Grocery Store Challenge Sept (9/21/2012)

What is my challenge? Spend as close to $20 a week at Food Lion over the next 3 weeks while purchasing items we need or to add to the stockpile based on sales. I am also going to give myself $10 a week to spend at CVS to keep rolling ECB. So that is a total of $30 a week for the next 4 weeks to feed our family of 6.

I spent about 20 minutes on Tuesday night, reviewing the Food Lion ad. I am finding that Food Lion is placing very different weekly ads in different markets so I definitely can’t base my shopping off Southern Savers right now.  I did make a huge change in my plan after getting to the store on Thursday for two reason. First, the price for 2 liter Diet Cokes were $1.99 instead of $1.79 I remember. I am going to recheck this price next week to see if it has actually risen that much. The second reason was a coupon that printed from the machine.$1 off 5 of chicken. So I quickly searched to find a ten pound bag of chicken quarter marked down to $5.23.  The picture shows just how much I was able to purchase. Total spent after coupons $19.94 SUCCESS!

 

Grocery Saving Part 2

This has been one big shopping week at our house this week. We ended up with 3 trips to Harris Teeter during their Super Doubles event. We ended up spending $141, saving 57% or 190 in addition to $10 in gift cards remaining. The stock up items this week were mainly breakfast items which we use every day! So I was excited even after the trip that left us with the $10 in gift cards due to the POOR service we received.  I made a CVS free trip for 2 toothbrushes and 3 bottles of nail polish remover. Finally was the Food Lion trip, where I spent 20 and saved 23 or 53%.  In addition, the purchase of 80# of chicken breast is an added grocery expense this month. If you add up all that I have spent $675 on groceries already this month. So the first reason for doing a grocery challenge is that I need to keep the rest of the month spending as low as possible to stay in budget.  The next reason for the challenge is space related., in order to be able to freeze 80# of chicken breast in October, I need to clean out some space in the chest freezer. Finally, Food Lion has sent me 3 more $5 off $25 to use over the next several weeks. So I am again going to try this challenge

What is my challenge? Spend as close to $20 a week at Food Lion over the next 3 weeks while purchasing items we need or to add to the stockpile based on sales. I am also going to give myself $10 a week to spend at CVS to keep rolling ECB. So that is a total of $30 a week for the next 4 weeks to feed our family of 6.

I already have my shopping planned for tomorrow at Food Lion, hopefully with the iPhone I can get some pictures of what I am able to purchase!

Anyone joining me?

Groceries Savings Part 1

If you follow much at all, you probably realize 2 things about groceries: 1. We tend to eat a lot! 2. I struggle each month to maintain a budget and groceries is probably the one area that I move and play with the most as well as the one area I overspend in as well.

One of the best/cheapest methods I have found is by buying in bulk. In March of this year, I learned about Zaycon Foods. I was able to purchase 80# of boneless skinless chicken breast for $1.99 a pound in March and $1.69 a pound this week. This is fresh chicken that has not been cut and needs some work before going into the freezer. The other downside to this purchase is that pick up is in a half hour slot and the closest “stops” to use are between 35 minutes and an hour. The good news is that in April (our last pick up) Matt took all three little kids with him,picked up the chicken came home and re-bagged all 80 in about 2 hours. We have been eating on that same 80# of chicken for 6 months now, at least once a week, sometimes sharing with friends or eating twice a week. When we pick up in October, the plan is to change only one thing. The size of the packages that we freeze, we have found that we can use 1 whole chicken breast for a meal for the 6 of us. We previously packaged 2 whole breast and end up with lots of left-overs.  I am not being compensated for writing about Zaycon foods but if you are interested and decided to order any of their products please either go directly through this link: http://www.zayconfoods.com/refer/zf71881  or simply fill in “Coffee Freak Designs” in the “Referred by” field. This will not cost you or penalize you at all however for each purchase you make, I will receive  a $1 credit for future use :)!

In the next post, I plan to tell you about my shopping deals this week as well as attempting the grocery challenge again and why?

Square Foot Garden

It is my blog and I can change things as I want to!! I had all intentions of posting about my Square Foot Garden on Monday this week. I even took pictures to show it. But life happened.so here is a picture

  

I have not talked much about our Square Foot Garden this year. First I planted too early and frost killed most of it. I did replant a second time and we have received a small batch of veggies. However, while on vacation, I pulled up all the dead/dieing plants, since then we have noticed a huge change. We are currently able to get a dish of green beans a week (3 weeks), green peppers  (small but awesome) jalapeno, freezing these for use this winter and some really GOOD looking tomatoes. After thought and debate we decided that next year, the plan is to make the garden deeper. We are adding a second wooden layer around the entire box which in turn will  make use double the amount of dirt. I hope this helps as the kids are saying that things from the garden taste better so we want to foster and encourage them to eat as many veggies as they can hold. Any other suggestions?

Free CVS Shopping

For the second week in a row, I have been able to shop for free at CVS:

I used 2 $0.75 off coupons from SS 8/26, a printable $1/3 for the candy, and  from the Red box at CVS I had a Soft Soap coupon for $1.50 off, this was several weeks old. I also used  5 ECB but got back a total of 3.67 in ECB. I did use 0.61 from a gift card that I received several weeks ago for purchasing $30 before coupons. After looking at my receipt, I realized that this was actually the tax!  I still have 1.75 on the gift card. Stay tuned to see if I can shop for free again next Sunday!

Crazy Busy Life

This week has been one of those weeks, the ones where I wonder how we ever do it or better yet is it ever going to stop. Monday, was so nice, home all day and evening as well. How could that be only 5 days ago. I honestly, don’t even remember what happened on Tuesday, maybe that was the one day, I exercised or something crazy like that. Wednesday, I had a parent meeting for cheerleading and everyone else had kick off for Kid’s Club at church. A side note is that I actually picked up Zach from the church and then didn’t make it home until 8:30. On Thursday, we had doctor and dentist appointments as well as a special cheer practice. Yesterday, between working and set up for Bible quizzing today, I didn’t get home until 8:30 again. Today, was an awesome day of Bible quizzing but I am exhausted.

The most exciting news of the week? Zach is actually on the growth charts now! He weighs 28lbs (25%) and is 35 inches tall (3%). We are just excited that he is on the chart!!!

Next week does look a bit slower as my work is slowing way down but I do need a short break and God is providing!

Zach’s 3rd Birthday

Zach requested a tractor cake. Matt ended up finishing at the last minute but it was still very good.

Everyone liked playing with Zach’s new tractor.

Zach had been waiting all day for everyone to sing “Happy Birthday to me” and then “I blow out the candles.”

LIly is offering her help!! She actually did help him blow out the candles after several attempts.

Left handed hockey sticks.. who could ask for anything more?

 

August in Review

Great way to start a new month..2 days late but hey at least  I did not totally skip it.

Blogging: Finally over to the new site completely. So if you are still being redirected the address is www. teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com   I have now met my blogging goal 2 months in a row!!! Go me! Go me!  Goal: 15 per month

Devotions: I have met this goal again !!!! I am excited already thinking I need to up the goal next year to 5 a week! Goal is 3 a week.
Groceries: Our actually grocery spending for the month was $733, but this is a lot off simply because there were 5 Fridays and 3 paychecks during this month. So  I can say without a doubt we are beginning to reduce our grocery spending! I did recheck our average for the year and it is down to $797 a month. Now to stay focused for the last 4 month! But for the first time ever we have been below budget 2 months in a row. Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.

Financially:Still waiting for the changes to take effect at work. No real news in this area.   Goal: To be Debt free except for mortgage by the end of the year. This was established prior to our learning of the significant financial changes that are occurring so I am trusting God to provide direction in this area. Currently we are focused on meeting budget each month!
Weight: I finally got on a scale this month and it ain’t pretty! So this will become a renewed focus for me in the coming months. I was able to exercise  3 x a week for 2 of the 5 weeks. That is an improvement. I have also found an app to help me count calories. I plan to go back on plan by Tuesday. Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month.

Overall a really positive month with staying focused. I do know that September will be the greatest challenge in both finances and weight for me so can you pray for me? Thanks