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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Super Savings Saturday: My Half Gallon of Milk!

Okay...are you ready for this? Here is what I bought this week:

Pretty unusual week for me, eh? As you recall from last week, I had a measly $1.14 remaining in my grocery budget going into this week. My goal for the Eat From The Pantry Challenge was to only spend $35 total for 3 weeks. You can go here to see my progress from week to week during this challenge. So did I stick to it? Well...almost.

I spent $1.99 on the Soymilk. We usually buy regular skim milk (every 1-2 weeks). I was trying to s-t-r-e-t-c-h that $1.14, though! A gallon of milk would have cost us over $3. I had heard from a little birdie that the 8th Continent soymilk was only $2.99 at Publix, so I sent my hubby across the street with $2/1 coupon in hand. That would enable us to come in right under budget, and still have milk for our 1 remaining box of cereal for the week. He came back, and the receipt said $1.99 after the coupon. I groaned and said, "Oh no! I went over our Pantry Challenge budget by $.85!" He just laughed.

In the end, here are my spending totals for the last 3 weeks of January during this challenge:

Week 1 (Jan 10th - 16th): $26.49
Week 2 (Jan 17th - 23rd): $7.37
Week 3 (Jan 24th - Jan 30th): $1.99

Overall, I spent a total of $35.85 on groceries. Like I said, I'm $.85 over the budget, but hey...I still saved $69.15 of my grocery budget over the past 3 weeks by simply not spending! That should put us back on track financially from when we overspent while our friends were here.

And for the entire month of January: We spent a total of $77.16 out of our grocery budget. We saved $111.55 total.

Now I am participating in the Freezer Cooking Weekend with many other bloggers. I started cooking up a storm today, and I've had so much fun! I'll be updating you on all of that over the next couple of days. (In the meantime, feel free to follow me via Twitter. I'm updating my cooking progress by the hour.)

Posts To Come:
  • What I learned from the Eat From The Pantry Challenge
  • A view into my pantry and freezer
  • How I went on a grocery shopping spree, and totally blew it! (I even hit up the dreaded Walmart). I am so ashamed. Let me give you a hint -- I spent double one week's grocery budget. Oops. (It happens)
  • My first-time experience with freezer cooking, and my thoughts on the subject (in regards to budget and time-efficiency).
  • Some recipes I want to share with you (some that were not linked to in my cooking plan for this weekend).
  • A final progress report on what I accomplished this weekend -- meals that I was able to stock away in the freezer for later!
Good Night!

What About You: Got any thoughts in response to all this? Budgeting, menu planning, grocery shopping, your savings for the week, freezer cooking? Feel free to share!

Want to see how others save as well? Many bloggers join Money Saving Mom in her "Super Savings Saturday" every week! Check it out!

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Donna said...

thats a great idea. Often, I'll have a recipe that is based on ground meat. So I'll cook up like 3 lbs. of meat, use 1/2 of it (call it the A-half) in whatever we're having for dinner. Then we only eat 1/2 of the dinner and freeze the other half of dinner (still on A), for another night in a few weeks. Then the B-half goes in the fridge. The next night I cook another recipe using the B-half of ground meat, so cooking dinner really flies by because the bulk is done. And again, we only eat half of the 2nd dinner and freeze the rest. So, in 1 night, I cook meat for 4 meals. I don't have to spend a whole afternoon cooking to get a few freezer meals this way.

January 31, 2010 at 6:56 AM  
Blogger Beth and Brad said...

I think you were close enough for coming in under your budget. I must say, I'm very impressed that you came so close! I don't think I could go for a week with just $1.14! Anyway, I posted on my blog my shopping trip this week. I spent around $16 and saved around $35!

http://bandbdavis.blogspot.com/2010/01/catching-up-compilation-post.html

January 31, 2010 at 1:52 PM  

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