[Andrea27]

I have a simple question...how do you a) set a grocery budget and b) stick to it?

I currently spend about $150 a week on groceries, usually in two trips...one larger trip and then one small trip because we always end up needing more milk and fruit/vegetables. I would really like to eventually get to around $100 a week (family of 4, two adults, two kids... 3 and 1).

This is such a stupid question, but how do you figure out how much money you are about to spend? Do you figure in prices and calculate it all up before you leave? What about produce- do you plan on how much (in lbs) you are going to get?

I always make a list, pretty much stick to it, and it is always more than I want to spend (which isn't shocking since I have no idea how much I'm about to spend!).

[KimsDD]

Well, we used to have a budget of $200/month, but now that both my DB [is that an abbreviation, even? My Darling Boyfriend?] and I have even LESS work, we don't have a budget. We go to buy groceries ONLY if we find multiples of what we need on sale/clearance. I would say this past May we spent somewhere between 35 and 50 dollars a month.

I definitely plan it all before I go in, and if I find an extra deal, I stop in whatever aisle I am in right then to recalculate my figurative total. As for produce, I try to calculate whether or not its cheaper to get fresh or frozen, and go from there. it seems the easiest for me and it works!

[LetaB]

Our grocery budget fluctuates a great deal by the season. Our high is roughly $150 per week in the late winter early spring, and our low is $25 per week in the dead of summer when everything is ripe. We are me, DH, stepson half time 13, DD full time 5, and DS full time 2.

We have a bunch of strategies, some of which may apply to you.

1. DH is a baker. With the exception of 99c hot dog buns, if he doesn't make something that includes flour, we don't eat it.

2. We can/freeze/dehydrate. We have a produce stand nearby, we garden intensively, and we know some farmers. We live in berry heaven- every year we go to the Upick strawberry farm and pick 50+#, and cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, huckleberries, and blueberries can be had for nothing more than time and a little gas. We freeze them and they comprise at least 50% of our winter fruit consumption. We can/freeze pickles, kraut, salsa, pizza sauce, marinara, jam, applesauce, green beans, peppers, pie filling, fruit butters, homemade soup, etc. I make fruit leathers for the kids.

3. DH was a butcher before he was a baker (please hold candlestick making jokes until the end) and he barters cutting for meat. We get venison and pork this way.

4. In the winter months, we do SHARE for produce.

5. We get WIC.

6. We buy things through restaurant suppliers, mostly UNFI and GFS. When we get something like a 5# brick of mozzarella, we shred it alll, IQF it, and bag it. That way, it makes pizza for us for 3-4 months. We get most of our staples (oats, nuts, flours, sugar, etc.) this way. We also buy 5 gallons of handwash dish liquid and huge boxes of foil and cling wrap from UNFI, which lasts us about three years.

7. We homebrew.

8. I bought an insulated bag at the thrift store, and whenever we go anywhere, I take homemade granola bars (which freeze very well) and/or homemade trail mix, juice boxes (for travels ONLY) and some cut up cheese and/or hardboiled eggs. This greatly minimizes drive thru pit stops.

9. I make yogurt, sour cream, and some soft cheeses from WIC milk or milk that I get from a friend.

10. We make all our own condiments except for hot sauce and mustard. Once you learn to make homemade mayo, relish, ketchup, and yogurt, salad dressings come together amazingly easy and are yuuummmy.

11. I very rarely buy cereal. We eat oatmeal, scratch pancakes and waffles, potatoes, smoothies, rice, meat, and lots and lots and lots of eggs for breakfast.

12. We are an almost all cloth family. I use microfiber towels for cleaning, a cup for "feminine needs", we did cloth diaper but nobody is in diapers anymore, we use a Shmop, we have a thousand hankies and cloth napkins, etc. We even use cloth wipes for pee, which greatly cuts down on TP. We only use paper towels for cat puke and cleaning cast iron.

13. We use wood heating pellets for cat litter. I can't praise this enough. Healthier, more environmentally friendly, easier to deal with, and SO.MUCH.CHEAPER.

14. We buy eggs, goat and lamb meat, turkey, grass fed beef, and some of our milk right from the source. Not the very cheapest option, but far cheaper than an equivalent store bought product and very tasty and healthy.

15. We make our own snacks- stove popped popcorn, trail mix, home fried tortilla chips, muffins, etc.

16. I coupon pretty heavily for things like coffee, tea, olives, winter produce, butter, hard cheeses, vinegars, spices/flavorings, pectin, peanut butter, juice, gum, and all our prepared non-food consumables. If I don't have a Q *and* catch a sale, I don't buy it unless somebody's bleeding to death.

17. We make some of our own extracts (orange, lemon, lime, mint, and vanilla) and our own pancake syrup, chocolate syrup, fruit syrups and caramel/fudge sauces.

18. We have a DIY carbonation setup to make pop, carbonated juice, club soda, and to revive flat homebrewed beer.

19. I make soap, shampoo bars, conditioner, moisturizers, sunblock, lip balm, bug repellent, deodorant, laundry soap, stain pretreat, dishwasher soap, glass cleaner, furniture/floor cleaner and polish. I use aloe as hair gel and shave gel. DH uses shampoo bars and brush for shaving foam. Once in a while, I'll also make facial and hair treatments. The only commercial cleaner I buy is Magic Erasers, the only commercial toiletries are dental floss and toothpaste. (Yes, we still need stuff- raw ingredients, trash bags, first aid, ziploc bags, and razor blades all rush to mind.)

20. I never buy cosmetics or creams from big boxes or drug stores. I use e.l.f., Everyday Minerals, and AllDayChemist. I spend about $100 per year on all my makeup, nail stuff, Retin-A, Latisse, and eyelash dye.

21. For durable goods, check the thrift store, craigslist, eBay, and Amazon before you buy anything. I am of the firm opinion that in order to accurately track spending, groceries should be things you use up rather than wear out. Durable goods should not cloud your grocery budget.

22. This may vary based on your location, but bras/undies/socks/tees used to sneak into our cart and drive up our grocery spending. We get them cheaper, along with sweats, by ordering once or twice a year online.

23. I buy office supplies once a year at back to school time.

24. I hack Brita filters.

25. Home/hardware shopping is also it's own animal and doesn't have anything to do with my grocery budget.

Hope this helps.

[cpht]

LetaB--
That is AMAZING! How do you find the time to do all that?! Thanks so much for sharing. Great ideas!

[Thebestthings04]

We don't really have a budget per say, but I try not to spend more than $100 a week for our family of 6. BUT, we have chickens for eggs, raise turkeys and chickens to eat that are raised on grass and little feed, goats for milk that we can drink, make soap or cheese out of. We also make our own yogurt. I have fruit trees that we make our own jelly and jams from, we have a garden we eat from in the summer and fall and then can what is left. We buy our wheat as grain in large bulk and then grind it. We make 90% of all our own breads and pasta. I make our granola cereal, muffins, pancakes... I try very, VERY hard NOT to buy junk food. We also make MOST of our own cleaning supplies including our laundry soap.

My thinking is this...if I save $400 a month, but poison my family with what I feed them, then I'm not doing myself any good. For us, we must maintain our standards in eating and save money when we can on the other things.

[tracy8338]

Wow. I don't know how you have time for all that. I have 5 kids and am lucky if I can squeeze in a shower. One thing throwing me off though.....what is a cup for " feminine needs" ? I have never heard of anything like this.
Btw im gonna be googling homemade ketchup and mayo now

[Thebestthings04]

The cup is well....a cup that you insert that catches..."the stuff" and then you remove it, rinse it out and then put it back in. You can also make homemade mamma pads that you can just wash.

[tracy8338]

I've noticed since couponing we are eating so much worse because it seems the horrible stuff is always free. My kitchen needs a healthy overhaul. Where is Jillian when I need her?

[SouthernladyRTR]

In reference to "the cup for feminine needs" - collegecandy. com/2007/06/19/for-all-your-reusable-feminine-needs-the-diva-cup/

I've never heard of anything like this. I could never do it, but to each their own.

[LetaB]

Finding the time... well, I stay at home. DH and I both enjoy cooking and making stuff, as well as gardening and being outdoors, so that's not a chore for us.

When I make yogurt and mayo and granola/granola bars/trailmix, I make it every other week. If we run out, c'est la vie, I'm not a slave, everybody can wait until next time.

I do little bakes every week or so, only takes a few minutes hands on time, and we do big bakes (pizza dough, pie dough, English muffins, pita, etc.) about every other month, it takes a whole Saturday morning, and we just freeze it all.

When we can/freeze something, we do a whole year's worth at a time. August and September are BUSY around here, I won't lie.

When I make laundry stuff, I make a year's worth at a time, it takes about an hour, not including shopping time. Same with deodorant, bug repellant, lip balm, sunblock- it takes the same amount of time to make a month's worth or a year's worth, so I just make a year's worth. The ingredients for all the toiletries fit in a bushel basket, so once a year I just haul my basket upstairs and spend an hour or so making toiletries. Soapmaking is more complicated, I try to enlist a friend and do that outside, it takes a couple hours every summer.

SHARE, brewing, bulk orders, meat cutting, berrying, and going to farms- that stuff is all social stuff that we do with friends during pretty weather and we have a good time. There's too much beer involved for it to be a PITA. To a certain extent, we use canning and cheesemaking as time to socialize, too.

I was totally freaked out by the cup concept, too. Then I got fitted for a diaphragm and I was wearing it at the right time... and it was just so much cleaner and neater and only needed to be dealt with once or twice a day. I stumbled into it, but I'm sold now. It's been 10 years and I'll never go back.

This was a process for both of us. We've been married nearly 8 years, DH grew up on a working farm and until I met him I thought I was hardworking and good cook. He has a work ethic that puts mine to SHAME, and it's kinda a friendly competition around here to see who is the most productive.

My house is never as clean as I want it to be, either, but I prioritize our DIY life over clean floors. I tell myself every day that I didn't have kids to have a clean house, LOL.

Also, shopping is very time consuming for me. I live close to three stores that hit pretty regularly, but the rest of them are 15 miles away. I need about four childless hours to do it well. The fewer items I need, the faster it is. To me, shopping less and making more is a good trade off. Lately, I've been going shopping every two weeks so that I can hopefully not go at all this summer. (If we need just a couple things, I can have DH stop on his way home from work, but for a big long list... just no. He'd come home with a $26 brick of manchego and ten bottles of fancy vinegar.)

[VitaLuna]

Holy cow! $150 a week seems like so much! I've lived frugal my entire childhood and adult life... Childhood by necessity, adult by choice. LetaB has pretty much outlined everything, but here's what we do.

-plan your meals out and ONLY buy for those meals. I coupon a lot, so I try to build meals off what I have (ex: frozen veggies, tomato sauce, etc). Don't but extra stuff in the store unless it's for those meals

-don't buy processed food. This will save you money and your health! Make a double batch for dinner and use it for lunch the next day.

-keep junk food and prepackaged items out of the house. Junk food isnt good to begin with, but if you want cookies, bake some. If you want apple slices, cut and package them yourself.... Dont pay someone to do something that you could do yourself (like repackaging food)

-get rid of paper products and plastic bottles. Use cloth dish towels instead of paper towels, and fill a reusable bottle from the tap. Also, don't waste money on cleaning products. Vinegar, baking soda, salt, and lemon juice will cover you for just about anything (you can google recipes)

-if something is too expensive, don't buy it! If you really wanted apples but they're way overpriced, find another fruit that week instead. Cereal not on sale? Then do without this week

-make your own beans (black, red, etc) ad freeze them. Canned beans are so expensive! Cook your own, they freeze beautifully

-and finally (which is huge for us because we only eat organic meat), make sure meat is a side dish and/or reduce the meat in your recipes. If a dish calls for 1lb ground beef, use half or 3/4 of a lb and use beans or oatmeal as a filler (if you need a filler at all). You don't need meat every day, and they say a lot of meat isn't good for you anyway

Hope that helps!

[hngoodlett]

I'm not nearly as amazing as the people who have already commented, but maybe my thoughts as a fledgling budget-er are useful.

Realize that you probably aren't going to immediately cut your spending down to the ultimate goal, and that you'll go over sometimes. Don't beat yourself up over that. Sometimes I see the incredible deals people write up on here, or that people are feeding 4-and-5 person families on the same budget that I use for 2 people and get frustrated, but the important thing is that you do what works best and is best for you.

I found that a good strategy for me is to try to reduce my monthly budget by a certain percent instead of each week or each trip. That way, I don't feel like a failure if I spend a lot in one trip, because that means I'll probably not come back for a while and spend less when I do.

[Andrea27]

Thank you so much for all the information so far! You all are truly amazing.

I have just started to get into baking my own bread, making tortillas, etc. I have to admit I am LAZY when it comes to this so I need to work on that I think I spent $6 on just bread yesterday, when I have 3 bags of flour in my freezer!

We did go in on a CSA share for the summer (unfortunately where I live- MN- it is not possible in the winter months!!) so that should take care of a big portion of vegetables, fruit and eggs.

LetaB- My husband is from a farm family and he is totally the opposite. He will spend $$ like there is no tomorrow! It is hard for me to get motivated to save when he doesn't try. He has gotten better in the past couple years but if I dare let him go to Target or the grocery store he will buy and buy without even looking at prices.

Keep those tips coming. I would still like to know if anyone has specific examples of how they plan out there grocery trips.

[Robbo]

Ok, there are some serious pros in here and I'm LOVING it! I do many of the things listed above - there's so much good advice... but I want to pick my favorite because this addresses the "how to stick to it" part rather than the "how to get it down" part:

Originally Posted by LetaB

16. I coupon pretty heavily for things like coffee, tea, olives, winter produce, butter, hard cheeses, vinegars, spices/flavorings, pectin, peanut butter, juice, gum, and all our prepared non-food consumables. If I don't have a Q *and* catch a sale, I don't buy it unless somebody's bleeding to death.

This is SO me. Redefining "necessities" and doing without things when they're gone is a great tool when working on the "how to stick to it" part of your budgeting.

[LetaB]

Oh, my DH is not that frugal. He has champagne tastes, for sure. But in order to afford the quality of food (or non toxic personal care items, or furniture, or landscaping, etc.) that he wants, we have no choice but DIY. DH was a professional chef in between butchery and baking, he wants pastured animal products, artisan cheese/bread/wine, heirloom produce, imported olives, etc., not to mention $200 shoes. He has become a lot more frugal since I met him, but the way that we can afford nice stuff is by doing it ourselves.

A lot of this is just knowing when/where to buy. You develop a sixth sense for this over time. Where I live, we buy tomatoes in late August. We are able to get them for about $8 per bushel. That's when it becomes cost effective to can, so we do all our tomatoey stuff over one long busy weekend. Peppers are slightly later, a bushel costs us about $12. That's fast, because DH is quick with a knife. Together, we wash, core, and slice 2 bushels of bell pepper in about two hours. We IQF them and bag them in gallon ziplocs, and I don't buy peppers all winter, when a single red one is $4. Onions are later still. 50# of onions are $13. We store them in pantyhose (onion, knot, onion, repeat), hang them in the basement and snip off as needed.

Wild, slightly tart apples make awesome (and nearly free) applesauce. Berries from the store are so horribly expensive that we don't buy them, even already frozen, we pick ourselves. If you grow cherry or grape tomatoes, before frost, you can pull the whole plant out by the roots, rubber band an old Tshirt around the roots to contain the mess, and hang it upside down in your house. It will continue to give fruit for a good while. In the winter, we eat things like squash and cabbage with our canned and frozen veggies, and instead of putting $$$ lettuce and tomatoes from CA on sandwiches, we put on homegrown alfalfa sprouts and sundried tomatoes that we dry ourselves. Pretty much the only fresh fruit we eat in the winter is citrus and bananas, but we still have cellared apples, frozen berries, juice, canned peaches, pears, and storebought canned pineapple.

DH also makes sausage, bacon, and salumi, and smokes lunchmeats, but that's pretty advanced. Cheesemaking, which I do, is much easier. You need milk, cultures/rennet/acid, and time. Oh, and salt. Making a gallon of yogurt or a pound of soft cheese takes about as much hands on time as making spaghetti (from dried pasta and canned sauce, I mean).

FWIW, we do not live on any type of farm. We live in a small city on a 1/10th of an acre lot, and the footprint of our house takes up about 40% of the land.

Just like couponing requires you to wait for a sale and then buy as much as you can store, putting up your own food requires that you wait for the natural harvest cycle (early spring for asparagus and rhubarb; spring for dairy and honey; summer for chicken, berries, some veggies; early fall for beef, some fruit/veg; late fall for pork, turkey, root veggies, apples; winter for citrus, avacados, artichokes) and then process enough to last until the next cycle. The difference is one of urgency- retail sales cycles run 12-14 weeks, but natural cycles run annually.

[Robbo]

Originally Posted by Andrea27

Keep those tips coming. I would still like to know if anyone has specific examples of how they plan out there grocery trips.

Here's how I do it:

[note: we live in the city. Produce is relatively expensive and my 10ft x 10ft yard doesn't exactly lend itself to gardening. I live in a tiny 2br townhouse with not a whole lot of room for storage so I can only stockpile so much w/o having stacks of food in the living room. We're also vegetarians, buy zero meat and lots and lots of fresh food]

Part I:
For fresh food, produce, cheese, etc. I have a set dollar amount ($40) that I must fit my food into each week. I have an approximate quantity of food in mind for each week that we need - x amount of fruit, x amount of random veg for cooking, x amount of "salad materials". What this pans out being changes every week based on what's on sale/in season at the moment. I make roughly the same meals every week but their specific contents vary.

Examples - we pretty much have a chopped salad with every dinner. Whatever lettuces/greens are cheap + whatever veg is cheap. Make my own dressing with olive oil & vinegar. No iceburg lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and Ranch. We get what they got and that's that. I usually make two pasta dishes each week. Maybe this week, one is made with a spinach/tomato sauce because those were cheap this week, another is made "primavera" style because bell peppers were cheap. Next week it might be a pesto because basil is cheap and I have parmesan in the freezer. I serve fruit with every lunch. Whatever is cheapest is what we're getting. By the time May rolls around we're all so happy to have something other than apples...

It takes a little practice to "get good" at shopping like that but now I can get in & out in no time and eyeball what's in my cart and know I'm w/in my $40.

Part II:
My regular staples - bread, pasta, rice milk, tortillas, wine (let's be honest here), cereal, yogurt, eggs, oatmeal, raw nuts & seeds, couple fakemeat products. I am very picky about these things (unprocessed as possible, whole grain, organic, etc.) and travel far to Trader Joes because their every day prices are good. I go once every 10 days or so and my bill is always between $60-$65 because I've pared this down to the necessities, get the same quantities and everyone's getting good at making things last (i.e. don't drink all the booze in the first three days, I'm NOT getting more ). If I've scored a stockup on something recently (i.e. oatmeal & pasta come up fairly often so I'll get as much as I have room for) then it's less.

Part III:
Extras: stockups on pantry stuff like oil, vinegar, flour, spices, etc. and any extras like pop, granola bars, other packaged snacks & goodies (these are rare and one is to consider it like Christmas if a case of pop shows up here), My personal weekly budget is a flat amount that has to include food, gas, school expenses, doctor copays, clothes - just about everything that doesn't come in the form of a bill in the mail. When everything has been accounted for, whatever money is leftover I use for stockups and extras. If there's no money, there's no extras. This also includes all HBA and drugstore deals.

Part IV:
The occasional exception. The first one that comes to mind is huge diaper stockups. I have a 2yo in diapers and a baby due at the end of August. When deals on these show up I have to go big because it's just too expensive otherwise. If it's going to be a big one, money comes from savings and I get as much as I have room to store. Savings is paid back from "extras" noted above or at the occasional "extra check month" (husband is paid weekly, most months have 4 checks - which we base our budget on - some have 5 and those extras are dumped into savings for all the unexpecteds)

I could shave off more if we had to - cloth diapers come to mind. (can you tell I'm thinking about diapers?). I tried them and hated it so so so much that I'd rather live without shampoo than disposable diapers. I know, very eco-unfriendly and lazy but I can't do it.

And that is the Saga of Robbo's Shopping.

[Andrea27]

Thank you so much! Now I feel extra lazy because we live on 2-3 acres and have a lot of land...also a lot of trees and my husband has convinced me a garden is impossible but that is just because he knows he would be the one to tend it (hence the reason for my CSA share decision!) He is also a potato broker so we do get potatoes free in the summer and fall.

Robbo- Awesome tips thank you! I feel the same way about diapers, but that is the ONE thing I have gotten very good at stocking up at cheap prices. Unfortunately Target and WAGS are both 20+ miles away for me so I can only make 1-2 trips a week max. But I know next week WAG diapers are $3 a pack so I will definitely be stocking up again.

I think I first need to work on cutting out unecessary grocery items...bread, chips, Kashi bars, prepackaged deserts come to mind immediately. I also need to get more motivation and make waffles and pancakes once a week. My 3YO has become a very picky eater and he will only eat waffles or Kashi Autumn Wheat for breakfast (which is NOT cheap, even on sale and with a Q). He will eat homemade waffles so that is good.

[prep54]

very nice thread ladies! Thanks for all the knowledge you've shared.

[consuella24]

Wow.. that's really all I've got.. W-O-W!

[hngoodlett]

Originally Posted by Andrea27

Thank you so much! Now I feel extra lazy because we live on 2-3 acres and have a lot of land...also a lot of trees and my husband has convinced me a garden is impossible but that is just because he knows he would be the one to tend it

Maybe you could start with just a few things in pots? I live in an apartment and I was able to grow two tomato plants, a few herbs, and a failed okra on my patio last summer. I got some great stuff and the only effort after planting was a minute or so each day to water.

This is an awesome thread by the way.

[NCmom]

Originally Posted by LetaB

Oh, my DH is not that frugal. He has champagne tastes, for sure. But in order to afford the quality of food (or non toxic personal care items, or furniture, or landscaping, etc.) that he wants, we have no choice but DIY. DH was a professional chef in between butchery and baking, he wants pastured animal products, artisan cheese/bread/wine, heirloom produce, imported olives, etc., not to mention $200 shoes. He has become a lot more frugal since I met him, but the way that we can afford nice stuff is by doing it ourselves.

Letab you are my hero!!!!! My DH was a professional chef also for 20 years and it is often difficult. What is does make easy is that he can cook anything and make anything taste good. We try to keep it at $200-$250 a month for food, school lunches, restaurants, take out, hba, paper products, etc. That is for two adults and one 9 year old. We have a 20x15 garden and I garden intensively so that helps. I usually grow about 30 tomato plants along with tons of other veggies and we have a long growing season being in coastal North Carolina.

For hba and paper products I coupon as much as I can, we use cloth napkins and rags for cleaning, so our paper product usage is low.

I think the main thing we do is that if we can get it cheap we eat it, if it is not on sale or we don't have a coupon, we don't. So if I can't get cheap tortillas in the store we have taco salads or we just don't do Mexican. We do try to stay away from processed foods, but when frozen raviolis were free, I bought eight bags. They lasted us a while and I won't buy them again until they are free again, which I know may be never. We just eat different types of meals. Cereal is only allowed in our house if I can get it for 75c a box or less, if more than that eat toast for breakfast or oatmeal. We do bake our own bread when needed, but with all the bread deals I have been getting at the store, we haven't made our own in several months. With double coupons I was able to get canned beans for free, I loaded up big time, so we have been eating lots of beans lately since I am way to lazy to deal with dried beans. For meat , we only eat if it is on sale or marked down, I almost never buy full price meats. We gorge ourselves on homegrown tomatoes June - October and then just get them occasionally after that. I guess all this is just to explain our motto, if it is cheap that is what we are eating.

I think getting in a rut of buying the same things each week and needing high priced things like canned soups to cook is what keeps grocery budgets high, but that is only my opinion. For example, we love yogurt, but if yogurt is full price this week, we'll skip it. We eat lots of veggies, but only eat whatever veggies are on sale (whether frozen or fresh, but we don't eat canned) and that is it. I love, love asparagus, but have accepted that I'll only get it a few times a year. I love Diet Coke but have learned to like generics and if the budget it tight that month, the first thing to go are sodas and any treats. We look at it like, can't afford carry out pizza or chinese, we'll just make our own and load it with veggies.

We know we can always get better on our budget by being creative and putting a bit of work into it. We have a friend that supplies us with tons of corn and some venison, we package and freeze as much as we can. Just found berries and grapes growing behind the house so am going to pick as many as I can and freeze for later. DH just got offered a place to hunt so am hoping he can get a deer this winter.

[tresositos]

When we had our second child and the impulse trips to the store for more bananas became more difficult, I got very good, very quickly at figuring what we needed for the week and sticking to it.

We spend on average $200 a week (for everything that I buy for the house--paper products, food, everything) for a family of 5. I should separate better what is groceries and what isn't, but that is too much work! I used to do the envelope system--put $$ in an envelope and when it is gone, it's gone--but now I can just eyeball it and if I feel I am spending too much, I take a week off from the drug stores or something. Here's what I do:

I plan menus 8-14 days in advance, based on what I have in my stockpile and whatever is coming up on sale. If I buy carrots and celery, for example, we will have at least 2 dinners with those ingredients and cut up the rest for the kids' lunches. Ricotta cheese was cheap, so I bought several and I'll make a few batches of lasagna and stuffed shells to freeze and heat later.

I buy produce, organic milk, rice milk and eggs at Costco every 3 weeks. That trip alone costs 100-150, but I also buy pure maple syrup, organic brown rice, etc there too and it adds up fast. I CRAM my refrigerator as full as I can that week. On Costco weeks, we have salad every day with dinner--the big tubs of organic spinach or spring mix salad are $3.99, and I will make veggie wraps or something similar for dinner one night.

On other weeks, I shop once a week, on Saturday or Sunday and buy whatever sale items and enough produce to last the week, whatever is on sale-usually 2-3 kinds of veggies and 3 kinds of fruit. I stock up on canned & frozen fruit and frozen veggies when they are on sale for the 1-2 days a week when we run out of fresh. I don't feel too guilty doing that since my kids eat a ridiculous amount of fresh produce the rest of the week.

Planning menus made the biggest impact in my spending, and also the amount of waste--I hate wasting food. Now if I buy something, I incorporate it into a lot of meals so it gets used up. Good luck! I am trying to cut our budget further and it is tough. I was relieved to be done with diapers, but it seems the older my kids get, the more they eat and they are eating up my diaper savings!

[Andrea27]

Tresositos- Have you priced out the bulk at Costco vs. grocery store sales? I've always wondered if stuff is really cheaper (we do have a Costco membership but rarely use it anymore since we moved we are about 40 miles from the closest one). 3.99 salad mix definitely sounds cheaper than at the grocery store. I know the maple syrup is also cheaper per OZ.

[lilcee]

My husband budgets everything - groceries, clothing, vacation, Christmas, Auto, Medical etc, etc.
Our budget for groceries is $90 a week (just the two of us) but since I usually get my money from an ATM machine, I only get out $80. I check ads and try to use coupons and figure out how much everything should cost me and try to keep it under $80 so I can have a little left in case I forget something and need to go to the store later in the week. I figure out the cost ahead of time so I don't over spend.
It works great for us. We even budget a little spending money for each of us.

[tresositos]

Originally Posted by Andrea27

Tresositos- Have you priced out the bulk at Costco vs. grocery store sales? I've always wondered if stuff is really cheaper (we do have a Costco membership but rarely use it anymore since we moved we are about 40 miles from the closest one). 3.99 salad mix definitely sounds cheaper than at the grocery store. I know the maple syrup is also cheaper per OZ.

Yes, we shopped on my sister's membership a few times and I priced everything out before we joined. I am picky about natural ingredients in the foods we eat all the time and I LOVE most of their products. We buy organic milk, and it comes in a 3 pack of 1/2 gallons for $8.99--at my stores, it is regular $3.79+ for half gallon, so even with a coupon it is cheaper at Costco. I can sometimes find rice or almond milk cheaper with a Q at Target or Jewel, but not always. 18 organic eggs are $3.99 vs $5.79 for 12. The all-natural fruit jelly at the grocery store is close to $5 for a small jar, and I get 2 big Smuckers special recipe (no HFCS) jars for $6.98. Organic carrots--10 lbs for $5.99. I don't use a lot of cleaning products, and I get big jugs of vinegar and 10 lb bags of baking soda there cheap too. I would have never guessed that Costco would be by natural-products store

The downside of Costco is that it is easy to get sucked in to impulse purchases but I make my list and I stick to it. It's also easy to buy more than you can reasonably use. At first we would split up cases of fruit and veggies w/ my sister, but now I just let each kid pick only one thing, and we can eat it before it goes bad. They had a good deal on diapers once with a store coupon and I bought one case, but other than that I don't buy HBA or paper products there b/c I have found drug store and Target deals to be better.

Robbo suggested Trader Joes, and I have one less than 10 minutes from me that I want to check out. I've been there before, but primarily for wine so I am going to compare prices there. hth