7.16.2008

My money saving adventure...

So, I've been reading Master Your Money by Ron Blue. I have seen the light! After being in bondage to debt ever since before we were married, we are ready to change our ways!!!

This started about 4 weeks ago actually. I decided I had to reign in our eating out and start cooking most meals. Seems pretty simple but I'd created some bad habits and I'm ashamed to admit that I've contributed $1000's to our debt load by just this alone.
Not only have I been cooking. I have been shopping BELOW my grocery budget the last two paydays and have actually been able to stock up on a couple of things as well.

Let me share this last payday's shopping spree with you a little. I'm not doing specific numbers this week, just ballpark figures, next time I'll share specifics...


This is my fully stocked pantry with 3 months worth of cereal as well as 3 months worth of shampoo and 1 whole month of diapers. I usually bought diapers every 2 weeks.


Regular refridgerator stuff but I was able to get hubby a few sodas that I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise...

I bought 3 packages of chicken, 1 pkg ground turkey and 3 extra gallons of milk since they were on sale.


Normal household stuff and travel sized toiletries for Michael.

Ok, so my normal grocery/household budget is $250 every 2 weeks. I challenged myself to lower it to $200. Last payday I went over, so this weekend I gave myself $225 to spend, here's how I did.

I spent $45 of it last weekend at Walgreen's buying this stuff...3 months worth of shampoo, 1 month of diapers and wipes, 1 month of toothpaste, and makeup and haircoloring for me which I never would have bought if I hadn't saved money elsewhere.

I then spent around $150 on the stuff above pictured above. All this totalling roughly $195. And, I still have $30 to spend if I need it:)

My BEST deals this payday are:


Staples was running their back to school sale last week and I got these school supplies for a whopping $2.44 after tax!

These travel size shampoos I got for FREE! I had a coupon for $3 off of 2, any size Head and Shoulders. Walmart sells their travel size ones for $.97 so I actually "made" $.09 on the deal!
It does take a bit of time to plot and plan this all out but considering I've cost us literally thousands of dollars eating out and I'm saving so much money, I'm looking at it as my part time job. It's taking me about 5 hours or so per payday. I'm sure I'll get faster after I get the hang of it.

Are there any tricks or secrets you have that you want to share? I'm hoping to teach other's that aren't doing so already, how to feed their family on take care of their household by saving as much money as possible!
Next time I'll start sharing my tips I've learned so far and more specifics:)
Blessings!

1 comment:

Me said...

Great job girly! Do you know about this link: http://freebiesweekly.blogspot.com/

if you don't now you do! keep at it!