2010 Budget

We have our normal monthly budget, but I also like to be able to project out major expenses for the upcoming year (and thereby I can figure out how much debt we can pay off during the year).

Here are the major anticipated expenses, with the amounts we have currently budgeted:

Car Insurance, $1600 (half in Mar/Apr, half in Oct)
Income Taxes, $800 net (April)
Sister's Wedding, $1000 (May)
Home Maintenance (repairs, lawn care, small projects), $3000 (May - Sept)
Kitchen Remodel, $7000 (late summer/ early fall)
Vacation/Travel, $3000 (now - Dec)
Misc Spending, $2000 (now - Dec)

Grocery Shopping

I recently discovered that a few Kroger stores in the area double coupons up to $1 (most other Kroger's only double coupons up to 50 cents!), so I went there yesterday to see how well I could do. I don't usually like doing my "full" shopping at Kroger, because they do tend to be more expensive than several other local grocery stores, but I had a ton of $.75 and $1 coupons...  

Thanks to a large stack of coupons, many of which were going to expire soon anyways, I scored tons of free & really cheap stuff. The freebies included yogurt, toothpaste, air freshener, deodorant, pet snacks, and candy. I think I'm going to have to make a more conscious effort to set aside those $1 coupons, and then head up to Kroger every week or two!  

June Grocery Budget

Aside from restaurants, groceries have been the biggest source of unnecessary spending. For just the two of us, our typical weekly grocery bill was $100-125, depending on how many personal care items (shampoo, toothpaste, etc.) we threw in the cart. 

We'd have a good mix of food, from healthy produce to convenience items and everything in between. We tended to buy name brands for many items - soda, cake mix, lunch meat, chips, cereal, cleaning products. We had a few things that we would only buy the premium brand - ice cream, hot dogs. And then we'd buy store-brand for other things - frozen vegetables, flour & sugar, bread. 

I noticed that certain grocery stores (especially the local chains or smaller box stores, like Kroger) tended to be more expensive. If I did a full week's worth of shopping, the bill at the checkout would be $25-50 more. Many of their items, even with a sale price, were more expensive than the everyday price at some of the other (bigger) grocery stores in the area.

I tried several months ago to reduce the weekly grocery budget to $50, and I failed miserably. I could make it for two weeks or so spending only $50 a week on groceries, but then we'd have run out of all the useful food in the house, and I would have to stock up on essentials (noodles, baking stuff, canned foods and sauces), produce, and/or meats - so we'd end up with a $150 or $200 grocery bill, and it would all even out to around $100/wk. 

It took some practice, but I've gotten better about balancing out the grocery bill. I peruse the weekly sales circulars looking for good deals, I buy a newspaper (or two) on Sundays for coupons, and I've cut out many of the convenience foods (prepackaged portions of chips & cookies, baby carrots, etc). I've also had to get creative with some dinner meals.... 

For the month of June we're actually going to come in under the grocery budget. I'm still shooting for an average of $50/week, so $200/mo. As of today, we're at $146.70.  I'll probably go pick up a few things this weekend (maybe $30 worth?), but it'll definitely be less than $200!