Deals this Week and Tweaking my Future Grocery Budget

Deals this week:

Blouse from Goodwill $5.99

Freebies this week: P&G Brandsampler
Olay facial cleansing cloth
Febreze Noticeable coupon for free unit
Two samples Crest Whitestrips
Two samples Cascade Actionpacks

We are starting to purge/downsize slowly. I will feel better about the process if I document it as will feel like I am getting something accomplished. In 10 minutes these items were gathered to be taken to Goodwill on Monday(yes, they take comforters and blankets, I checked):

Tomatoes from the lone tomato plant turning red on the windowsill (the one on the right is being eaten this evening). Aren't they beautiful? There are at least six more in the vine - it is now a houseplant.

Two years ago before I discovered couponing and stockpiling (with two adults and four kids staying with us 8 days per month) we paid on average $1000 to $1100 per month for groceries. That included all non-food items like toothpaste, toilet paper and cleaners. Today with two adults and two kids (older boys just come to visit now as they are young adults) 8 days per month we have a set grocery budget of $450 per month. We rarely eat out (about twice per month), are meat eaters and enjoy cooking. We don't include our eating out tally in the food budget as I consider that more under the entertainment category. Keep in mind if you are reading this blog outside Canada that grocery and food prices are 1.5 times what they are in the USA and if we lived in the USA with couponing (better rules and availability) I could probably pay $200 per month total. The Canadian budget is kept down by buying and stocking up on loss leaders every week and using coupons only for items that we would normally use.

I was trying to do some research to find out if our monthly average grocery budget was lower or higher than the average family. The best research too founds was figures from December 2009 which show what the weekly grocery budget is for the average two and four person family in the U.S.A(based on age brackets as well) with information taken from the US Government Census.

Under the low cost plan (four plans - thrifty, low cost, moderate, and liberal)
Two adults between the ages of 19 and 50 have an average weekly grocery cost of $101.70 which I prefer to calculate out to monthly:

Two Adults (age 42 & 49) $440.70
Male Child age 15 - 8 days per month $72.27
Female child age 14 - 8 days per month $49.11

On the low cost plan our currently monthly budget should be $562.08.

We are already lower. Based on our current plan of quitting our jobs and not working for a period of time I have decided that starting October 1 we will lower our budget to the thrifty plan:

Two Adults (age 42 & 49) $345.80
Male Child age 15 - 8 days per month $41.13
Female child age 14 - 8 days per month $39.64

Thrifty Plan Total Monthly Budget $426.57 (currently at $450 per month)