managing a budget
One of the best lessons I learned in life was how to create, maintain, manage and stick to a budget. Unfortunately I had to learn all this the hard way after making some terrible financial decisions…..but let’s not talk about that shall we? Thanks.
Anywho, I’m a mom to 3 and a full time student and until recently, I was on my own. Most of my household bills are fairly static and don’t change dramatically from month to month. While this makes it easy to plan, it also means that I have very little wiggle room when things pop up like the kids needing a new pair of shoes or clothes or some money to go to the movies or to buy a birthday present for a friend. One of the only places I have to make room for the ‘extras’ is in my grocery budget and even that is tough because for a family of 5, I only have $150/week to spend that is not just for food that is for everything including toiletries, paper products, cleaning products, etc…
I’ve learned lots of ways to lower my grocery budget but the best thing I have ever done is learned to use coupons and to pair them with the store sales. I use The Grocery Game as a way to help me pair up the sales and the coupons. Even with using The Grocery Game, sorting the coupons still takes time. A few weeks ago, I was tired of making the effort so I just stopped. But then I noticed I was paying more and getting less and on top of that, I was also running out of things. See the one thing ‘playing the game’ lets me do outside of saving money is stock up on things (when I don’t need them) when they are at the lowest possible price so that I never have to pay full price when I do need them.
Reality hit when I went to the grocery and paid nearly $200 for a cart that was just over half full. I didn’t get everything I needed and spent more than I was supposed to. It made me want to cry. Lesson learned!
I have therefore spent the last couple of weeks getting my coupons in order and reorganized. This week, it took me a better part of my afternoon to get my list together and shopping done. The time spent was totally worth it when I paid just over $150 for over $300 worth of groceries and I not only got all of the food I need for the week but plenty of household supply items that we were in need of and some extras to keep us in stock for the next few weeks.
I cannot tell you how much joy that brought me. I so often feel like I come up short when it comes to providing for my family and more often than I want to, I have to say no to the kids because we don’t have the money. Knowing that spending just a couple hours of my time can give us more than we need and often times extra money because I don’t always need to spend the whole $150 helps me feel like I’m doing my part. I like the feeling and hopefully remembering it will keep me from being lazy in the future.
Don’t forget to enter my cookbook giveaway!
