It’s a new year and with the new year comes new goals! The craziness of teaching full time combined with doubling my children this year has put my couponing somewhat on the back burner. My goal this year is simple… Spend less!
According to Chris’s most fabulous, mind blowing Budget spreadsheet, we spent an average of $263/month on food in 2008. That’s a total of $3,000+ for the year. I would not have guessed that we were spending that much, but with the less couponing comes more Walmart-ing, and with Walmart-ing comes unplanned purchases which bumps up our grocery spending as well as miscellaneous spending, ie… that cute scarf, or cute top. :)
I now, therefore, present my “Spend Less Plan 2009″….
- Commit to couponing every week… this involves the usual buying and stockpiling what’s on sale…
- Avoid Walmart like the plague, and when unavoidable, make and stick to a list of only what we need. (We will probably continue to buy our formula… $12 for large can, and Luvs diapers… 120 for around $20 there.)
- Set a monthly goal of grocery spending and monitor weekly to avoid overspending.
- Commit to eating out less, which of course involves cooking more!
We’ll see how we do, but I’m confident we can bring our spending down significantly just by keeping myself aware of it. We have done well this week… we’ve eaten in every single night! With eating in brings another perk… Leftovers for lunch. I’ve eaten at school every day since I started last year. The lunch at school is usually very good, imo, and it has always been a bargain… last year $1.50 and this year $1.75. It includes hot bar or snack line as well as soup or salad (with lots of fresh goodies) as well as your refillable drink.
However, they recently made the decision that they needed to raise the price to $3.00, which meant reconsidering if bringing my lunch might be a more prudent choice for me. So, drumroll please, for the first time, I’ve brought my lunch two days this week! I don’t think you understand how much I DO NOT like having to pack a lunch. YIKES!
I know that no one wants to hear Renee complain, but I really don’t need to add anything else to our “get ready for tomorrow routine” we’re already going through every night…
- Check Haylee’s folder and sign
- Fix Haylee’s lunch
- Wash bottles
- Prepare bottles (4)
- Label bottles with date
- Get Wade’s clothes laid out
- Get my clothes laid out
- and Haylee gets her own clothes ready….
But, as I was saying before my complaining rant, cooking every night gives me lunch leftovers. We are bad about eating the leftovers that descend into the grave that is the fridge. This way, I don’t feel like I’m being so wasteful. This week, I’ve transferred any leftovers directly to individual rubbermaid containers providing me with ready-to-go lunches. I know, what a novel concept!
We had spaghetti Thursday, and I came up with the nifty plan of dividing the leftovers into separate ziploc bags and froze them. My plan is to take the frozen bag for lunch and wala, I have my own homemade frozen dinner. :) This is so not in my normal realm of wife-hood, but I was proud of myself!
I thought I would share these two spreadsheets that I plan to use to implement my “Spend Less Plan.” The
Mommy Snack grocery spreadsheet is complete with formulas etc to keep up with your spending and savings as well as which stores you’re spending what at.
Christina sent me
this spreadsheet that is going to be handy to keep up with things before entering them into the first spreadsheet. I plan to print this and keep it handy to jot down my totals for each store as I go, or at least by week.
The spreadsheets are in google docs format. I just discovered google docs. So very cool! You obsessive Mac users should like it since you can use it as a substitute for excel, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. :)
Good for you!!! We have several goals this year for finances as well…I don’t know if I’m going to actually post the goals though ,or just wait until we meet them! =) I tried clicking on the 2nd spreadsheet you mentioned (already have the 1st) but it wouldn’t let me see it! =( Enjoyed the update!
Best of luck on your goals. Nothing brings about new money goals like ringing in a new year! I hate having to get so much ready the night before too – don’t feel like it’s just you. Glad you are finding ways to make things both easier and save money. We do Matt’s lunches the same way. I always cook enough to have leftovers and send them off with him to work. :) It works nicely.
Okay, I fixed the second spreadsheet, so it should work now… :)
Hhmm? I wonder how many mac people you know? Oh, and by the way, Heather and I both have the entire Microsoft Office 2008 Suite on our macs. Remember, any thing PC can do Mac can do better. ; )