Wishful Wednesday is the day of the week where I take an intentional step to cross something off my “I wish that was done…” list. The goal and intention of Wishful Wednesday is to be able to mark that wish off the list and give you a self-esteem boost that even on a day when maybe it hasn’t been your most productive, you still accomplished something you have been wanting to get done. This wish needs to be accomplished today!
I have noticed lately that I have gotten lazy with couponing, shopping sales, and making my own cleaners. Today’s Wishful Wednesday project was to go through my last 2 months of bank statements and figure out exactly how much money we have spent on groceries and other household expenses (laundry detergent, cleaning supplies etc).
I went through my bank statements and yes, I was amazed at how much we had spent on groceries and household items, especially after a no spend challenge in January. Yikes! With a family of 7, I know there is no way I can reduce my budget to $35 a week like you see on some websites. However, I’d like to easily keep it under $100 a week. This should be doable where we have a lot of our own meat in the freezer.
I also went through our local store’s weekly ads and came up with a plan for the coming week. I actually didn’t have any coupons to print as my list is mostly fresh produce, a small amount of meat which was on sale, and store brand items. (Sometimes it’s much cheaper to buy the sales and use no coupons!)
I decided to plan the first week’s of menus and see how the ads are next week and try again. I will probably save more by shopping weekly (even though I really don’t like doing that) and on the weeks with not-so-good sales, cook out of the pantry. With the savings I should have, I will be able to save significantly for our project.
I also started digging through my homemade cleaners and added vinegar to my list as well as a few new spray bottles.
This did take me a little longer than an hour (as you can see from the late post, but we also had parent teacher’s conference this afternoon and had a family dinner tonight.)
What is your weekly budget for groceries? Do you like to shop every week, every 2 weeks or monthly?
I wish I could get my grocery bill under control. There are 3 of us in the family, plus my FIL most nights of the week plus an extra one or two infrequently. We spent over $900 in January on food. That is just crazy. You would think spending that kind of money that we would be fully stocked up but we shop week to week to make meals and we don’t eat anything I consider really extravagant.
I need to work on cutting back too. There are only 2 with 1 on the way. We spend $100 every other week. I have been going over that recently. I need to work on eating more from our pantry.
I tend to shop once a week right now because I have to make the trip to town and I want to take advantage of the deals!