Watching Our Weight & Our Wallet

Today I decided to sign back up for Weight Watchers. I've done the online program before with really good results and I'm hoping to see some good results again this time around. The first thing I noticed when I logged in is that they've totally changed the plan. Fruits and Veggies are now Zero points and the way the points are calculated has changed, so that where I used to have a daily limit of around 21-22 points, I now have a daily limit of 29. I just had dinner and I still have about half my points left. Granted, I got up really late today and therefore breakfast was also lunch.

Due to some issues with my jaw, most fresh fruits and veggies have not been in my diet for a while. I've been working to add them back in the last few weeks now that I've found I can eat salad again without my jaw killing me. With that in mind I'm thinking about how this is going to affect our budgeting and grocery shopping. I know we can still eat well and save money, but the truth is it's a lot harder to find coupons and great deals on fresh foods.

I've already found that without coupons and a sale, CostCo is the best place to buy Salad Mix and most meats. I'm going to be looking a lot closer at the sales on fresh foods now to try to pick things up when they are really cheap. We also decided we are going to start making weekly trips to the local Farmer's Market in hopes of finding some good deals on fresh veggies. We considered signing up for a local CSA, but in the end we didn't feel like the price combined with getting whatever they send would work for us. We're a picky household and no matter what I do I'm not going to be able to get my husband to eat Eggplant, Zuchini or Squash (although I love all 3), and we do seem to eat better when we eat together.

Probably the biggest downside to couponing is the amount of junk food we've accumulated. I'm much better about not buying it mainly because I know we have too much already. The worst culprit are those candy bars I pick up as fillers in order to use up Register Rewards or +UPs. So, you'll see me sharing a bit more about watching our weight in my blog here as I learn how to merge these two needs.