It's only the 2nd of April and I've already spent $106.50 of my $126.87 for the month. That must sound awful, right? However, I've done most of my shopping for the month. I've been to WinCo for the bulk bin items and some bananas, Cash & Carry for some institution-sized packaged foods (including cheese!), and now this morning I took advantage of the Senior Discount Day at our Kroger affiliate (Fred Meyer) buying milk, butter, orange juice, peanut butter, hot dogs, and instant coffee. Interestingly, the instant decaf coffee is cheaper at Walmart and the instant regular coffee is less expensive at Fred Meyer. I'll make a stop at Walmart later in the month, picking up more bananas while I'm getting my other items.
We did get one big jar of peanut butter for the month. So, I don't think anyone suffered too badly, here, with not having peanut butter for 4 weeks. I am still making the bean spreads, though, mostly because the spreads give us more variety, and variety defies feelings of deprivation. The other item that my family was very happy about was the purchase of not 1 but 2 pounds of butter. I had 1 pound leftover from the last month, so now we have almost 3 whole pounds of butter. There was the risk that I would just be getting one more pound. However, I had figured that if I found milk on markdown, there would be a little extra money in the budget. Fortune was with me at Fred Meyer today. I found half-gallons of 1% milk on markdown for 89 cents each. I saved 37 cents a gallon over what I was prepared to pay at the regular price. The marked down milk combined with finding pinto beans for $1 less than I'd planned for a 25-lb bag left me with enough extra money for that second pound of butter.
I now have $20.37 remaining in the grocery budget for April. This should cover a 10-lb bag of chicken leg quarters, 5 dozen eggs, a jar of instant decaf, a canister of shortening for making pie crusts, and a couple of bunches of bananas, all from Walmart. I plan on putting off the Walmart trip as long as I can to see if maybe we don't need one or more of these items, and I can maybe put the extra money toward more eggs (if I find a great sale).
After shopping at each store, I went through my lists again and refigured the amounts of the desired items. This kept me accountable, allowed me to rethink my budget allotments, and I think will help me come as close to the budgeted amount as possible without going over. It can be a bit like a game for me. I keep the lists in Word documents and save with each new adjustment. I personally find it interesting to see how my lists morph over the course of the month. And just in case you're concerned that we're not getting enough to eat, I'm keeping a log of our dinner meals, again. I'll post that later this week. (But thank you for being concerned. I know your thoughts come from your hearts.) We are eating well! The first month was challenging, but I can see that food variety is improving.
I hope your week is going well!
