Week of 1/6/08 ...
9 posts
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Brandie 
770 posts
Posted 8 months ago
Well we haven’t talked about budgets in a while here … I suppose some of us are trying to recover from holiday spending, or maybe the budget for Nov/Dec got thrown out the window because of the holidays!
But it’s a new year. Anyone have a budget plan for the year?
We set our January budget (and I did base budgets for all 12 months in 08 because I’m a nerd and like to do things like that!). It will be tight. Of course it means the house will continue to stay a bit cooler in the winter, the air won’t run as much in the summer, I won’t be driving the van as much or as often (I’d like to pretend we are a one car family and not drive at all during the day unless it’s for a doc’s appointment), birthday gifts will be smaller, and next Christmas – well, I don’t want to think about that right now, and I am figuring out ways to cut water and electricity usage – even if I can just cut each bill by 5 dollars a month, every bit helps!
All of this will be worth it because we have a vacation coming up this year (although I still am not sure how we will eek out $ for that, but we will!).
I have decided the biggest impact I can make right now is with the groceries. I’ve been using coupons/sales for a few months now, but today I got really serious about it. Clipped the coupons, poured over ads, and made up a list.
Should all things go right (meaning no one is out of stock on anything) my weekly spending will look like this:
2 packs diapers
2 pack wipes
1 box tylenol cold
1 box sudafed
1 children’s motrin
1 children’s tylenol
1 box band-aids
2 boxes storage bags
2 cans campbells select
1 colgate toothpaste
2 bottles of excedrin
1 box similason earache relief
1 gallon milk
4 cans progresso soup
1 box raisins
2 campbells chicken noodle soup
3 containers Jif peanut butter
5 boxes royal jello
2 bottles 409
2 bottles softscrub
4 boxes nature valley granola bars
4 boxes fruit snacks
4 boxes general mills cereal
2 bottles of scrubbing bubbles
All for $53 (plus tax). As a bonus I will leave the CVS store with 9 extra care bucks and hopefully a bit of something from the walgreens as well …
Just the extra care buck and coupons I will use total 64 dollars, and that doesn’t factor in any of the sale prices I am taking care of.
Fortunately we have enough fresh fruits/veggies to see us through and are stocked on meat/pasta/rice.
I am crossing my fingers that next week I can get some good deals on those things though adn save just as much but rotate what I am stocking up on.
I think that’s a pretty good deal. My husband said just knowing that I will save over 50% makes him happy (although he asked if the fall wouldn’t be a better time to stock up on medicines to which I replied, anytime I can get them for almost nothing is a good time to stock up I think). I will bring home 51 items and pay just over a dollar per item … considering there will be 2 packs of diapers in there, I don’t think that is so bad!
And even if we have to run out later for a second gallon of milk, a few fruits, maybe some eggs … I can’t imagine having to spend more than 20 more. And since our grocery budget is 150 a week … that still puts us well under.
Anyway, anyone else have good deals to share? Or want to talk about their budget?
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Becki
734 posts
Posted 8 months ago
Dang, Brandie! I’m in awe of your money saving skills! We haven’t made an official budget yet, but I continue to monitor our bank and credit card balances daily. For me it’s the financial equivalent of weighing myself daily—things never get too far out of hand that way and I know exactly what I can afford to spend. I think I really want to get Quicken to do our budget on the computer and be able to see where our money goes (and hopefully how to keep more of it).
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Brandie
770 posts
Posted 8 months ago
Yeah, certainly see it all on paper really makes your jaw drop – the first few months we tracked I couldn’t believe how much was going to misc, fun, entertainment, things we didn’t need …
but now we mostly use cash to shop and do put the budget on paper. The cash thing is my biggest helper by far – you can’t overspend by even a penny when all you walk in with is cash.
Now, of course, most of our money is going to bills so we aren’t spending much extra … of course, if we never got out of control in the first place, things wouldn’t be so tight now … but we have debt. It’s life, we’re dealing with it and I vow to try my absolute hardest to NEVER be back in this position again.
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Brandie
770 posts
Posted 8 months ago
Tonight, first trip out of the way, and already a change of plans! LOL
I think teh diapers I was going to buy (so on sale) are giving darling son diaper rash. So we will scratch that off the list. I found some more things to add to the list that were free after coupon.
And all the packs of chicken I thought we had? Were ALL ground meat or turkey! Although I’m not sure chicken is on sale anywhere right now … but it’s something I will actively look for when I shop at the 3 other stores I have planned to hit this week.
The good news – my first trip was to CVS tonight – the receipt says I saved 79.28. The total I paid out of pocket? 6.19 cents. And I walked out with 13 extra care bucks in hand (and i need to call the 800 number because they shorted me an additional 5 extra care bucks I think.) Not so bad, even if I did have to rearrange a bit!
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Brandie
770 posts
Posted 8 months ago
Here is my weekly total (and I won’t go into detail). I will say I went to 4 stores (which honestly, I normally do 3 so not a big difference and all 4 stores are within a 5 minute radius which is SO helpful)
Total spent: 67.43
Total value of what I bought: 210.42 (meaning the total saved was 142.99)
Bonus: 18 extra care bucks
Plans did change, the diapers I was supposed to get almost for free we had to pass on. We own one package already and they CUT INTO my son’s skin. Free or not, I was not buying them again (and I have already called and informed the company of the issue and they were very nice on the phone and are giving me some kind of credit (at that point the kids were too noisy for me to actually hear it)? She even told me “I know nothing we can do for you will makeup for what has happened to your son, but this is what I can do. which I thought was nice of her to acknowledge that. Also, bought a few food items I thought we had in stock, but when I actually looked, I realized we did not.
Anyway, all in all, not a bad week.
Tonight, to celebrate my good deals this week, I am indulging with a bit of chocolate (despite my almost no sugar diet) and I am loving every second of it! =)
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Becki
734 posts
Posted 7 months ago
You continue to inspire me. How do you get stuff almost for free? Coupons? Double coupons?
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AmyE
23 posts
Posted 7 months ago
I’m not a coupon clipper. If I’m going to spend the time to do that, I might as well take on more hours at work. I do buy my diapers from diapersite.com though. If you buy over $60, you get the shipping free and they come within a few days. I buy Luvs. I tried the store brands and wasn’t happy with them. They also have the Costco brand, I think, but didn’t have size 6.
Anyway, my tidbit on saving in some meager way.
We do a monthly budget and it is the food/entertainment stuff that is hard to control.
AmyE
www.sofiabean.com
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Brandie
770 posts
Posted 7 months ago
Becki, I use coupons and combine with sales that are going on at the store to try to get things as low as possible.
To Amy, I don’t work, so I consider the money I have saved shopping this way as my “income.” Because financially, it’s the biggest impact I can make on my family’s finances.
Today I went to Walgreens, spent 17 dollars and brought home 73 dollars worth of items (it was mostly make-up which I haven’t bought any in about 7 years) Jane cosmetics is B1G1 free and I had a coupon for 2.00 off one item. Each item is only about 4.00 so I essentially got all that make-up free and then paid for the other misc. items we picked up. Very nice.
On Sunday I got 450 dollars worth of groceries at Target for 300 with coupons/sales and a special 10% off the entire purchase coupon from them. We have essentially all we need for 3 weeks aside from milk/bread and fresh fruits/veggies. I’m happy with that!
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Tonya
10 posts
Posted 7 months ago
I’m a big coupon fan because my husband is a teacher and I’m a freelancer. His income is steady, but not high, and mine is sporadic. Here’s my fave way to do coupons: I don’t really have the time to clip coupons, but I use couponsurfer.com.
You can scroll through ads to get coupons for the products that you want and you buy the for a few cents each. It’s a steal because each coupon is usually $1 off. Then they mail them to you and you go shopping! The first time I did it, the line at Target was really long and everyone was SO annoyed with me, but I didn’t care because I saved 84 DOLLARS!!!!! The cashier had to call the manager over because she couldn’t believe it. Also, if you have more than one kid in diapers, diapers.com is a great place to buy in bulk – they also sell wipes and if you spend over $50 you get free shipping!
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