How Do I Coupon ?Save Money While Buying Healthy for You, Your Family, and the Planet!

I will post weekly deals this Wednesday when new ads come out since there does not seem to be a whole lot going on right now. I thought I would post more about our grocery budget. We have $200 a month for all groceries and household goods. that breaks down to $50/week. In order to achieve this goal here is what I have done so far to help myself out:

1. Grocery Inventory List. I made my own grocery inventory list a few days ago using a simple spreadsheet in Excel. I made columns for Item, Quantity, Expiration, and Category. I went through the refrigerator, freezer, cupboards, food storage in the garage, and our bathroom cabinets. I wrote down every item we have and use along with the quantity. Now it is much easier to see what we have in stock and what we need from the store. It is rudimentary but it is very insightful. Talk about saving head space! I can bring up the list now and see what I am okay on and what we need to buy. I plan on updating my list once a week to keep it updated. I would love to post what it looks like but my laptop has just been upgraded to Win 7 (yay!) and I am waiting for my new Office software to come. Once Office is up and running I will post my example.

2. Menu Plan. A menu plan is a great way to save money. You can plan your meals according to what you have on hand and what you would need to buy from the store. The Grocery Inventory List is essential to helping me plan my weekly menu. I am a newb at menu planning so for now I am doing weekly but hope to someday achieve super star status and have a monthly plan. Yeah, I know I am a nerd. Anyways, I was able to look at what I have in stock here at the house, create a menu for lunches and dinners, and create my grocery list for the week as well. I can see right away that using what I have here at the house and buying a few items at the grocery store I should be able to keep within $50 for this week.

3. Use what you have. This budget and meals are up to me. Same as you. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Just figure out what you have that you can use and build from there. I can see we, thankfully, have a lot in surplus to use and will not have to spend as much at the grocery store. Yay!

We have plenty of protein and boxed sides here at the house to make up the bulk of this week’s meals:

Monday: Chicken in the crock pot, fresh broccoli, veggie burger, potato side dish, and biscuits.

Tuesday: Fish and veggies, rice, vegan chicken strips and edamame.

Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner. (One of my favorites and super cheap, too!). Breakfast burritos: Eggs, Cheese, Sausauge or bacon, veggie sausage, hash browns, and tortillas. **I need to buy eggs.**

Thursday: Noodles with protein and veggies.

Friday: Mashed potato, cheese, and corn casserole; protein and veggies, biscuits.

Saturday: Pizza with salad. **Need to buy pizza and salad. ** This meal will be inexpensive if I buy it before Wednesday at Fry’s. Freschetta Pizza $3.99. Use Freschetta Brick Oven Multi or Single Serve, Naturally Rising, PizzAmore Fire Baked, Original Crust or Flatbread Pizza, any $1/1 DND (2-7-10) SS-11/15. Final Price: $2.99. Bag of Dole Salad: $1.00.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Lunches for the week will be cheese crisps and sandwiches. Not eating gourmet here at all but it will do.

Here is what I have purchased today for this week’s groceries:

Half & Half: $1.64

Trash Bags – 58 count- $5.00

Frozen Chicken Nuggets (after coupon) : $1.80

Scoopable Cat Litter: $2.25

Total (incl. tax): $11.13 Left over for the week: $38.87.

I only had one coupon today but the items I needed were essential. So, I looked at the local ads and went to two different stores to find what I needed at the lowest price. I also brought my own grocery bag to use so I can get a .05 cent discount. Every penny counts! I found out today that Family Dollar has less expensive cat litter than Walmart. I am going to try it out and see if it is decent. I swear we spend so much on pet supplies! I have some essentials to buy for the household including more (::sigh::) pet supplies, etc. If we have enough left over in the budget then I will get the items for pizza night.