Grocery goals

I know, I know, just the title of this post is exciting, yes? No? I know. Boring. Sorry.

I wanted to relay my grocery shopping experience for anyone out there who is like me, wanting to scale their budget back. Since I have done this once before, I thought this time I would try and document it in case it might be of help to someone else. If you are not looking to scale your budget back, this will be a boring post and one you really don't want to read...haha.

So, 2 years ago I was really proud of my grocery budget. I was pantry stocking, coupon cutting, sale buying and had our weekly grocery budget down to $50.00, which I was really pleased with (especially considering that included little boy being in diapers still). I didn't go crazy coupon lady or anything, but after consistently working at it for several months it took me just about an hour per week of work before grocery shopping to get prepared to be able to shop on that budget. $50.00 is alot for some people, but we went from spending anywhere from $120 to $150 a week down to $50, so for us, we were really excited about that. I was able to maintain that budget (for the most part) for a little over 2 years. (Don't get me wrong, during our move, the holidays, sickness, etc... I didn't always stay spot on, but for the most part it was pretty much consistent.)

Throughout the fall of 2012 and then on into the holidays, I started letting it slide. I didn't use sales or coupons, I didn't keep track of my grocery spending as I went through the store, and my weekly grocery spending reflected that. It crept up, gradually. So, we ended up hitting the $100 mark ....ugh, so aggravating.

So, at the beginning of the year and when the holiday insanity had settled down, I set down to try and get things reigned back in. If you have ever tried to cut your grocery budget down (or are thinking about doing it) one piece of advice I would give is to do it slowly. There is no way I could have gone from spending $120 and over a week down to $50 in just a week's time.

When I set down this time to start getting things back on track I decided to do it in $5 or $10 increments, and only going down once a month. So, we were at $100, so for January we want to stay at $90 per week. And when February hits I will either choose to go down to $85 a week or be brave (stupid) and stretch for $80...and so on from there, until reaching my goal which is to stay under $70.

 One thing I never did before was to price match at Walmart. Since we live in a small town our local Walmart only price matches with about 10 or so stores. But, I am slowly finding that it is worth a few minutes of research to price match and is easier than hunting and clipping coupons. But, if you combine both price matching and coupons...AHAH!!

My weekly sales hunt...the play-doh tools (stage right) is not part of my savings plan ;)

So my first week back in the saddle of grocery budgeting went so awesomely perfect!!

NOT!!!

I nearly threw in the towel. I was so out of practice and it showed. I spent about an hour researching price matching stores, clipped a few (2) coupons and headed off with list in hand.

28 cents.

YES, I saved 28 cents from my coupons and price matching. Not what I had in mind at all! Only one of the price matched items where in the same quantity so that is where my whopping 28 cents was saved.None of my coupons ended up working out either. :(

So, the next week I went at it again. I actually had no coupons that time as our libraries coupon box had gotten depleted over the holidays and my own stash is pretty much nonexistent. But, I did price match several items. It wasn't a huge savings, but it was savings. From my price matching I saved $5.81....progress....slow....slow...but still progress.

But like I said before, you have to start small.
 So for 2013 we have went from $100 a week to now being at $90.00 per week. Progress, but I know with minimal effort we could cut that down by $20 to $30 a week. Not sure we can get back down to $50.00 (Unless I turn all crazy obsessive coupon lady on ya) because, let's face it, groceries are sky rocketing!


So here is how I plan my grocery trips. I gather as many local store sales ads (which is easy for me since I work at the newspaper) and get my laptop out at the table, so I can look at online sale papers. I limit myself to an hour (a little more or a little less). I know if I do much more than that I will burn out, and really much more time spent than that and its really not even worth it to me.

Next,I go and look through my pantry, fridge and freezer and see what meals we can make from the foods we already have (this is a good way to save some major $$$). Then I write down what things I know we absolutely always need (this would be milk, lunchmeat, eggs etc.) Once that is done I plan our meals for the week and write down any additional groceries I will need to make them. Sound like alot but it may take all of 10 or 15 minutes to do all that. Then I go with my list, and thumb through the sale ads and online ads for these stores:
 Aldi
Chappell's
Kroger
Walgreens
Right Aide
CVS
E.W. James
Dollar General
Fred's

 I know there are more stores I could probably price match but I have limited it to these to keep it as simple as possible. Price matching is the most time consuming part of this whole ordeal but is also the best for savings. Typically an hour of planning will pay off. This most recent trip of planning saved me $15.88 ($5.81 in price match savings and $10 less (approximately) spent than the previous week just by planning and using food we already had). So, to me that is like getting paid  $15.88 per hour. Not bad pay. :)

A little planning pays off

So, as I go down my grocery list I look for items that are on my list in other sale papers. If I find one, then I write out beside that item the price amount, quantity/size and what store had that price. Sometimes there will be multiple sales on the same item because several stores have sales on the same thing. But, they may be in different quantities. If I write them all down, my odds increase that Walmart will actually have one of those quantities in stock. So my list sometimes takes up 2 sheets of notebook paper by the time I have all my notes on it.

Once I get to the grocery store, I get my highlighter out and as I am able to find items that are price matched, I high light that item (it makes checking out much easier). I also pull my calculator up on my phone and put in my budget amount. So, this week it was $90. I automatically subtract 10% from that total ($9.00) so that I know taxes are covered, because forgetting about taxes can really kill your budget. Then each time I add an item to my  cart I subtract it from my running total. When the money is gone, its gone. End of shopping. This last trip I intended to buy windex and cereal. Those 2 items got put back because I had reached the end of the $$. Windex could wait a week and we had oatmeal, breakfast bars and other things so we could do without the cereal. Once I get to the check out I put all the items I am price matching on at the front of the conveyor. Since the items are highlighted it's much easier to tell the cashier the price and store for each item.

 I know this sounds like alot, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it feels normal. :)  I usually spend right at 1 hour in the store if the kids are with me and about 1 hour and 15 minutes if  I can shop alone, because then I do it at a leisurely pace :).
 
 And, this is just the start. From experience, I know that once you get started on this and can reach the point where you are stockpiling and only buying sale items the savings really kick in. And this last trip was done with children...which does not lead to the easiest of grocery shopping times. So, anyone else out there have any tips? Would love to hear them!
Sorry for the long, boring post. I hope it can help someone out there! Happy Shopping!