Proud of me!

callalily · **Proud of me!**

Okay, my husband keeps track of our finances on Quicken. He said in the month of July we spent $700 eating out, in the month of September we spent $1300 on groceries. Are you kidding me! I mean I know I have a lot going on with working full time, 18 hours of college this semester, and two kids, but hey, thats my excuse and it is not good enough! Busy is not an excuse to be so negligent! We only have two kids, so four of us and we are spending WAY too much money. Beginning of October I really started cracking down and reading mommysavers savings tips and being careful. We are not in debt, and we usually live in our means so I can't understand how we could spend that much.

I have been shopping all loss leaders that we need, using coupons, making menu's, planning meals and I am so proud of myself. Last month we only spent $300 on groceries and we only ate out $200, which $100 of that was for a birthday party at this pizza place for my son and 15 family members. We are doing much better.

I work the night shift 7-7am so I try to go shopping on my lunch hour at around 2am to shop so that I am pressed for time, I get in there, buy what is on my list and get right out. Well the other night I went and I was picking up all of their loss leaders that we usually use. They had gushers 2 for $4. Plus I had a $1 off coupon, so when I went up to the cash register they have a policy where if the item does not ring up correctly, you get it for free. So since the gushers didn't ring up right I got 10 boxes of gushers free!

I was happy. So I got a big cart full of stuff we use for $40.

I have a goal to only spend $200 a month on groceries. I know that may not seem like a lot but I get bored on night shift and it is like a game to me.

So for this month I am up to $150 spent so far. I have an overflowing pantry and all of my meals lined up for the month. The last $50 I have budgeted will go for bananas, milk, and bread for the rest of the month. My husband thinks I am nuts but I really want to see if we can live on $200 for awhile.

Just wanted to share with you my savings and planning!

Erin

danielephant · 11-07-2007, 01:44 PM

Great job!!! we are trying to do the same...i wish my hubby would use something like quicken...i just write it on a piece of paper-or i try to remember to. This week we have not been doing to great because Dh is working alll different shifts and we both ended up eating fast food the last couple days...and that alone can really add up!

Great job and keep up the good work!!!!

callalily · 11-07-2007, 02:20 PM

My husband loves to go out to eat. I mean he LOVES it! So he eats fast food like blimpies, subway, arbys when he works. I figure if he gets his fix for $6 a day, it saves us because sometimes he comes home and says, "hey, lets just go out." And then we end up spending $45. I would rather him just eat for lunch and eat dinner at home with us.

Erin

mommytosa · 11-08-2007, 10:36 AM

Wow. You spent almost our entire monthly budget on food! Your eating out was more than our mortgage! I'm proud of you for cutting back soo much. It isn't easy to get out of the eating out mentality. I would love to go out tonight, but we won't. We have really scaled back and I would like to scale back some more, but I enjoy going out to eat sometimes. We eat out on Friday nights (Pizza for $10 for a family of four) and then Sundays at Firehouse subs for kids eat free. Sometimes we go fastfood for breakfast on a weekend morning, but that's the extent of our eating out. I know that is mcuh more than alot of people on here do.

badbaby_87 · 11-08-2007, 11:42 AM

eating out really sucks up your money. we tried to go from eating out all the time (when we were dating and both were still living at home) to none at all, but life gets to you. so we try to leave enough money so we can treat ourselves to something like a pizza buffet or something cheap. nothing like Olive Garden. just make sure you have meals on hand for those days when you're too tired to whip something up. and keep your goals in mind.

callalily · 11-08-2007, 06:10 PM

I wouldn't mind just eating at home. I just don't want to get out of the house!

When I work night shift I just want to stay at home and be a bum when I am not working. I love being at home but my husband loves to eat at like TGI Fridays, Applebee's, and other steak places. Those are NOT cheap places. I wish he would settle for cheap, it would be fine with me!

Happymom · 11-08-2007, 06:39 PM

Great Job Erin!!!

busymomof4 · 11-08-2007, 06:54 PM

1300 bucks in ONE month for groceries...that MUST of been a typo!!! YIKES! That is just unbelievable...I have a family of 6 full-time and 9 part-time and I have never spent anywhere near that. I'm proud of you for cutting back and you will reap the benefits soon. we only eat out MAYBE once on the weekends and that total bill for 6 people is never over 20.00 bucks. There is a little pizza shop w/ great NY style pizza w/ good prices so that is usually a weekend lunch thing.

momof2boys · 11-08-2007, 07:00 PM

Great Job

callalily · 11-08-2007, 10:12 PM

Yep, you read it right, 1300. Some of that was walmart trips however and we all know that not all of walmart is groceries. But I did buy a lot of soda, meats, expensive stuff. Heck, I really couldn't tell you, I just bought whatever I wanted. No plans, no meals, whatever. I was BAAAD! I am really working hard. Erin