Paying for Resolutions 1 and 2....

So as I stated in my last post I have several resolutions going right now. My first two have to do with $$$ so I figured I would group them together for this post, after all I need to save some money to be able to pay for those resolutions so they might as well be together.

So first things first if I want to be able to save $10,000 and pay off $4,900 in debt all by June on $25,000 a year take home pay with soon to be 5 children as a stay at home mom I am going to need to be creative to say the least! So I thought I would catalog my endeavors so that I am better able to see if they are successful or not.

First item of business is the grocery budget, after all isn't that where most of us could probably cut? My budget for this month is $400 for 6 people....my method of attack? Well that would be coupons and cheap from scratch cooking :) Here is this weeks breakdown...

Meat: $11.29
Breakfast: $17.64
Lunch & Snacks: $ 22.62
Dairy Items: $30.76
Vegetables: $4.65
Dinner: $6.45
Fruit: $12.17
Cleaning and Paper Products: $16.34

Surcharge: $6.07
Total: $127.99
Coupons: -$8.05
Total out of pocket: $119.94

Total came out a little higher than I would have liked but Dairy should be less next week when the next months WIC comes in to play.

The next method of attack is trying to find great deals in the local flyers...this week I found some good deals in the NEX flyer and in the Target flyer. This weeks attempts at finding great deals:

Target:
*$1 Market Pantry Bread (Commissary bread is $2.36 per loaf)

NEX:
*Palmolive 3/$3
*VO5 Shampoo and Conditioner 2/$1.75
*Pepsi Family 3/$10 (commissary cases are $4.64 each)
*Charmin, 24 double rolls $10 (Commissaries cheapest is 9 rolls/4.99)

I will let you all know how this goes I am thinking there will be some bumps in the road while trying to find and get these deals.

Next thing I am looking for is to increase my coupon usage. So first things first is to find more coupons. I have several websites that I like to use and have gotten some great coupons for things I use quite a bit so that helps a bunch.
Coupon websites:
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/global/Category.asp?c=175237
http://coupons2.smartsource.com/smartsource/index.jsp?Link=HSPNCF4GHK42U
http://coupons.redplum.com/offers/default.aspx?Id=KrazyCouponLadyBlog&DefaultZipCode
http://www.grocerycouponnetwork.com/
http://www.afullcup.com/coupons/printables
http://thekrazycouponlady.com/print-coupons/
http://www.couponmom.com/printable-grocery-coupons-242

Next place I looked was in the Sunday paper...honestly don't think it was worth the $2. I did find some coupons but not enough to cover the cost of the paper, the flyers were nice but I could get them online for free. Don't think the paper will be happening next week! Live and learn ;)

Cheap and Easy meals

Several of my friends have commented in the last week about how I am able to make cheap and easy meals. One couldn't believe how little we spend at the grocery store while another wanted to know how I am able to make quick meals around babies schedules and soccer practice. Since there has been so much talk about this subject in my life this week I thought I would share some of my menu plan for this week.

Day 1: Spaghetti with Meat sauce and Garlic bread.

• Ground Turkey: $2.75
• Spaghetti Sauce: $1.49
• Garlic Bread: $2.30

Total: $6.54

Day 2: BBQ Brisket with Veggies

• Brisket: $9.30
• BBQ Sauce: $0.89
• Veggies: Free (WIC)

Total: $10.19

Day 3: Fajitas with Salsa Rice

• Tortillas: $3.80
• Chicken: $3.76
• Bell Peppers: $1.44
• Onions: Pantry
• Fajita Seasoning: Pantry
• Rice: Pantry
• Salsa: Pantry

Total: $9.00

Day 4: Meatball Sammys

• Sub Sandwich bread: $3.29
• Meatballs:$2.29
• Mozzarella Cheese: Free (WIC)

Total: $5.58

Day 5: Pizza with Salad

• Pizza: $3.25
• Salad: $2.00

Total: $5.25

Day 6: Meatloaf with Mixed Veggies and Potatoes

• Ground turkey: $2.75
• Meatloaf Seasoning: $0.50
• Mixed Veggies: Free (WIC)
• Potatoes: $0.96

Total: $4.21

Day 7: Taco Soup

• Ground turkey: $2.75
• Beans: Free (WIC)
• Frozen Corn: Free (WIC)
• Tomatoes with Green Chilies: Pantry
• Taco seasoning: $0.50
• Ranch Dressing Mix: $1.11

Total: $4.36

So there you go this weeks dinners cost $45.13 which for the most part is pretty average for us for a week. Add into that our lunch costs for bread ($2.43 x 3 loafs =$7.29) and lunch meat/peanut butter ($5.98) plus random fruit ($8.43). Plus the kids waffles for breakfast ($1.75 x 5 boxes= $8.75). Adding all the numbers up and you get a weekly grocery total of $75.58

Now this is $75.58 for the essential groceries, my hubby does like to add in some chips, sodas, and other random junk food as well :) This gives us a total of about $85 a week.

Twice a month shopping Update

So I promised to keep you all updated on how our twice a month shopping project was going. I know you have been sitting on the edge of your seats patiently waiting so here you go!

So far so good. I have only ran out of 1 thing so far and that was the tortillas needed to make Mexican lasagna. I know it is possible to make homemade tortillas and so that is on my list for this weeks projects. Just need to find a good whole wheat recipe.....

There has been one downside to only shopping once every two weeks....I thought I had been robbed! lol! Ok maybe not THAT dramatic but I did start to call my bank and report fraud on my bank account before I realized what was going on. See I had to go shopping last night for the rest of Hailey's school supplies as well as a birthday gift for a little girl my kids are friends with. When I got home I looked at my bank balance online to just double check the numbers. That is when I saw that the last charge on my card had been for $175 That got my attention pretty fast. Who has been using my card!! Then I looked at the date and it was from LAST week when I did the grocery shopping! I hadn't used the card in 7 days and that is VERY unusual over here. I have to say I am pretty happy about not using the card in 7 days I am just going to have to start looking at the dates on the statements instead of just assuming they have been within the last day or so like I have done in the past.

As for the grocery situation we are doing fine. Still plenty of everything and I wasn't greeted with the normal Saturday morning chant of "there is nothing in this house to eat"...I must say it was really nice to wake up to well fed people who didn't have any complaints ;) Now this coming Saturday might be another situation entirely, I think I got enough to last through to Sunday but we shall see. If not at least I will know what to change for the next trip.

I think I am hooked on this only shopping twice a month thing....it is very relaxing :)

Twice a month grocery shopping.

I have blogged before about trying twice a week shopping, but was always hindered by the lack of freezer space. Now that I have my new chest freezer I am giving it a try again! I went to the store on Saturday and *think* I got everything we need for two weeks. My shopping cart was literally overflowing and I looked like a crazy lady trying to maneuver it through the store. Half the time I just gave up and left it parked at the end of aisles while I ran down to get something, it was just to much trouble to push! I don't know if I will ever be able to do once a month shopping just because I won't be able to get two overflowing shopping carts through the store! :)

So here is my partial grocery list for these coming two weeks....
6 Boxes of strudels for Hubby
10 Boxes of waffles for the kiddlets
6 Boxes of cereal
4 cases of Sprites
6 loafs of bread
3 Jars of Peanut butter
2 Packs of Toilet Paper
5 gallons of milk
4 Bags of chips
Plus all the odds and ends needed for dinners

Grand total came to $180.

I normally spend $120-150 per week on groceries so this is a MAJOR improvement. I was walking down the aisle with my little calculator adding everything up as I went to make sure I didn't go over $300, looks like I didn't need to worry ;)

I told my hubby when I had him add his wants to the grocery list that I refused to go back to the store for two weeks and to make sure he got the amounts he felt he needed. So now to stick to my word and not go back.

I will let you all know how it goes as the weeks progress :)

Pantry Challenge Update

So we are halfway through March and we are doing pretty well on our pantry challenge! So far we have spent $139 leaving us $161 for the rest of the month :)

It is truly amazing the difference you can make in your grocery bill simply by paying attention to what you have and not buying unnecessary items on a whim. Take last month for example I sent my husband to the store to get the items he couldn't live without for the month. He came home with $130 worth of pure junk....soft drinks, deli sliced cheese, toaster strudels, etc. The man couldn't find a bargain if he was locked in a room with it! When he told me how much he spent I about had a heart attack! Fast forward to this month and I sent him on the same shopping trip after having a talk with him about brand name items. This month he came home with an equal amount of junk but this time he spent $26...much better!

Our pantry is doing pretty well....I am going to need to get some more meat next week but other than that I think we are sitting pretty :) There are several items in my pantry that I am trying to figure out how to use such as cans of salmon (thanks WIC) and TONS of beans. I have managed to use up the majority of our surplus of 5 DOZEN eggs so at least I am making headway on one stockpile.

March Grocery Challenge

For the month of March I am challenging myself to do a pantry challenge. A pantry challenge is simply put a attempt to eat solely out of your pantry only buying fresh items as needed. Our pantry has become a little to stocked as of lately and if I try to get one more thing in my freezer it may explode! lol! S0 for me this is a great way to get everything cleaned out, learn some new recipes, and save some money.

For this month I am giving myself $300 instead of the usual $500 for groceries and toiletries.

3/5 Commissary $56
3/9 Commissary $27

$217 Left :)

What to do with all those bulk items?

I wondered this very thing when I was wandering down the huge isles at the bulk store. Where would I put all those tomatoes? How in the world was I going to find room for that huge container of ziploc bags? After all we live in military housing and the room available for storage is very limited especially in the kitchen. At the time I told myself well it is to good of a deal to pass on I will figure it out when I get home. Yeah, that can of 100oz of tomatoes doesn't get any smaller once you get it home! Now we use a lot of tomatoes but there was no way I could use this much tomato product in the 5 days it would take it to go bad once opened. My solution? To freeze it of course....but how?

I needed an option that wasn't going to use all my Tupperware and that wasn't going to take up my whole freezer. Plus I had all those Ziploc bags just sitting there....OK you know where I am going with this. I put one cup of tomato's in a sandwich bag and then layer the sandwich bags into a freezer bag lay flat in the freezer for 24hours till set and then "file" them standing up in the back of my freezer. Takes up very little space, the sandwich bags were really cheap and I can reuse the more expensive freezer bag as many times as I need to.

All well and good but what about all of those Ziploc bags, the 25lbs of flour, the huge container of animal crackers....the list goes on and on. There really wasn't any room in my pantry for all of these items but I needed them close to the kitchen for the ease of cooking or refilling containers. My solution was to buy a freestanding garage shelving unit and install it in my laundry room in an unused nook that was intended for a free standing freezer....Great vertical usage of space and since it is free standing I can take it with us every time we move with little drama.

Starting a Price Book

I have been toying with the idea of starting a price book over the last few days. Although it wasn't till a friend commented on my last entry about how hard it was to know what the prices of items where at 2 different stores that I really started thinking about how to put one together. A price book for those who don't haunt the frugal websites like I do is a book in which the normal prices of an item as well as the units are listed for all suppliers.

Take that can of green beans for example say it is normally $0.50 a can and I have this listed in my little book, then one day I see it has gone down to $0.40 but I don't buy because I know from my little book that the prices always go down even further at Thanksgiving and sure enough I am able to buy that can for $0.20! Now that is quite a savings that I wouldn't have gotten if I didn't have a price comparison book,

The same philosophy holds true for comparing competing stores prices, although it gets trickier when dealing with very different sizes of containers. Say I know that a can of diced tomatoes is $0.99 for 14.5oz at one store but $2.78 for 102oz at another store. Now just doing the rough math on this one it is clear where the better deal lays but what about those items that are right on the line? Say a 5lb bag of flour for $1.99 or the 25lb bag for $8.73. That one is a little harder to do in your head. Although if I had the normal prices of each type of flour recorded in my little book there could also be a cutoff column. A column that shows when the price of the 25lb bag is too high versus the 5lb bag. Say that 25lb bag of flour went up to $9.99 and the 5lb bag stayed the same? Well then I would know that it is not a good deal and time to walk away from that particular bulk purchase.

All of this gets very confusing and I am in no way saying it is fool proof, there are times when you know you are going to goof and spend a little more because you though you had a good deal. Luckily though I am talking goofs in the $0.72 range like the lemonade from the last post and not $5.00 goofs like I would have if I tried to buy my produce or dairy at a bulk store. Those things I have done some comparison shopping on in the past and know that the commissary is always cheaper on those items. The commissary in my opinion is almost always cheaper except in the situation of the HUGE containers of items that would normally have to be pared down into the smaller containers. In this case you are saving money only because the company selling them has to spend a lot less to package and handle the large containers over the smaller ones. It is only these products that I will even consider buying at a large box store such as Sam's.

Another example on the commissary versus Sam's.....The other day while at Sam's I took a look at their laundry soap. Amazingly it was the exact same size and brand that I buy on base except it was marked $20. while I am able to buy it on base for $11. Now that is why you have to know the base prices at each store!

Another great resource if shopping on base is www.militarylife.com once you register for the site you can see ALL the sales current sales at your local commissary without ever leaving your house! So if you know the base price of an item at the bulk store and the base price at the commissary but see that the commissary price is cheaper that week (again before you leave for your shopping trip) you can compare and see if the bulk purchase is still cheaper! Very cool! There is also a option for the commissary specials that are only on sale for a certain time frame, such as the buy 5 for $5 and such, again another great resource.

All of this takes a great deal of patience to work through and even more to keep it going. After all wouldn't it just be so much easier just to go to one store and get everything you need and say that was the best price you were able to get? Well yeah that is easier and I have been doing that for years, the problem is that my grocery bill was getting out of control. I am talking $1,000 a month! That is outrageous! Now with checking the prices and doing one bulk shopping trip a month I am down to $500 a month. That is a huge savings but I still think I could be doing better after all I hear many a tail of a family of 14 living off of $400 a month! Now I may not be THAT frugal or be that inventive when it comes to the shopping trips but I certainly think that if they can do it for 14 I should be able to spend the same amount with 4 people! Especially important since we have twins on the way and money is getting ready to become even tighter, better to tighten my belt now and put the extra money into savings than have to figure all this out with 2 newborns and no money!

Sam's Club vs Commisary...where is the biggest savings?

I have read countless books and websites about how to cut your grocery budget and in many of these books they say that box stores like Sam's Club are a good buy for some things but to watch out because at times the price per unit is cheaper at a regular grocery store. Being the ever "quirky" wife that I am (Hubby's words not mine) I decided to actually sit down and do a unit per unit comparison on the things I normally buy at Sam's versus the prices at the Commissary. Now when I am walking down the isles at Sam's I do a rough comparison in my head at the prices and "knew"I was getting a good deal on these items but having never done the actual math I was a little nervous at seeing the actual numbers.

Today's trip to Sam's I bought:

102oz of Whole tomatoes
111oz of Canned Kidney beans
34qt of powdered Lemonade
192oz of Apple Juice
102.5oz of diced tomatoes
12lbs of Baking Soda
25lb of Bread Flour

Not everything I bought but those are the things on the list that I chose to do a comparison on. So after my trip to Sam's I went to the commissary to continue my shopping as I usually do but this time I wrote down the units and the cost of these items if bought there. Then using simple math I was able to calculate the savings/loss per item at Sam's Club.

Whole Tomatoes: $3.68 Saved
Canned Kidney Beans: $1.97 Saved
Powdered Lemonade: $0.72 LOST
Apple Juice: $0.83 Saved
Diced Tomatoes: $4.21 Saved
Baking Soda: $1.70 Saved
Bread Flour: $1.22 Saved

Now as you can see the cost per unit of the tomato products was a HUGE savings while some things like the apple juice were only so-so....and then there was the lemonade that was actually a loss. The lemonade actually surprised me quite a bit I really thought I was getting a deal there, just goes to show you that you really do have to read the units based on the prices. All in all this trip to Sam's saved me $12.89. Will I be shopping there again in the future you bet your bottom I will especially for the tomato products, though I think I will leave the lemonade to the lovely people over at the commissary!

Grocery Challenge Update!

As you may remember I have taken on the challenge of only shopping once every two weeks in the hopes of cutting back our grocery bill. I was sceptical at first because it sounded like a lot of work and I couldn't for the life of me see how it was going to save any money. I mean you are still eating 3-4 times a day and making the same things that you would have to begin with so how could this save anything? Well today was shopping day for my second 2 weeks on the program and I have to say that I am loving it! This last weekend it was SO nice not to have to worry about what to make the next week (I made up a calender of the entire months meals when I started) and to not have to brave the grocery store. So how did I do on the money front??

Weeks 1-2 Grocery Store: $170
Weeks 1-4 Sam's Club Bulk Shopping: $180
Weeks 3-4 Grocery Store: $190
Random odds and ends needed throughout: $50
TOTAL: $590 for one month

Usual total for one month shopping every week: $680

That makes a savings of.....$90! OK now that is nothing to sneeze at! This was my first month on the program and the trip to Sam's club is a every couple of months trip. I got things such as a 25lb bag of flour (will last about 3 mths), bulk trash bags (again about 3 mths), bulk Ziploc bags, HUGE container of animal crackers, bulk pop tarts, etc.

Next month our goal will be for a total spend of $400 giving us a savings of $280 a mth.....OK so I am officially on board with this program. Anyone game to try with me????

Kitchen update

Well I finally worked up the nerve and decided to do my 2 weeks of grocery shopping this last weekend. I normally spend about $150 a week on groceries for a family of 4 plus daycare kiddos, so I was expecting to spend about $300 when shopping for 2 weeks at a time. I looked over my menu for the next two weeks and reviewed my inventory and then wrote out my shopping list for the week. It was a REALLY long list and my cart was REALLY full but once I rang it all up I almost fell over....drum roll please.....grand total of $180! Are you kidding me!?

Now I understand what everyone is talking about when they say you save a fortune by shopping once a month. Now I am not quite up to THAT level yet and I am smart enough to know that I am going to have to pick up an item or two over the next few weeks but I know that even with the odd item here and there it will be way less that $300. We shall see how it goes and I will give you all an update at the end of the two weeks when we have the final totals.

Part of this savings came from not using as much processed foods. This is taking some getting used to! My first issue is with using dried beans instead of canned. When you look at the price comparison it is SO much cheaper to buy the dried beans as well as being healthier (have you looked at the sodium content in a can of beans?!) but all the work to cook them before use is a pain in the rear! I have been working on dinner for over 3hrs now because I have to soak/cook the black beans before I can start the soup they go in. Now it is not like it is hard or anything but anyone who knows me knows that I forget everything that isn't right in front of me, so to remember 3hrs before dinner to start the beans is a real pain. I am going to start looking into soak/cooking the beans in a crock pot in the future. This is also an issue with making my own bread, I love doing it and it saves a fortune but remembering to make it with enough time for it to rise is another issue I am having. I have tried making bread for sandwiches in the past and it really doesn't work that well for us, no one uses it and it ends up getting thrown away. I decided to buy the sandwich bread and make the bread sticks/french bread/pizza crusts from scratch and that has been working really well for us.

Finally Taking on the Kitchen

I am a major procrastinator when it comes to my kitchen. Don't get me wrong I love to cook, but I am one of those people who will just go out and buy another jar of seasoning instead of searching my cupboards to see if I already have some. As you can guess I have cupboards that are way to full and tons of extras in there. Over the last few months we have been trying to "live off our pantry" so that we use some stuff up and save some money. This has been a really great thing for us and there were some weeks when I only spent $80 to feed all of us! Even though this has been going so well there was still one area of my kitchen that I was to scared to look at....the spice cabinet! AH! Well I finally went through it ALL the last few days and I worked up a written inventory of what I have.....OK no one needs 3 jars of coriander!!!!

So now that I have a written inventory of my pantry I need to do something with it right? Well I have been haunting the large family websites for ideas on how to feed a large family on a budget (yes I know I don't have a large family but if they can do it with 12 kids I can do it with 2!) and I have come up with some really good ideas. Not only do they have tons of recipes on there that are easy and nutritious they also have meal planning ideas and shopping tips. One of the ideas I have heard for a while now is to only shop once a month....yeah this is a little out there for me....I mean once a month???I am taking baby steps here people and I have worked up a menu for a month but only plan to shop every two weeks for a while to get the hang of it all.

Being that I have TONS of certain spices I took my inventory sheet out and then came up with recipes that will use them, as well as setting certain nights every week to the same dish (i.e. Mondays are spaghetti night). This in theory should save quite a bit of money since I can buy certain items in bulk and then actually use them (novel concept over here). Plus all the meals that I chose are simple to make with only a few ingredients.....no more buying 12 items for one dish! It will be interesting to see how this project works out. I know that at first I am either going to have way to much or way to little of certain items (milk, bread, etc) until I am able to gage the correct amounts per week so I know that I will be going to the store more than once every two weeks for a while but it shouldn't be that hard to figure out right? I will let you know.....

On another cooking related front by garden was a no go....I managed to get one cucumber plant to grow, one tomato plant, and 3 onions. My bell peppers are scrawny and not producing and my zucchini got ate by snails. I did manage to get some basil and flat leaf parsley to grow by bringing them into the kitchen where I can remember to water them. OK so world famous gardener I am not...but hey I tried! Not sure if I will try again....was a lot of money and work for nothing.