Am I the only one who sits down to balance our checkbook, pay the monthly bills and then stares at the computer in sticker shock? Where does all of the money go?
I feel like we are a pretty frugal family, but my frequent shopping trips to Target prove otherwise. We have a household budget, thanks to Mr. Dave Ramsey. Unfortunately, Dave wouldn't be very proud of my Target bill lately.
Matt and I usually have a "State of the Smith's" phone call once a month. About once every year to year and a half, we decide to buckle down and pinch every penny we can. I scour our expenditures looking for things to cut. The biggest thing we could cut is our total in the grocery line. That got me to thinking about the best ways to save at the store. Do y'all have any ideas to share? I have done the Grocery Game in the past, but I always feel like a lot of her big saving items are things I wouldn't necessarily buy on normal circumstances.
I did some research today and found this Twitter feed. It gives out coupon codes, but doesn't necessarily help my grocery bill. The Money Saving Mom and Freebies4Mom were also good sites I found today. I'm on a mission to save y'all! I'm going to break down and get a twitter account so I can follow some of the saving tweets. I'll pass on anything I find and you please do the same!
4 comments:
Groceries are my biggest bill too--and I've tried the Grocery Game as well. I liked it but bought stuff that ended up just sitting there because my kids don't try new things! ha! Carley has done it for a long time and really likes it though. I started shopping at Walmart and found that it's the across-the-board cheapest way. It can be a pain--I don't go on weekends--but for what we buy it works best. I'm on Twitter...and I am a little bit addicted to it. Brace yourself
My friend's husband is in the actuary (sp?) field. He actually did a price comparison with Walmart and SuperTarget groceries. He said the SuperTarget overall had the cheapest groceries, but not the best selection. Mike does our grocery shopping here. He goes every Sunday morning to Kroger, and uses coupons.
We drive older model cars, set the thermostat for weekday/weekend hours, don't have a data plan on our cell phones (there's $50 a month), don't have a home phone, and other little things to save here and there. Good luck! :-) (ps - sorry i haven't commented in a while - sometimes the word verification isn't there.)
Take it from someone who was laid off for 13 months, you can survive on very little. Drive older cars, don't eat out, shop for clothes at the goodwill, cancel the cable, take the internet off your cell phone, turn the thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer, make your own laundry soap (i have a recipe if you want it), pre-treat stains and wash in cold, increase the deductible on your car and health insurance if possible, turn off lights and unplug electrical appliances like the microwave and DVD player when not being used. Don't take vacations, plan out trips to run errands in order to save gas, and don't hire outside labor if it can be done yourself. . .by even doing half of these things, you will feel so good about yourself at the end of the month :). Hope this helps!! Love you so much, sweetie!
Hi Joy! Not sure how I missed this post! All of the suggestions above are great ways to save money. We don't use our cell phones for internet and don't have a home phone either. We do take vacations but save money each month to put towards vacation so its not a big chunk at once. I shop at Tom Thumb and Super Target for the different groceries. I like the grocery game and only buy what we will use/need. It makes Tom Thumb cheaper than Walmart. But Super Target is cheapest for detergent, shampoo, meat/chicken and a few other things I pick up there. I clip coupons every Sunday. We only have one car payment at a time (the goal would be to not have any). We love the Dave Ramsey material and pay cash for almost everything. We set a fund each month that we call "splurge" and thats for extra things we decide we "want". It rolls over and then we end up being able to do things like buy furniture, etc. with it. I hope that helps. I'm interested in looking at the websites you posted. :) I am with you that about once a year we decide we need to buckle down and save every penny again. My shopping trips to Target are much more often now that I'm home more and its an easy place to get out of the house and go to.
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