Thursday, January 6, 2011

Well friends.....

...I'm back. At least for today.
I've had a couple of you mention to me lately that you'd like to see the posts re-appear so I'm giving it another go. Of course I'm dealing with all the feelings of perfectionism and procrastination that usually follow me around...but I'm not going to give them much thought. I'm reminded of what our pastor said in church on Sunday about how to follow a daily Bible-reading plan. What do you do if you skip a day? Just jump right back in. Okay, I can do that. And I'm not going to hold myself to any kind of standard for this blog. Ok, let's jump back in!
So as you probably know I'm frugal, and I like couponing. Nothing too crazy, just like matching coupons with sales and keeping a small stockpile.
During a long road trip last month we were listening to a financial podcast and I had a brainstorm. Background info: Our good neighbors PCS'd (moved away) last month, leaving us with the abundance of all the groceries they couldn't take with them! Also my mom got us lots of groceries when they were here for Thanksgiving. Back to the brainstorm: "Hey! Wouldn't it be fun to try to use what we have and keep the January grocery budget to $100?!?!" So that's what I'm doing.
Today was my first day of grocery shopping for the month, and I gotta say, I'm not sure that I'm going to meet my goal. We just so happened to run out of several staples so far so (assuming the family is not willing to give up certain things for a month) I replaced the old stand-bys of Half & Half (cream for coffee!), coffee, peanut butter, and milk. All these things are considerably less expensive per unit at Costco so I just replaced them. Anyway, here is what I got. My total for the month so far: $46.74. Hmmmm...like I said, I'm not sure I'm going to meet my goal!

This is minus the 4 gallons of milk.

3 comments:

Karin said...

Adri, I am SO happy to read from you again!

So, I've had that challenge before, too, when trying to stay to a budget and use what we already have - what do you do when you run out of the staples? Or is the point to not have any "staples"?

Can't wait to hear more about your project:)

Sarah said...

Glad you're back! I've been out of the blog-reading curcuit and just noticed you'd finally blogged again!!!! Love it!!!!

Can't wait to hear if you made your goal for Jan. Love the idea. Does it include dining, or am I showing my obvious weakness in spending by even asking this question? :)

Jared & Adri said...

Hehehe, Sarah, we have a separate "entertainment" budget, so this is strictly groceries. Karin, I think my family would be super unhappy without milk, popcorn, butter, peanut butter, and coffee. So I just bought them to keep everyone on board! :)