Grocery Shopping

I was so excited for the month of June to stay $30 under my $200 grocery budget! Thanks to Harris Teeter and Lowes Foods for having four separate weeks of Super Doubles! Hahaha! Also, thanks to my husband for working in Florida two weeks out of the month - that definitely saved on our grocery bills!

I'd love to stay under budget again in July. When I stay under budget I give the extra money to something special. We have two sets of missionary friends and I like to go back and forth between giving the extra money to them. It's a great motivation for me to stay under budget.

I also have a lot going on right now. It's hard for me to make meal plans. When I don't make meal plans, that means I'm just pulling random stuff out of the pantry and freezer, and I have to buy stuff to make up for things I'm using haphazardly. I'm trying to put a stop to that this month.

So... I have made a MONTHLY meal plan for the first time ever. Three days into it, so far so good. Haha! I think it will be less stressful because I always know what's coming up.

The other reason I like it is because I have been buying stuff ahead of time for the meals. For example, I knew I was going to make Crockpot BBQ on July 1, so last week at Super Doubles I paid $0.49 for barbecue sauce for the recipe. Everything else for the recipe was already in the freezer.

Then I found out that our Lowes Foods accepts Walgreens Register Rewards! Yes, your Register Rewards come off your total order! So I took $14 in RR to Lowes Foods yesterday and shopped for things that are on my monthly grocery list that I never have coupons for. This is what I ended up with:

3 packs of shredded cheese, 1 package of sliced cheese, two bags of Chex Mix (although those were free last week at Lowes with a $0.50 coupon from Swagbucks! No longer available.), 2 packs of pizza crust, stick butter, chocolate chips, and bacon.

Spent $5.79 out of pocket and saved $15.37.

So now I've gotten eight items checked off my monthly grocery list, and hardly paid anything out of pocket. This is awesome!

I can't wait to update you guys at the end of the month and see if this really made any difference. Even if it doesn't financially make a difference, I think my mind will be much calmer. :-)