Grocery Budget Update

I just have a short post today to let you know how my first month of the $200.00 a month grocery budget went.  I made my last trip to the grocery (of the month) today and I only needed a few items: milk, bread, flour, & eggs.  My budgeting went much easier than I had initially expected.  I figured it would be really hard to just spend $50.00 a week but it wasn't too bad.  Going to the grocery, I had $22.00 to spend.  I kinda freaked out last week when I left the store and only had $22.00 for this week's food but once I realized I only needed 4 items, I knew that was more than enough money.  My bill today was $21.65! I know that's not much left over but you must consider I bought an extra bag of flour (it was on manager special), pack of tortillas (on sale and I had a coupon) and I also got a Spider Skimmer, which wasn't on my original list.  It was really exciting (probably too exciting) that after getting the 4 items I had to have, I still had money to spend and since I had been wanting a skimmer and I wanted to make tacos tonight, I could get a few extras :)

Needless to say, I'm really excited about next month and can't wait to keep you posted :) Although I'm not one of those extreme couponers I have really been trying to use as many coupons (or items I already buy) as possible.  So far, my biggest savings on one trip has only been $10.00 but that's a huge improvement from 6 months ago when I had NEVER used a coupon!

Grocery Budget Cut

I mentioned before that I am trying to cut down the costs of groceries because I really spend too much money while only feeding two people!  I have become addicted to the TLC show "Extreme Couponing" - I also made the mistake of asking Steve to watch it with me; now he thinks I definitely spend too much money on groceries and we should be able to eat on $10.00 a week or something.  Okay, that is an over exaggeration but you get the point.

I have started to cut coupons and have already seen some savings (I only cut coupons for items I already use).  I am not trying to spend $5.00 on $500.00 worth of groceries like those people on the T.V. show nor do I want to stock up on items that I don't already use.  However, the next step in my process is to cut our budget in half.  I currently spent about $100.00 a week at Kroger (the grocery store I use) and I am going to cut it back to $50.00.  Some of you may read this and think WOW, how do you spend $100.00 on just two people while others may feel that $50.00 is too little.  The latter is how I felt until I stopped by Money Saving Mom. The author of this amazing blog is Crystal and she has started a weekly video series to help beginners like myself get started on saving money.   Her series called 31 weeks To a Better Grocery Budget.  The first week she covers attitude! I thought to myself "how in the world is attitude going to save me money at the store?" Well, she's completely right! If you think you can't do it then you can't and if you keep making excuses (like I have been) then you won't try and again you won't succeed.  Crystal suggests your budget (starting off) should be $20.00 per person per week. I am adding an extra $10.00 to that to make it $50.00!  If you are wanting to cut down costs on groceries you need to check out her blog! I am loving the video series and I am excited for the next lesson this week. 

I'm sure this will be a long process since I'm just getting started but I will make sure to keep ya' updated as I succeed or fail at my mission to cut our grocery budget.  Today, I'm actually making a grocery list and I'm going to the bank to get out the cash for June's grocery budget.  One thing Crystal recommends is to get out the monthly money for your groceries and put it in an envelope.  This way you have a little freedom if you need to go over budget one week.  Since it's not June yet I'm trying to spend less than $50.00 this week because after adding up what I've already spent this month it's way over my new budget but I still need a few items (milk, bread, lemons, etc) that  I simply cannot go without for another week. 

If any of you are "extreme couponers" or have any money saving tips I would LOVE to hear them!