Sunday, September 12, 2010

Weekly Spending

Monday - No spend day

Tuesday. Total = $77.88 - Spent $77.88 on groceries (& laundry detergent at Costco). I'm trying a new system where I bring $100 each week for grocery shopping, & stick to that. I can also roll over any savings for weeks that we need to replace staples. My family is full of produce hounds, so we go through both a lot of volume & variety. Out of that total, the breakout is as follows:
  • $15.32 went toward laundry detergent
  • $46.14 went to produce
  • $7.44 went to bread (pita for the inlaws, English muffins for myself & M. I'm determined to find a cheaper replacement for the muffins - $3.45 is a rip off, even for multi grain!
  • $3.99 was for yogurt
  • $4.99 was for individual packages of hummus. I've tried to buy the bigger container & divvy it up, but I'm not good about remembering it, & tend to hit the cafeteria for their $2.99 mini pretzel/hummus combo, so this works out to be FAR cheaper. It would be about 20% cheaper if I divided up the bigger container, but so far I'm a lazy fail on this one. :-)
Wednesday- Total = $113.98 - I had assumed this would be a no spend day, but I got home from work & the inlaws had another list of grocery items from Costco. The lack of planning is killing me, but they are leaving shortly. Given that my mother in law graciously cooks, I tried not to grimace at the thought of hitting Costco two days in a row. The good news is that after my shopping trip on Tuesday night, I discovered that my oldest son needed winter pajamas, so I was able to get those on my second trip. Total at Costco was $113.98. Breakout is as follows:
  • Winter pajamas (2 pair) - $19.68
  • Placemats - $10.39 (an impulse purchase, but something we've been needing forever)
  • Dairy (milk, Laughing Cow cheese) - $12.33
  • Produce - $17.86
  • Coffee - $14.59
  • Olive oil - $19.99
  • Chicken - $15.14
  • Pita bread - $3.99
I'm expecting/hoping the grocery bill will go down drastically once the in-laws leave.

Thursday: No spend day

Friday - Total = $61.35 - Bought yeast at the grocery story for $5.99. Plan to try my hand at making English muffins & reducing one of the higher priced items we buy regularly at Costco. Also had to pick up a vareity of over the counter medicine my in-laws want to bring home. Spent $20.20 on this at Rite Aid. And finally, finally got fall boots today. I spent $35.16 by combining a sale & my Nordstrom notes (from a Nordstrom credit card). The shoes retail for about $120, so I think this was a good deal, & it was under my budget I allocated for the purchase. Win/win! :-)


Saturday Total =$102.18: Shoes for both boys - $96.20. Yikes. When did kids shoes get so expensive? Also, $5.98 at Trader Joe's for whole wheat lavosh bread & cookies for lunches.

And, unexpected windfall! For my anniversary gift, I asked M to detail my car. While he was detailing, he discovered a gift card I thought i lost - $146 towards the gym/salon I frequent. Woo! I've been worried about that gift card for months (didn't know how much I had on it - that would have been even worse, as I thought it was under $50.) What a nice treat. :-)
 
Sunday Total = $104.29: Today felt like a spendy day. I did my best to match up coupons & ads against the items that we needed, but I still feel like I spent more than I should have. I spent $46.94 at Walgreens in one transaction, getting toothpaste (free after catalina), conditioner (free after coupon & catalina), & 2  Olay moisturizers that I needed. I really only needed one immediately, but there was a coupon in the paper that if you purchased two, you would get a free eye roller from Olay, which is $19. I then rolled the catalinas into my next transaction at Walgreens to get razor blades for M. The quattro blades were BOGO free, which I haven't seen before. Total for 12 blades was $10.13.
 
I also had to pick up a few things at Target (bread, foil, and a colander for making rice - ours tore apart & the metal was dangerous, & dry shampoo for the gym). Total was $18.22. I had a $5 gift card, so $13.22 out of pocket.

While I was at Target, I bought a $5 gift card at Starbucks & used it to buy a latte. I then registered the card on Starbucks.com (via MyPoints, to get 25 MyPoints). Registering the card earned me a free breakfast sandwich coupon (in the mail or email, can't remember which).
 
Finally, I hit up Rite Aid to use a few UP rewards & pick up some items that were free/close to free after UP & the Single Check Rebate. I got two bags of goldfish crackers for school lunches, a new toothbrush, baby wash, teeth whitening strips, & toothpaste. I spent $29.00, and received $6 in UP rewards. I'm also going to be getting back $5 in SCR. Note that the cashier forgot to take off the $5 of stupid UP rewards that I went to the store to use. Groan. My fault for not paying attention.
 
TOTAL FOR THE WEEK: $459.68. Much higher than I had hoped. This is our first week of being really disciplined about tracking, so hopefully next week will be better. As noted above, our grocery expenses should definitely be going down as we will have two fewer adults to feed. I'm glad we tracked it, but not thrilled with the number. Onward & downward for next week. :-)

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