If you recall, I started at the first of the year working on my grocery budget again. I had let it go over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and was kindly asked by my husband to start back up on it. Our grocery budget before I had quit, was $70 per week for the 6 of us. That included diapers, wipes, toiletries, food and more.
Last month, just starting back, I gave our budget plenty to work with while I tried to get back into "deal shopping". Well, luckily I had no trouble remembering what I was supposed to do. I spent about $70 per week, right back on track. But my goal for February was to bring my total down even more. But slowly!
So, if any of you are also visitors to my other blog, you know how I have been personally working towards making things from scratch. Not buying the mixes but making the mixes myself, not buying the bread but making the bread myself... So, I gave myself the $70 a week budget, but with the goal of working on not buying so much pre-made but making more homemade.
The result? For the month of February, I kept under my budget, and spent about $69. per week. We spent $277. for the month on 193 items. Figured out, that is only a 39% saving with coupons and everything.
This month, I bought more flour, baking soda, baking powder, oil, etc. than I have in previous months. The problem with these items is they rarely go on sale, and when they do they rarely have coupons. So I bought flour on sale, buy there was no coupons for it. So savings total goes up... I'm not complaining though. We kept our budget, AND I have been making more from scratch. So I am happy!
The challenge next month is that I am lowering my monthly budget by $10. It doesn't seem like a lot, but we will see! I am going to continue on the road of making more from scratch, and keep plugging away at finding the sales. I am also going to be working at getting my almost 2 year old to NOT be afraid of the potty! Getting rid of diapers and wipe will be a HUGE savings! (February alone I probably spent around $32. on diapers and wipes! YIKES!)
So, how did YOU do in February? Any new goals? Any new "tricks" you'd like to share?
To see how I work on saving money, go HERE.
5 comments:
congrats on making your budget and everything from scratch.
I also make everything from scratch, but I can not bring myself to convert the bread. I make bread alot in the bread maker but it's usually a treat with dinner. I can't bring myself to use it for sandwiches and stuff because is falls apart easily. Do you have a trick for making it stay together better? I made honey wheat bread this weekend and it rose so much it had hallow parts in the center :(
Happy Tuesday.
Angela
Angela-
I think bread falling apart is all in the recipe! I used to think the same thing. I had bread on the side, felt like a good mom, cuz I made the bread myself. But, NO ONE WANTED me to make it into sandwiches. But the bread recipe (Grandmother Bread) I had found actually is very moist and holds together very well. My sister-in-law uses the same recipe and they haven't bought bread for months either, as well as other people who have used the Grandmother Bread recipe, and have mentioned it on my blog.
Now, I know one thing you CAN check is how much flour you are using, sometimes if it says 4- 4 1/2 cups, we use 4 1/2. When it may only need 4 OR LESS! Sometimes it depends on if you are using white or wheat or BOTH... Just get it to the point where it isn't sticky. Sometimes mine is just a little bit sticky when I turn it out to rise the first time. Another thing to check is that you don't KNEAD it too much. Kneading it too much will toughen it. Knead it for a few minutes (about 2 or so). I know with a bread maker, this advise doesn't help much. But in that case, it may be going back to the recipe. The holes in it, may mean that it either wasn't kneaded well OR it was rising for too long. I have had that. I forgot about my bread rising, and it went an hour and a half or more instead of an hour, and it ended up having holes in it.
Hope this helps!
Oh my goodness, I wish our family of 4 could get on a $70/wk budget. I am inspired now.
I left you an award on my blog today. Even though I only recently found this blog, it is one of my favorites.
Have a great day!
I really need to see how you feed a family of 6 for $70 and less.
We are a family of six and I spend a lot more that that. I do however make my own baby wipes, I totally love them and it is cheap and better than commercial.
Little late for cloth diapering... but you can eliminate the wipes. Just use an old wash cloth (or buy some at Kmart/Target/whatever store you like. I know Kmart has washcloths in a bundle of 25 for $5. My my babies were young I would just use a washcloth and a little baby wash. No special recipe or whatever. While out, I would make some up ahead of time and put them in a baggie.
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