Saturday, April 9, 2011

Spending Goals: Right on Budget, For a Change, or not....

I typically do my shopping on Friday, which coincides with the start of our budget week.  Our current budget month started on 3/25, so this past Friday (4/9) began the third week of the month.  Amazingly, (if I don't buy anything else between now and next Friday - yeah right) we will be right on budget.  This is particularly amazing since this month our diets changed and it's just a tad bit more expensive to buy a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, but not nearly as expensive as my husband thought.  He wanted to raise the grocery budget to accommodate.  I wanted to prove we could eat healthy and stay within our current budget of $50/week.  So far, so good.

  • 03/25 - Publix - Paid $20.05 for $49.82 in groceries (61% Savings)
  • 03/25 - Rite Aid - Paid $4.04 for $75.12 in grocery & drugstore items (96% Savings)
  • 03/25 - CVS - Paid $1.44 for $38.19 in grocery & drugstore items (99% Savings)
  • 03/26 - Publix - Paid $4.21 for $4.39 in groceries (9% savings)
  • 03/31 - Walgreens - Paid $4.19 for $17.68 in grocery & drugstore items (81% savings)
  • 03/31 - Rite Aid - Paid $4.15 for $32.90 in grocery & drugstore items (92% savings)
  • 03/31 - CVS - Paid $4.60 for $27.87 in grocery & drugstore items (88% savings)
  • 03/31 - Publix - Paid $41.73 for $77.35 in groceries (50% savings)
  • 04/01 - CostCo - Paid $9.48 for groceries
  • 04/09 - Rite Aid - Paid $3.64 for $32.96 in grocery & drugstore items (91% savings)
  • 04/09 - CVS - Paid $1.97 for $10.77 in groceries (86% savings)
  • 04/09 - Publix - Paid $44.83 for $103.89 in groceries (60% savings)
  • 04/09 - CostCo - Paid $5.39 for groceries
We've been hitting CostCo a bit more lately because of their prices on produce, mainly tomatoes and salad mix.  It's hard to determine the actual savings on things like that, I just know that it's a lot cheaper to buy these items there than it would be at Publix.

As I was writing this out, I remembered there was one more trip that I made yesterday, that put me over budget.  I hit Kroger for a few items (mostly frozen veggies for $.87 / bag) and spent about $20.  I need to track down that receipt, which I believe is in the freezer (don't ask).

2 comments:

  1. Try using the food lion coupons at Publixs for produce plus any overage they often have sundown coupon and sale which equals a lot of overage. Recently Food Lion had $3.00 off any $6.00 in produce purchase these types of sales can make produce at publixs cheap plus you can use target coupons at Publixs. Watch and see what you can do for your Produce.

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  2. Unfortunately, we don't have Food Lion in this area, so it's not a competitor for my stores. I'm pretty much stuck with Kroger, Target, Wal-mart & Earth Fare (and a couple of local stores). My big savings usually come from the $5/50 coupons (competitor stores) that I use on every transaction. I picked those up in a local coupon book that was being sold by students at one of the local schools.

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