Monday, September 14, 2009

Mega Spending Challenge Anyone?

Day 14 of the $75 a week spending challenge. I am wondering if there is some crazy group of bloggers out there who are doing the opposite challenge - the "How Much Money Could I Possibly Spend in the Month of September?" challenge. I think I would feel ill after reading the first 3 links. I am quite happy pinching my pennies.

After thinking I was going to blow the budget last week, things actually turned out quite well. I never did make it to Walmart, thus saving all the money I was planning on spending there. And, I was kinda dumb when I was calculating my totals last week and included a Walgreens purchase that was not actually for me. Yay. So I was able to subtract $15.40 from last weeks total. But then of course I needed diapers. Always the diapers. So add back in $19. After all that adding and subtracting - I basically came out just a tiny bit shy of $75. And I didn't feel deprived at all. Amazing.

This week is going quite well. You can find my meal plan for the week and a couple recipes here, and here is what I spent to make that happen:

Jewel - $0.79 This was 2 loaves of bread, bananas, peaches, nectarines, and grapes. I used my Register Reward coupons from Walgreens to bring my total down to almost nothing.

Walmart - $32.96 Blasted Walmart. I was able to price match a few things though, which always makes me happy. And makes the people behind me in line a little annoyed : (. Sorry. I bought a gallon of vinegar (for cleaning), 2 gallons of distilled water (for the fish bowl), 1 roasting chicken, 1 bag yellow onions, 2 cans of low sodium beans (finger food for baby with no teeth), ricotta cheese (also for baby food), 3 vats of vanilla yogurt, bananas, All You magazine (that counts as a staple, right?), 2 frozen pizzas (price match and coupon), apples, and 18 jars of baby food (I do make a lot of her food, but not all of it - time to stock up).

Aldi - $15.24 This was 2 gallons of milk, 12 eggs, 1 can refried beans, tortillas, lettuce, strawberries, 4 cans frozen juice, and 1 bottle of parmesan cheese.

Walgreens - -$1.58 The diapers I bought on sale last week went on an even better sale this week, so I brought my receipt back to get the difference. Woo hoo!

TOTAL:

$47.41

Which means I have $27 left to spend at Meijer this week to stock up on some great sale items.

*UPDATE*

I spent $20.21 at Meijer today and $8.39 at Target yesterday, bringing my grand total for the week to $76.01. I know I can make up that $1.01 next week!

How did everyone else do this week?

3 comments:

  1. Great job! This was my first challenge and I chickened out and decided not to include diapers. I probably could have and been ok - but it would have been tight. Maybe next month I'll give it a try!

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  2. I don't think we could do $75/week because I have six kids and two of them are teenagers (goodness, can they ever eat). I try to keep it below a hundred but once I get my stockpile completely built up, maybe we could do closer to $75. I am so impressed that you can keep it so low while including diapers. When mine were in diapers I hadn't discovered couponing so you can imagine our costs back then!!!!!

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