First Grocery Trip

I sure hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend! It's rainy and cloudy so enjoying a lazy day.

When we left off, I had just shared my game plan with you. I set a spending limit, $125 per week for all grocery and household items ($250 per pay day), committed to use cash only system, avoiding wasting anything, and starting a menu plan!

A Few Adjustments

• I have made a couple of adjustments to this since my last post. First, hubby and I have a standing 'breakfast date' on Friday mornings that was set to come out of the grocery budget. I did decide that this is a little too ambitious for me right now, so I set a separate category in our budget for breakfast date money and am not taking that out of the grocery money. 
• Second, I like the idea of the cash only system for groceries, gas, prescription, etc; however, carrying cash scares the daylights out of me! If I lose it, that's it - there is no replacing it. I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. So instead I went to my bank and opened a second account. I'm transferring all money we have budgeted for gas, groceries, etc into that account.  I will keep track of the spending via my budget sheet on Excel.

After setting my budget, I went through all the weekly ads for my stores, searched for coupons and made a menu plan. To view my menu plan for this week, click here.

I did some shopping on Saturday at Food Lion. I spent a total of $72.79 and got the following items:

Category	Item	Brand	Size	Unit of Measure	Unit Price	Total Paid	Coupons	Regular Price	Date of Sale	Store	Comments
Dairy	Milk - 1%	My Essentials	128.00	oz	$0.024	$3.01	$0.00	$3.01	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Dairy	Provolone - Slices	Food Lion	16.00	oz	$0.249	$3.99	$0.00	$3.99	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Dairy	Butter - unsalted, quarters	My Essentials	32.00	oz	$0.163	$5.22	$0.00	$5.22	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Dairy	Cream Cheese	My Essentials	8.00	oz	$0.223	$1.78	$0.00	$1.78	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Drinks	Soda - Can	Mountain Dew	576.00	oz	$0.016	$9.00	$0.00	$22.36	9/1/2012	Food Lion	Cost per can - $.20 (12 pk - $2.25 each)
Meat	Whole Cut Up Chicken (MD)	Perdue	9.54	lb	$0.825	$7.87	$0.00	$16.12	9/1/2012	Food Lion	Mark Down
Meat	Pork - BI Blade Chop	Store Brand	2.62	lb	$1.874	$4.91	$0.00	$7.02	9/1/2012	Food Lion	Mark Down
Meat	Italian Lunch Meat	Land O Lakes	40.00	oz	$0.250	$9.98	$0.00	$13.98	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Packaged	Beans - Canned	Bush's Baked Beans	84.00	oz	$0.060	$5.00	$0.00	$5.96	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Produce	Potatoes - Baking	Russets	5.59	lb	$0.791	$4.42	$0.00	$4.42	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Produce	Onions, Yellow - Bag	Store Brand	3.00	lb	$0.597	$1.79	$0.00	$1.96	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Produce	Grapes - Red	Store Brand	2.95	lb	$1.271	$3.75	$0.00	$5.84	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Produce	Strawberries	Store Brand	32.00	oz	$0.118	$3.76	$0.00	$3.96	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Spices	Chili Powder	Badia	9.00	oz	$0.332	$2.99	$0.00	$2.99	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Spices	Onion Powder	Badia	9.50	oz	$0.315	$2.99	$0.00	$2.99	9/1/2012	Food Lion
Spices	Whole Bay Leaf	Badia	0.20	oz	$2.750	$0.55	$0.00	$0.55	9/1/2012	Food Lion

 

I did not find any coupons for my items, but most of the items I bought were on sale. I have one big budget buster that I know will raise a few eyebrows - Mountain Dew! This is my husband's vice ;) I could completely do without it. My daughter and I drink tea, water or flavored water, but I haven't quite got him on the wagon yet. Remember, baby steps! I did buy 4, 12-packs which will last for a full two weeks so I spent $4.50 extra that would be for my week 2 spending.

I also bought two packs of lunch meat since they were on sale for $4.99, this is also some of my week 2 spending.

The meat I bought had been marked down, what I refer to as the 'trash bin.' Has a nice ring to it when you're picking out dinner, doesn't it? I try, and usually succeed, not to buy meat that costs more than $1.99/lb. I have been paying around .99/lb for whole chickens. They had them marked down to .90, but when I saw the whole cut up chicken for .80/lb I got both marked down packages!

I was getting pretty low on a couple of my spices, so I went ahead and picked them up. They were not on my list, and I probably could have passed on them, but I'm always scared this great deal is going to disappear! I find these spices with the Spanish foods. The quality is great, and so much cheaper than what I find in the baking isle.

I spent a total of $9.50 extra that would be included in my week 2 spending and $6.53 in spices I hadn’t planned to buy.

I still have a few things I need to get:

Broccoli & Carrots for snacking, Eggs, Veggie mixes for two dinners, Potatoes, Sausage, Chicken to go in the crock pot, Rice, brown sugar, chocolate chips (for my HM granola bars), butter spread and milk.  I figure based on my normal prices, this should be around $45.00. 

 

The bottom line

I have $52.51 left in my budget, not accounting for the extra I spent on a few week 2 items. With what I still plan to spend, I should come in under budget! And since I have a few week 2 big expenses out of the way, it gives me a leg up going into next week.

Tell me how you think I did? Do you have any tips or suggestions on how I can improve? Any menu ideas you want to throw in there?