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Old 07-01-2009, 04:20 PM
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glumirk glumirk is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: New Hampshire
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We set a $200 budget for groceries and everything that wasn't a regular bill (school supplies, dates, toiletries, and any random expenses) when we lived there. Fry's tended to have the most specials and we could save a lot by buying there (just don't go alone at night!), but we kept an eye on sales that happened at Safeway and Albertson's. We always seemed to spend the least at Fry's though. I've learned that grocery stores are WAY different depending on where you live, so that was our experience.

Try taking a stab at how much you spend a month on diapers and add that to $200 and see if you can do that. We've found that setting our budget low is better than setting it high. If it's high, we'll spend that much instead of looking for better deals and watching our spending habits. After a month or two of aiming for normal, money-saving shopping, see how that budget really fits you, and adjust it so that it's rounded to the next highest $25 (to give you wiggle room, but not too much) of what you actually spend.

I know that we are WAY cheaper shoppers than a lot of people we know in that area, so your budget may need to be higher. DH is NOT picky at all about what he eats, so sometimes he would just eat random things for breakfast and lunch and then make sure to have a good dinner. Not the healthiest eating habits, that one.

That's my suggestion...the rest is me blabbing about how we try to succeed with such a tight budget.

The best way to save money is to know what your family eats, and stock up when it's on sale. When we had stock-up trips where a lot of our staples were on sale, we sometimes went over our monthly grocery budget, but it lowered our spending for the next month or two because we had what we eat. Write your grocery list based on basic needs and then add to it what's on sale. We only buy meat on sale, and then individually package it into servings. (e.g. package the chicken by wrapping it in saran wrap and then foil before freezing, and ground beef we cook up with salt, pepper, and onions, and then portion it into ziplock bags before freezing it). This really helps us to eat meat, without having to commit to a whole package ($$) at a time. This kept regular trips to more of the perishable items (bread, cheese, fruits, veggies, milk) and we could generally wait for the non-perishables to go on sale before stocking up again.

Also, Costco trips were kept to under $100 and every other month. We found that a lot of the time Costco wasn't necessarily a better deal than when we could find stuff on sale at the grocery store, so being aware of what is a good price for food is essential. What we do buy, is definitely a good deal though.

Our $200 was a little tight if we found ourselves eating out because we were busy or needing to take a trip to Target (we didn't have to go very often...just to buy essentials like shampoo and soap because it's cheaper there than at the grocery store), so it's probably not enough for food for 3 and diapers. We decided on that budget because we knew it would be tight, and we tried really hard to keep at it. Realistically it went up to about $250 when I got pregnant because I was a LOT pickier about what I ate, but we tried to stick to the $200 just as incentive. Now our budget for food has to go up again because food is more expensive here (and I'm probably eating even more).

That's what we did for groceries when we were spending more than we were making a month (thank goodness for scholarships and grants!), and we were actually able to build up a decent savings with our summer jobs instead of having to spend it all to survive.

We're trying to figure out our budget too, now that we have a steady income in a new city, and a baby due NEXT MONTH! Good luck!
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