Late Fall of last year, I lost my coupon holder that I take tot he stores with me. There was about $45 in ECBs fro CVS, my CVS card, my Kroger card, majorly good coupons, and much more that just couldn't be replaced. I was SICKENED...
SO for the next several months, I didn't do much with coupons. My budget for the 6 of us went from $70 a week, to $110+. I was failing miserably. On top of that, more money was going out in improvements on our barn and fencing, and new animals! So money was quickly escaping our bank account.
At Christmas time, my hubby asked (nicely) when I was going to start couponing again. We were saving so much money, and we needed to try to do that again! So reluctantly (and sadly) I started to regroup and visit some of my old favorite sites for money saving. I also downloaded a spreadsheet to my computer to help track my savings. I gave my self a $380. budget for the month (about $95. per week), just to take it easy on myself.
Well, with a little over a week left in this month (1 shopping trip left), my total for the month has been $206.88 for 198 items ( diapers, soy milk, 6-7 gallons milk per week, etc)! The first week of January, I visited Aldi's which I always hate to do, because you don't use coupons, there are no "sales" and I always spend so much! I can definitely get things cheaper shopping sales/ coupons. So next month, I may shop Aldi's for the milk and maybe VERY FEW other thing, but not like I did this month.
I think I can get the total even lower next month if I really try. And I am going to really try!
If you'd like to see what I do to save money, go HERE. Also visit some of the Money Saving sites that I have listed on the left.
Another thing I am really working at this year is taking our food supply up to the next level AND paying a lot LESS. We are getting more chickens (we don't pay anything for feed, money for selling eggs pays for their food and for tithing). FREE EGGS! We are going to raise meat chickens this year, and turkeys. We are also increasing the size of our garden, with lots of Heirloom plants (which means we can save the seeds from year to year, which also saves us $$$!). The more we are able to produce and possibly sell on the farm, the more we save on our own food budget!
What are you doing to save money this year?
2 comments:
Oh I can't even imagine the sick feeling of losing all that!
Glad you're back in the game! It feels so good to get so much for so little.
And what a great job you did that's almost an average of $1./ item!!
You didn't lose your touch at all!!
I put my first name and phone number in the front of my coupon binder asking that if found to please, please contact me! Glad you are getting back on track though - that would be so discouraging to have to start over.
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