Thursday, September 18, 2008

Is it Thursday already???

I was sitting here sipping my hot cup of joe thinking about sorting the bills out since payday is tonight at midnight and I just realized I MADE IT through my two week shopping budget!!!!!! It was a trial run for me, my first time, and I cannot believe I followed through with what I set up here. I'm talkin' menu and all! WOW!

I did use my leftover $20 for a Sbucks and to stockpile olive oil (clearanced out for $1.52 at HEB) and sugar free smuckers (.52 plus I had $.55/1 qps)! I was also able to pick up some fresh spinach, romaine and tomatoes on Sunday to use this week. I bought my milk, bread and eggs (3 dozen in 2 weeks) at Walgreens and/or CVS during my two trips. I was out of "grocery" money as of Monday evening and we ran out of Splenda yesterday so my sister picked that up last night for me on her way home.

With moving into a new home and incurring a little bit higher monthly bills I have to buckle down. I am ready to stick to a much more strict budget, now that I know I can do this! I not only did a 2 week menu, but also a weekly breakfast and lunch menu for Adrianna that I just reuse every week, Free Day on Fridays (she buys school lunch). Now I'm just envisioning some cool white board or some way to have it written out that looks nice. I plan on doing a monthly menu after I give this 2 week one a shot and look up/try some new recipes. Erika told me about a friend of hers that does this and it's a success!

Now, a concern of mine is, how do I provide dinners for people when I'm on a strict budget? And I figured, it's by stockpiling some items like Chicken Breast, Pasta, Sauce stuff, crescent rolls and things of that sort. I'm doing a dinner for a family that has family in town from the Ike Tragedy and don't have to take anything out of pocket since I have stuff stocked to make a simple Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo for them. So what I have to plan out with this check is taking a certain sum for stockpiling so if I come across a deal, I have that money in a section of my wallet to take advantage. I'm thinking $20 maybe? We'll see.

I will share more on my journey along. You can check out more deals as I find them here.

3 comments:

Erika said...

Good for you! You've inspired me to try the two-week grocery experiment next week!

Cindy said...

You totally amaze me with how you make your money stretch. I hope I can learn a lot from you when you are across the street and I can see your plan in action! :-)

Sonya Terrell said...

I really need to get better at grocery budgets! I just spent $160 yesterday and it doesn't seem like I got a lot! Groceries have gotten so expensive!