Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Grocery Budget - Take 2

Another Wednesday, another start to grocery store sales! This week as I mull over deals, I'll be working within the guidelines of our revised grocery budget. As my stockpile dwindled, our $75 grocery budget wasn't cutting the (FREE) mustard, so to speak. The amount of "need" shopping increased, which left little room for stockpiling buys. Plus it seemed like each week I was going back to the store for another $20 in needed items.

After discussing it over with Dave, we decided to increase the weekly grocery budget to $100. About $50 will be devoted to the bare essentials - milk, eggs, juice, diapers, baby food and cat food. $25 for items needed to put meals together during the week as well as fresh fruits and veggies. And the remaining $25 for stockpiling. We're not quite sure how we're going to work the stockpiling portion - if we'll roll the left over to the next week or take out the full amount each week regardless. We'll use the next four weeks to tweak it as we go along and reevaluate the new budget plan in July.

I really wanted to keep the grocery budget low, especially since we're still working on our debt snowball. But let's face it, we've got to eat! Dave encouraged me to keep working at it. And most importantly, to not get caught up in comparing myself to others, whether their budgets are smaller or larger than ours.

2 comments:

Tiffany said...

Just wanted to let you know that I'm with you on the grocery budget! We also have a 5,3, and 1 yr. old and I just can't seem to go any less than $100 week right now on our budget either.
And by the way - I just got back from Harris Teeter and I think it's a great week to stockpile meat! Chicken, pork chops, and London Broil for $1.99/lb, and I found Hebrew National Sausage links B1G1 and they all had $1 off coupons attached - made them $1 each!

Mary Ellen said...

Great score on the Hebrew National sausage Tiffany! I've got my eyes on the london broil and cubed steak. Hoping I can get a few extra for the freezer.