Hey everyone and happy Friday! I cannot believe how quickly the weeks and months are going by and all the changes that are happening this month (at least my family)!  Since it is mid-August, I thought I would post an update on how we are doing with our savings challenge this month. If you have no idea what I am talking about because you are new – here is a link to that post!

May, June and July food spend averaged about $1,000!

In short, my husband and I will constantly sift through our budget to look for areas to improve and honestly the easiest variable expense that we can cut and be WAYYY MORE conscious of is food and grocery spend. I honestly cannot tell you how embarrassing the past few months were from an overspending standpoint! Those little drive thru and coffee trips added up big time!

In an effort to minimize that damage, we decided to set a firm budget of $800 for the month of August. That being said, we wanted to challenge ourselves to see if we could have $100 remaining in the envelope by months’ end. Here is an update on how we are doing and some tips on how we have been “making it work”

First off, here is where we stand mid-month:

STARTING ALLOWANCE: $800
CURRENT ALLOWANCE (as of 8/15/19): $392.03

It is going to get tight here as we are coming down to the wire – again, we want to try and have at most $100 leftover, so this will be super tricky and we will have to be smart!

I am so determined to make this work so let me share with you some of the things that have helped thus far:

Eat in and pack lunches whenever you can

There were so many times I would be out and about with the kiddos around lunch time and I will just conveniently pull through the drive through. First off, I don’t want to be loading them up with junk food, so any limitation of that is definitely a good thing.

 I have been trying to do our errands or play dates in the earlier hours of the day or post nap time is possible. This allows me to be home where I can whip something up or pack things for the kids on my way out.. Mind you, we still go through the drive thru for lunch, it has just been WAY LESS and I have been more aware of avoiding it!

Review store ads and come up with targeted/detailed shopping  lists

This is totally the weirdest, but I love when my grocery ads come on Tuesdays (ha, so embarrassing!), but I love to start planning what I will make for lunches and dinners or even what things I can stock up on for future meals! First, I scan my three favorite grocery hot spots (a local supermarket, Giant Eagle and Aldi’s), then make my lists based on the best pricing and what sounds good at the moment. I normally shop twice a week (Monday or Tuesdays and Thursday or Friday) and really try to hit only 2 different stores per week.

Second, I make my detailed lists, which includes the pricing of each item—that way I know if I am within my set budget. I have tried to cut what was normally a $100-$130 per store shopping trip to now spending $100-$130 per week total. I do always give a little buffer of roughly $10-$20 added to my lists because I know I am guaranteed to pick up some random odds and ends, but having a general awareness has been HUGE!

Having a set list also leads to my next tip…

Meal planning is a MUST

Okay, so this has been a major game changer for our family and our budget. I know people say it all the time, but shopping and planning strategically for a meal saves so much time and money! When I was working, I wish I had done a better job at this. We probably would have saved so much money—particularly in the early parts of our marriage before kids because we would just do what was convenient for us not realizing what we could be doing with extra savings – UGH, kids are expensive!

I’ll give you an example of last weeks meals:

• Tacos
• Greek Mediterranean Bowl
• Spaghetti & Meat sauce (usually gets us through 2 nights)
• Chicken Thighs & Corn on the cob
• Breakfast for dinner – when in doubt, classic meal to whip up
• Homemade pizza

Utilize what you already have in your pantry or fridge

I was shocked at what I was able to throw together for lunches and dinners using what I already had in house! On days where you have no clue what to make, look around, get creative and see what you can salvage!

Can’t wait to check back in at the end of the month and hopefully be sharing some good news about our savings! Until then, wish us luck! Hope this is helpful for you!

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