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Apparently This Month is All About Groceries

May 21st 2008 10:27

There have been a lot of posts this month about groceries. Maybe I'm just obsessed with food. On to the important thing, I mentioned (when I was complaining about buying laundry detergent) that there was something exciting about the grocery budget for next month. Well, now there is double the excitement! haha!

The excitement? I have TWO Kroger gift cards! What's amazing is the first one came from my Mom the same day I went grocery shopping the first time this month, only it was right after I got back. When I went grocery shopping last week (for the milk and bread that turned into more) I came back and found another Kroger gift card in the mail from an awesome friend who apparently reads these crazy posts!

I basically have the best family and friends ever.

Anyway, that means June's grocery budget is fully covered by gift cards. So an extra $50 will be sent to the tuition cards. That's the plan.

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I Eat a Lot of Sandwiches

May 19th 2008 10:55

I write often about my grocery budget and how it's only $50 a month, and that it's hard to keep under that amount. In that "Hardest Part" post I mentioned buying two loaves a bread. I had meant to write a post on this a while ago, but now is just as good a time as any. Two loaves of bread for one person?? (I assume that's what you're thinking). Yes, it works quite well.

I think it was the end of last month (April) when I bought two loaves of bread at once. It was the second grocery store trip, where I go in only to get bread and milk. (At least, that is what is supposed to happen). I decided to get two loaves of bread and a gallon of milk that time.

Why did I do that? I figured bread is cheap, and eating a lot of sandwiches would be cheap since you'd buy something once, and keep using it. It was working, except that I didn't plan very well and only had peanut butter and jelly and some cheese to make sandwiches with. So I ate a lot of PB&Js and grilled cheeses during April.

This month I got smarter. I bought ham, turkey, salami (it was in the big sale and was only 88 cents! woohoo!), and some more cheese (it was only 88 cents as well!). I think so far this month I've only eaten one PB&J. PB&J is good, but not when you eat it every day for 10 days in a row. Anyway, that was my first trip for the month of May. The second trip I decided I would only get one loaf of bread to use up the rest of the meat. I have other stuff in the freezer and cabinet that I can eat to mix lunches and dinners up a little bit.

My plan is to follow the example of the month of May. Buy two loaves at the beginning, and plenty of meat to change things up, and one loaf the second trip to use up the rest of the meat and to eat other non-sandwich things that I bought for that month.

I can't do the two loaves of bread every two weeks because then I would hate what I'm eating.

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Oh, Boy, is the Budget Busted or What. The Grocery Budget that is

May 17th 2008 10:08

I have a hard time staying within my grocery budget. But hey, you try it.

Anyway, I thought I'd do another update on this month's grocery shopping because it's not the usual $5 over. It's more like $20. And no Brita filter either.

I made the mistake of looking at the Kroger ads before I went to get my milk and bread. I saw they were having the 10/$10 sale, and so I wanted to buy some more stuff because, hey, it's on sale!

I bought the milk and bread, but then I bought pretzels, doughnuts, biscuits, two things of those chicken patties, coke, and a little treat for myself. Oh, and I almost bought some ice cream too, but managed to walk away. Actually, I managed to walk away from many things that I kept looking at repeatedly. Apparently I like to test myself to see if I can stand it.

Anyway, I spent like $26 yesterday. So, $47 plus $26 = $73. Although, the chicken is for next month, but I didn't know if things would be on sale then. The doughnuts I can eat now, and it will save me some cereal to eat for next month. The pretzels are for next month as well. (This is how I rationalize it - don't judge

).

I do have to add, that when I went home last weekend I was given some cash by my parents. So I did use a little of that to go overboard. (Yes, some of the money did go towards making $415 worth of payments to the credit cards as well. I'm not completely crazy).

We'll see if I can keep June's budget under $45 since I bought some things that will be lasting through next month.

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The Hardest Part of the Grocery Budget

May 9th 2008 08:59

The hardest part of my $50 grocery budget is that $50 has to include soap, laundry detergent, toothpaste, etc. I could eat whatever I wanted on $50 if I didn't have to buy anything but food. I haven't actually had to buy any toothpaste yet, (I get free samples of those, I think I'm set on toothpaste for a long time!), but this month I did have to buy laundry detergent. It was on sale, but I could have eaten for days on that $4.25 that I had to pay for stupid detergent.

Anyway, as for the total I spent on groceries, I'm at $47 for the month. Of course, I still have to go back and buy bread and milk, so once again, I'll be a little bit over for the month. It may seem like I should just up my budget to $55 each month, but then I'm quite sure I would spend $60 each month on groceries.

I spent $4 at CVS, $3 at the dollar store, and $40 at Kroger. The dollar store and the CVS are right by my apartment, so I just walk to those. No extra gas needed. Plus, the dollar store always has a few things cheaper that I like to get on a regular basis, like gatorade, apple juice, oh, and stupid toilet paper that would fall under the same category as laundry detergent.

CVS was a random trip I don't normally make because their stuff is usually more expensive.

So I guess it's been a decent grocery month. I did the "buy two loaves of bread" thing again (did I even write about that before?) so that I've been eating a bunch of sandwiches and it makes my money stretch farther.

There is something exciting for next month's grocery budget, but I'll have to write about that later!

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April 2008 Grocery Budget Update

April 8th 2008 10:15

Fifty dollars is rather hard to keep to when I'm supposed to feed myself for a full month. Well, it's hard if I don't want to just eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for a month.

Kroger had a strange sale the other day that I participated in. I actually like their 10/$10 sale better than what they did. This sale you had to buy 10 of the items to get $5 off. Well, some of the items were a good buy (they were all on sale by at least a little bit), but they didn't have enough actual food in the list. Most were snack food type deals that I don't buy. So I only bought the minimum required 10 things to get the $5 off.

The good thing was, grape juice was on sale, that I also had a coupon for. It was $2, and I had a $1.50 coupon. Yay! Same for the hot pockets I bought.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I went shopping on the first, and bought milk, bread, cereal, and some things to make sloppy joes. (Not the manwich kind, mine are basically from scratch - my first time making them too). Anyway, that first trip cost me $14. The next trip (for the $5 off sale) cost me $33 and some change.

Then yesterday I went to the dollar store to get toilet paper and some gatorade. One dollar each, so I've already made it to the $50 mark for the month. That means I'll be over my budget again for this month. I wish milk and bread would last longer than 10-14 days. *sigh*

Related Posts:
The Extra-Busted Budget
March 2008 Grocery Budget Busted
February 2008 Grocery Challenge Update

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The Extra-Busted Budget

March 26th 2008 11:16

I wrote at the beginning of the month that I had already went over my grocery budget by 10 cents, and that I would be buying more milk and bread, thus making my even more over budget.

I had to spend another $3.36 on two half-gallons of milk and a loaf of bread. I'm not too badly over-budget, so I should be okay

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The One Time Saving Money Wasn't Fun to Me

March 25th 2008 11:05

As you probably know, this past weekend was Easter. What did I do? Laundry. Yes, it was very lame and boring.

I had planned on going to my hometown, but it's three hours away, and I had to work on Saturday until 5pm. Also, everyone got sick. So, long story short, I stayed in my new town doing laundry

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What is Your Favorite Frugal Activity?

March 19th 2008 10:42

I'm sure we all enjoy something that is somewhat-frugal. What do you enjoy?

Mine, at this time of the year, is to watch March Madness. I'm crazy-in-love with college basketball. In fact, I had two tvs going at some points during the conference tournaments this past weekend! (Yes, I am that crazy

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Where are the Good Coupons?

March 11th 2008 11:01

I like to use coupons. When I still lived at my parents' house I was always the one to clip the coupons that I found in the Sunday newspaper. It was fun to me. I don't know why, maybe I'm just a dork.

Anyway, last Sunday (as in a week and two days ago) I decided to buy the paper in this area so I could get some coupons to use. What a disappointment

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Posted By: Ashley - Category: frugality

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March 2008 Grocery Budget Busted

March 4th 2008 15:47

I've already blown my budget for this month with one trip to the grocery store. Well, right now it's only busted by 10 cents. However, in about two weeks I'll be going back to get milk and bread. So, it'll be even more busted.

I did get lots of good deals though. Kroger was, again, doing a 10/$10 sale. I wrote down all the things I would actually eat from their flyer and decided to buy 20 items that were in the sale. (Like the popcorn shrimp that I bought three of, YUM

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