New Year Resolution Update

As some of you may recall, I made a couple of resolutions for 2012. My main resolution was to cut our grocery bill to under $400 a month. For accountability, I wanted to give y'all an update on my progress. (Keep in mind, I started my resolutions on December 28th.)

Let's just say I rocked at cutting our grocery bill. This month we spent 388.68! That covered our breakfast, lunch and suppers all month. I've had several folks ask how we mange this. 

1. We shop for expensive items at Costco. This month we purchased: bagged salad mix, 5lbs of cuties, diet pepsi, tri-tip steaks, boneless skinless chicken breast, paper towels, laundry detergent, toilet paper, quinoa, frozen meat balls, special k cereal, hand soap refills, on-the-vine tomatoes and even treats for Watson.  
2. I cut coupons from the Sunday paper and browse the grocery store circulars each week each week to see who has veggies and dairy products on sale. (I'm looking for sides that would go with our steaks/chicken or act as an all veggie meal).
3. My biggest life save is my meal plan. I sit down on Sunday after clipping coupons and reviewing sale circulars to create our meal plan for the week based on what activities we have planned, our work schedules and what staples I have on hand. The trick regarding the meal plans is to stick to it! Only purchase what's on your list no matter how tempting other items in the store might be.

I'll continue to track our grocery spending in my handy spreadsheet - here's to hoping for another month under $400!
 


PS I did make another resolution to floss everyday. Let's just say that I've been doing way better at this than I thought I would! For full disclosure, I did forget to floss 3 days this month but I plan to keep this up!