Back to the Budget

I have been slacking on the budget posts for a few weeks.  The holidays didn’t help!  We still did pretty good, keeping our groceries for food at about $500 for the month, but that is without taxes.  So, I would like to do better this month!  I’m not going for a specific amount, just less than the $506 in December.  It’s not looking likely right now but who knows, maybe I can pull off a miracle!

I think I will try and continue to use Sunday as our start day for the week.  This week I’ll just share what we’ve bought since the first of the month.  Keep in mind that we still have a dozen winter squash downstairs, a handful of yams from our Thanksgiving week binge, about 2 dozen yellow onions from the last week of the Farmer’s Market, and lots of home-canned goods like tomatoes, peaches, and applesauce.  We also have a lot in the freezer right now, ready made meals, fruit, and meat.  So I am trying to use up more of that stuff and haven’t been buying much fruit at all and little meat.  Though I did order another meat CSA share that will be coming in February (yay!).  Anyway, here’s the details.  From the 1st through the 8th we bought:

• Avocado $2.00
• Bell Peppers $1.00
• Blackberries $5.28 – I got 6 pints, 88 cents each at Sunflower!
• Celery $1.00
• Parsley $.50
• Cucumbers $1.50
• Garlic $.50
• Grapefruit $1.00
• Chives $1.88
• Oranges $5.76 – this was only 5 oranges.  Don’t get me started…
• Potatoes $3.77
• Organic butter $4.89
• Heavy cream $3.79
• Whole milk $3.49
• Sour Cream $2.00
• Yogurt $1.59 – this was to make my own yogurt
• Chicken $9.13
• Peanut butter $4.79 – had a coupon for $1.00 that doubled at The Store so I splurged on Justin’s brand
• Ranch dressing $3.99
• Hansen’s soda made with cane sugar $5.98 – we just wanted to try it
• Red wine vinegar $3.58 – bought 2 to stock up
• Lara bars $8.34 – will make my own in the future, these are for the boyfriend
• Lara bars at Costco $36.58
• Mozzarella at Costco $7.89

This is a total of $132.51.  Our meat share plus lard cost $211.15.  Together that is $343.66.  I don’t think we are going to sneak in under $500 😆  The last meat share we bought lasted us about 3 months (we still have a few things), so that works out to be just over $60 a month, $15 a week.  I don’t think that is too bad for grass fed beef and pasture raised pork.  Anyway.

We went shopping again yesterday for a few things, and besides that I don’t need very much this week.  I’m trying to use up ready made stuff from the freezer, and I’m really going to focus on using more pantry items.  Maybe I can buy only the bare minimum this month and figure out the cheapest possible way to get veggies in!  Any suggestions?!

Happy saving!!

Posted by Lauren on January 10, 2012

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