out :-/

    Good luck!!

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