Challenges are challenges for a reason, right? Because they’re not easy. I had mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to get our budget down to 250$ per month. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as saying it and it happening! I have, however, slowly reduced it.
In June, we spent 688.70$ (honestly I’m not sure how that happened, that is an absolutely ridiculous number). July, we spent 416.78$, and this month brought it all the way down to 298.33$ — albeit with us out of town for one week. Although we will be out of town again for a short time in September, I am hoping to stay consistent or possibly improve further.
Reasons for success
- I created a full month meal plan. Although we did not stick to it that well, it gave us a much better ground to jump from then when I was doing individual week meal plans. I was able to look at the macro view better, and process what our plans were and how those plans would affect my cooking. For September, I plan on doing the same thing. Another thing about the full month meal plan was being able to pick things up for one meal I had planned on a week that an item might be on sale, cooking it and freezing it for later.
- Went in to the stores with a grocery list. I had a plan, and even though the ‘full month meal plan’ wasn’t stuck to 100%, I still based the weekly on that full month and created a grocery list based on it.
- Don’t go in hungry! I know, a lot of blogs talk about this, but it’s because it’s true. When I go in when I’m hungry, I start lingering. “Oh, that sushi looks good. And it’s on sale today? Only 5$…”
- Not too many “new” recipes. I LOVE looking at food blogs and finding new recipes. That being said, the worst part is buying all of the new ingredients, spending your budget, and having a new recipe not turn out well. I like to combine my plans with a good part of my plan being tried and true recipes with one or two new recipes.
- Picking up pantry items when they’re on sale, and skipping when not. There was a week this month where 1.5 dozen eggs that are one of those ‘always on sale’ items for 1.50 wasn’t on sale and was 4$! We only had 5 eggs left in the fridge, and I simply changed up the meal plan (looking at the monthly versus the weekly) to make sure we didn’t need more than those 5 until eggs went back on sale.
I will be planning my next month’s monthly meal plan again. Once it is finished, I’ll post it here in case anyone would like to use it or would simply like to see how I plan!
Laughter and Cooking 