Friday, December 12, 2008

The Challenge of Being Frugal



I have been trying since our move to become more and more frugal. It's not been easy and I am not super great at it...yet! My friends Amy and Ellen have challenged me to be better all the time. At first it was frustrating because I was only seeing a few dollars of savings. But then I thought, Hey, I wouldn't roll down the car window and throw out that money, would I? So, I began to feel better about even a few dollars. I have had some real deals over the months, but today was probably the best so far for the amount I bought! (Amy and Ellen, if you read this, don't laugh at my pathetic attempt!)

There are sites out there that describe how to feed your family for $40 a week. I am not that good yet, but thought that for a family of 7, I would like to try going for $100 a week. We have been averaging between $150-$190 a week, so $100 would be quite a feat for me!

The picture above is most of what I bought today. You don't see the 13 lb. turkey, or the whole chickens, the Capri Suns, or the cans of soup. I find that meat is pretty expensive for our family so I try to save money there, but it's very hard. The meat in today's purchase included turkey, chickens, deli ham, ground beef.

So here were my best deals of the day:

*frozen 13lb. turkey $9.71 then had a $1 off coupon total...$8.71 (this will be several meals for our family!)

*three bags of Green Valley Steamers broccoli $3.00 then had 2 $1 off coupons and a $.50 coupon total...$.50 (for THREE bags!)

*eight bags of different flavors of LifeSavers hard candy $10.64 then had 8 $1 off coupons total...$2.64

*3 boxes of Reynold's aluminum foil $4.26 then had 3 $1 off coupons total...$1.26

*4 boxes of Stove Top stuffing on clearance for $.84 each

These were some of the best deals, but I did really well overall. The original total came to $128 and then I used $23 worth of coupons and it came to a grand total of $105! Most everything I bought was either on sale, or I used a coupon, or in some cases, a combination of both.

So, overall I think I accomplished my goal! I am quite proud of myself and next week, will see if I can do even a few dollars better...these days I think a lot about those "few dollars"

3 comments:

Melissa said...

Way to go girl! It's hard saving at the grocery store when things have gone up so much. I'm proud of ya!

Gregg Stutts said...

That's pretty cool...and I'll bet Ben appreciates it, too!

Amber said...

Very impressive! It's tough to stay under budget when everything is so expensive these days! Keep sharing your finds...they motivate me! Missing you guys! I was hoping also that you would share more ways to share Christmas with your children!