New Goals (Budget)

I started using coupons way back when I was 19-ish, during my first marriage. I still remember the incredible rush when I saved over $150 on ONE grocery shopping trip! Due to the economy, having my hours cut back at work, and lots of other financial things all coming up at the same time, I decided to pick this old habit back up. I was hesitant to make goals like I've seen some others doing with their couponing and budgeting, because I was afraid that if I didn't meet my goals, I'd start feeling bad about myself (which happens easily for me, so I'm trying to learn to avoid my self-imposed feel-bad traps). But today, I made a grocery list and was SHOCKED!!!

I planned for 30 dinners (normally I only plan for 14, but wanted to see what I could get away with), along with breakfasts, lunches, and desserts (I made fudge the other day and was upset with myself for not sharing it on my blog...it's super easy! So, I'm going to buy the ingredients, make it again, and share it with y'all. Are you excited??? I am!!!). You might be shocked to find that after that many meals, this is my entire shopping list:

coffee creamer
coffee (anybody know any good deals on decaf?)
dog food
yeast (brewer's...love it on toast)
rubbing alcohol (gotta try this deodorant)
tums
spring rolls (which I have coupons for)
corn
mouthwash
chow mien noodles
bean sprouts
diced tomatoes
1 bag chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
canned fruit
binder (for my flylady control journal...I'll have to post about that)
butter
frozen veggies
flour
vital wheat gluten

and IF I can find a good deal:
paper towels
toilet paper
cheese

That's it. For the entire month!!! Are you as psyched about that as I am? Ok maybe not, but I am PSYCHED, y'all! So, with my teeny weeny little grocery list as inspiration, I've decided to set myself a budget. I'm going to allow myself a maximum of $200 today. So, whatever I spend at Winco (the cheapest store), I'll subtract that from $200, and the rest I will use to get good deals at other stores and stock up. I'm going to bring some coupons with me that I think might come in handy, and we'll see what happens! I'll update this blog post when I'm done with my shopping today.

ETA: Oh, it was a joyous evening (no pun intended). First, I stopped at the shell station and put $25 in my car on a gift card I got for free from mypoints (if you would like to join mypoints, please leave me a comment with your name and email address, because I get extra points for referrals!). So, I got almost a full tank of gas for free. Then, I went to Winco (they're accepting internet coupons now! Yippee!) and spent $82.77 (saving $3.05...not great, but I didn't have coupons for hardly anything that I needed). Then, I went to Albertson's because they were having a sale on cheese (2 lbs. for $3.99), and bought 4 blocks of cheese, bringing my total for today up to $104.73 (I just now realized that they didn't give me the sale price on the last block of cheese, dangit! I'll have to make a run down to the store...might hit Fred's while I'm out). Anyway, so that leaves me with about half my budget to hit the sales for the week! Woohooo!

ETA2: Okey dokey, I just got back from Albertson's about the cheese, and I stopped in at Fred Meyer (and I'm glad I did!). When I went into Albertson's, the issue was that there was a limit of two. BUT, since the machine did give me the third block of cheese at sale price, he went ahead and gave me the fourth one at the sale price, too! So, I walked away with $6 in my pocket.

I went straight over to Fred Meyer intending to buy some of their MD bath tissue which is on sale for $4.99 (I had to hunt down the coupon, though). I peeked around at some of the other products I had coupons for and ended up spending a bit of money, but it was worth it. They had a deal where if you spend $25 on participating items, you'll get $10 off your next shopping trip. Well, the only participating item I'd use was tums, so I bought $25 worth of tums, lol! Then, I found that almost everything I had coupons for was on sale! I bought two dry idea roll ons for 2 for $5, and then used 2 coupons for $2 each, getting the dry idea for 50 cents each!

After this trip, my total for the day is $148.53. But I have $6 cash (which I forgot to apply toward my Fred Meyer purchase), and $10 off my next Fred's trip. So I'm pretty happy with that!

Tomorrow: Walgreens.