1. Spend $100 or less on groceries each week. Once again, close but not quite. But this month I'm not feeling as stressed about it. Having an entire month plan meant that I stayed more on top of my budget than ever and truly didn't overspend. We bought some extras because my parents were here but as loving parents they pitched in and helped with the bill so with a little help from them along with earning $40 back in the General Mills promotion I didn't really go over budget :)
Total spent: $443.80 (plus a few dollars - I know I'm missing a couple small things and didn't include some Target purchases because I couldn't figure out what I saved - it was the applesauce - so add $13.00 for that I think)
Total saved: $594.55 (plus a few dollars - same reason as above)
Earned back: $54.00 in +Up Rewards and Catalinas
My last trip to Harris Teeter for the month I picked up:
(Sorry for the darkness of the picture but the camera flash is broken and we just haven't fixed it yet - on the list to do!)
I spent: $51.66
And saved: $86.10
But what I am most excited about was my second trip (I'd forgotten some coupons so I ran back to HT for a second trip):
I spent: $1.81 (yep, just over $1.00!!)
And saved: $30.95
Do notice that I picked up food that we actually will eat :) Some of what I picked up were treats (Cheesecake bites for $0.74 and free candy bars) but yogurt my kids love and tomatoes that I'll use in next month's recipes as well as butter for a quarter are all good deals!
Most of my coupons were printables so to find those and other great deal match-ups head to Southern Savers - while you're there you may also want to take note that Dollar Doublers starts next Wednesday (11/3) at Harris Teeter and Southern Savers already has a list of coupon match-ups so you can begin to get ready. I know I like to hit Harris Teeter right after I drop the kids off at school on Wednesdays so I don't miss out on the best deals. I'm really hoping that starting the month with dollar doubler will really help my monthly budget for November - I guess we'll see!
2. Pay down debt and not acrue new debt. Sort of. I managed to lose my debit card so only have my credit card. However, each time I use my credit card I record it and set the money aside to pay the credit card off. As soon as I get a new debit card I can stop doing this but I will have the card paid off after the next bill except for a large car repair charge. Remember how credit cards are there for emergencies? Well, it was an emergency. Good news is that again I have a plan to pay it off rather than have it sit there as debt. In every other way we've paid down debt.
3. Budget, budget, budget. I stick very well to the budget I have set except for eating out. Seems that one always goes overboard for one reason or another. I am going to really work on that :)
4. Make a price point book. I'm thinking this is going to be on my resolutions list for 2011 since I'm just not getting to it in 2010!! I will say that I do have a general idea in my head but will often pay more for an item to avoid store hopping - I'm okay with that.
5. Get rid of stuff. Did I ever! A few truckloads worth. Felt so good to get SOOO much stuff out of the house. A good 200 items at least. I'm already looking forward to the spring consignment sales to get rid of more! I did purchase items and brought them in but for the most part it was clothes that the kids need.
6. Organize. In a sense I did by going through so many items but I still have a large number of buckets to go through and as I look ahead at the last 2 months of the year (can you believe 2010 is almost over?!) I don't see a lot of it happening but I have very high hopes for January.
7. Make extra money. This I did. With all my sales I believe I made about $550 in total - talk about helpful!
8. Still buying good kids clothes. Did this too. At the consignment sales I picked up a number of brand name items. I got 2 great Gymboree dresses and am currently bidding on a 3rd coordinating on eBay. I also was able to purchase brand new clothes from Gymboree NOT using a credit card because of the money I made from the consignment sales. I'm hoping to buy a few more matching outfits for the girls this coming month but am holding off till the really awesome Thanksgiving sales to get some cheap ones.
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