In the interest of keeping this blog real I decided I needed to post about my trip to the grocery store the other morning. I am a big supporter of menu planning. I believe that menu planning played a big part of our family reducing expenses and getting out of debt so quickly. I used to spend a ton of money on groceries every month. (Okay, not really a ton, but close to a thousand dollars a month)
So, I made my menu plan this weekend, posted it for the the world to see on Monday, and then did not go to the store. I got busy, I got lazy, I just didn’t feel like going…. so Tuesday morning I woke up to no food. Well, we had breakfast food, free cereal and powdered milk that I had mixed up the night before, but that was it. I guess we did a really great job eating from our pantry last month because it was empty!
So I grab my two littlest kids, tell the older ones to start their school work and I head to the store to buy groceries for the day. I didn’t have time to shop for a whole week so my plan was to get food just for Tuesday.
My Tuesday total was $27.63 for lunch and dinner…. pretty bad considering I only budgeted $575 for the month! Even if you subtract the Barbie cereal that I purchased to keep the girls happy in the shopping cart, I still spent over $25!
So my message is this, plan your menus, make a shopping list, and shop once week. Those little trips add up!
The Happy Housewife
You are so right! ugggg, money, gocery store, coupons…kids….sounds easy! lol
I have felt very inspired by your blog. I like to think I’m fairly frugal but know I have a long ways to go. I know we could be doing much better. I’ve started searching out coupons. Where do you get most of yours from? Unfortunately we don’t have CVS which sounds like an awesome place to get deals, I’m in Canada.
A few months before Christmas I got into some menu planning. I would actually plan my menu for a month – It worked out quiet nicely the few months I did it. However, Christmas came and I hit a bump in the road. Maybe you will be my inspiration to start planning my menu’s again.
Thanks for reminding me!
You are so right!! I meal plan here and shop weekly and I try to be very strict with my shopping. The prices of things are going up and up so even when you attempt to save a lot, it usually seems like you spent too much