January Budget Roundup

Wasn't January a really loooong month!  Budget-wise it sure was.

Groceries
Budget for two adults $425 Canadian.
This budget includes all over the counter medications, personal care products, and groceries.

Actual $440.22. Over  by $15.22 which shall come off February Budget (only 28 days - this should be manageable)

Coupons used $13.00.

This month I managed to stock up on meat and both my mini-chest freezer and small freezer attached to the fridge are full.  I took full advantage of specials and now have lots of chicken and ham.  There are also some porkchops, shrimp, and canned Tuna in the Pantry,   In an effort to continue to reduce my grocery spend I bought dried black beans versus canned.  Next week I will make some chili.  There was a great post by Elaine over at Sunny Simple Life on how to prepare dried  beans for recipes so I am going to follow that.  This month I will be on the lookout for some fish sales as we have been eating more of it lately.

I also separated Food and Non-Food items this month.
Food  $288.67  plus Non-food $138.55 = Total  $440.22

Our non-food items are high mainly due to over the counter medications (two non-life threatening diseases reside at our home -  IBS and Fibromyalgia both of which we currently only take over the counter medications). I did manage to do a large stock-up on tin-foil this month, at least a two year supply when it went on sale in early January.

We are trying to eat healthier so in February I will  be buying lots of fruit and veggies to round out our supplies.

Clothing
Clothing budget for the year is $200.  This budget is only for myself.  Hubby spends what he needs as he wears suits a lot and is the face of our company so we consider that business related.  Please note that I set the budget for myself for clothing.  If hubby had it his way I would spend a lot more but he is continually amazed at my finds and has not told me I look like a bag lady (yet) so I must be doing something right.

This month I bought brand new shoes for $3.25 and a pink sweater for $5.25, both at Salvation Army (see post here).  Balance remaining for the rest of the year is $191.50.

Hair
Budget for the year is $250, much lower than last year.  Nothing spent in January.

I need a haircut and to find a sale on hair dye so there will be some money spent in February.   I use First Choice Haircutters in case anyone is wondering.  The ladies who work there are just as adept at cutting my hair as the high priced salons, and I find out what day my hairdresser is working and wait for her (they don't make appointments, wish they did).  Hubby now goes there too.  In Alberta my last hairdresser whom I was very loyal too started out at a First Choice Haircutters and then bought her own salon (therefore my costs went up but she was really good!).  I always tip them as well somewhere from $3-5.  Usually I get out of there for around $20.  They occasionally mail out coupons too!

No Spend Days
I tracked no spend days in January for the first time ever.  I do not intend on tracking these every month as expect it is similar from month to month.  Seventeen no spend days out of thirty one days.  If nothing else I paid more attention to grouping errands so probably saved some gas.  I use very little gas each month ($60 this month) due to working from home.  It takes about $20 in gas to go see my Mom (two hours each direction) and we did that for her Birthday mid-month as she was just here at New Years.  Hubby uses my car a fair amount too - he has a sportscar (that I found at a garage sale and that we paid cash for - one day I will do a post on that) so doesn't like to take it out in bad weather.

For anyone interested in how I track things - the low tech method.  Dollar store notebook.  Put receipts in there and tally up every few days to keep on budget track.  Separate columns for  groceries, then food, nonfood, and coupons.  You really can't get any easier than that!

Letting the Warehouse Membership Go

I, as Master Grocery Buyer in our home (hubby only buys them when I am on my deathbed etc as he has a tendency to come home with unnecessary items plus doesn't look at prices) have decided to let the C*stco membership go.  For the past few years I avoided it as really don't like shopping there.  Always busy, always the lineups.  This year I went twice.  Once to buy pork-chops and once to buy some flowers.  Hubby went a couple times to buy vitamins.  A big waste of our money!  I don't want to buy 18 green peppers because that is the size of bag they come in.  They used to be such a great deal but slowly over time their prices have been creeping up and up.

Through careful shopping and using the occasional coupon I have found much better deals to be had in our regular grocery stores, primarily by scouring the flyers each week and stocking up on loss leaders.  I also don't have to  buy an eight year supply of something I only want a one year supply of.

This decision is not as easy for every family but for the $61.60 it costs us to keep the basic membership ($55 plus 12% tax in British Columbia) per year I can stock up on lots of groceries elsewhere.  So goodbye C*stco, its been nice knowing you but I have moved on to greener pastures.

Do you still maintain your wholesale club membership? If so do you use it enough to warrant it?

Frugal Dippity Doo Meals

The other day I bought 4.2 KG Mitchells boneless ham at Superstore for $16.75.  Cut it into 6 ham roasts and four packets of ham slices for breakfasts.  We had one of the hams last night for dinner and will have the leftovers tonight (egg, ham and cheese toasted sandwiches) for a quick and easy meal.

Savings?  About 60% off buying the smaller hams that I have purchased in the past.  Now I have ham for a couple of months.  We are trying to eat less bacon due to fat content and cost so ham is an easy alternative having fewer calories.  It has high sodium but I am cutting salt out of a lot of other things in our diet so it evens out.

I was making a tuna casserole the other night and it struck me that everything in it was bought on sale, in bulk or reduced.

Ingredients
Two cups dry macaroni   - no name macaroni bought in bulk
Bread Crumbs                 - used bread ends and made crumbs in my mini food processor (love it)
Cheese                            - found two large blocks of cheese this week in the 50% off bin at Superstore, cut into small packs and froze much of it for later use
Celery                              - $1.29/head
Onion                               - bought 3lb bag of onions for $1 a few weeks ago
mushroom soup                - bought a case of Campbells soup a few weeks ago for $5.60
handful of frozen corn        - bought 3kg no name brand bag two months ago - this was the last
Tuna                                  -tuna 1 can bought on sale for .77 (sorry I forgot to list this in the original post - thanks Wean!)

Dinner and lunch the next day for less than $2.  It was yummy.

It pays to constantly scour the ads for deals and only try to buy when things are on sale.  Today I am off to get my 30 rolls of toilet paper on bargain and .25 cent mustard after coupon.  Cheers!

November Budget Results and Getting A Handle On Our Grocery Bill

November's Grocery Budget $425
Year to date overage prior to November $261.25
Actual November grocery spend $472.
Over by $47 this month for year to date overage now at $308.25.
Coupons Used $10.97.
If you are a new follower the grocery budget includes all over counter medications, grooming and cleaning products.


Annual Clothing Budget $200
Remainder after October $6.40
($109.79 was transferred out of clothing to cover part of grocery overage in September and October)
Bought leather Kenneth Cole belt for $3.35 at Salvation Army.
$3.15 remaining for rest of year. I might buy a pair underwear this month, new of course as don't buy used undergarments.

Annual Hair Budget $400
Balance after October $99.13.
Zero spent - I used the root kit bought in October last week. I need a hair cut but am trying to stretch it another week so I can get one closer to our Christmas visit to Alberta. Whatever is left will be transferred to reduce the grocery overage at end of year.


It seems harder than ever to stay within our grocery budget, even after increasing it to $425 per month. Perhaps it is because our entertainment budget has been reduced $60 per month for two of us(eating out once) but I think the true reason is that all groceries have gone up. I would have paid $5.69 for four litres of milk last week - got it free using Quality Foods points. Perhaps it is because we pay 12% tax on all nonfood items (and some food items that are considered convenience foods). Perhaps it is because I am still stocking up and have been forced to buy items when not on sale. Whatever the reason, I have gone over the food budget again this month. We are living leaner than we ever have and as a result my cooking skills have become better because we are eating at home 98% of the time. I do use coupons but most of the ones I have access to are for processed foods or for items that I don't buy like air fresheners. If only they made coupons in Canada for staples.

There are no Tim Hortons Coffee's (the last one I had was in October when my Stepson was here as a treat). There are no spontaneous lunches out. We carefully plan our days and outings to avoid eating out as that is the number one budget buster. We belong to a business organization that has a lot of fundraisers for Charity. Since August we have been to two - cost $30 per plate. We declined going to their Christmas party at $37 per plate as it is not going to charity. There are no movies out with popcorn as we own a PVR purchased in 2011 with cash so we record lots of movies and tv shows (yes, we have cable). Once in a great while we rent a DVD for $4 - the last time being early October. Early in November we invited our neighbor friends over for some drinks and I splurged on a variety of cheese and crackers to go with it. The extra cheese was frozen to use for casseroles.

In order to keep our entertainment budget low we try and keep our diet varied and interesting, which sometimes involves buying more expensive ingredients. This week's menu included chicken curry, shrimp stirfry, cajun chicken pasta casserole (one of the best things I have ever cooked so says hubby and I just threw it together with ingredients we had) and tonight barbequed burgers. Yesterday a large batch peanut butter cookies for desert was whipped up - froze half.

It is difficult to source out inexpensive meat here. For now we are using less meat in casseroles and stir fry's. Last week Tuna was on for .77 cents a can - the usual lowest price here is .99 cents so I bought twelve. I creep about in the meat section of every grocery store looking for pink stickers with extra dollars off. Every week the flyers arrive out comes the list to write down the loss leaders at every store - and that is my shopping list for the week. Buy only what is on sale and do without until something goes on sale.

The plan this month is to start a Price Book to keep track of lowest prices found on grocery items so that when a sale comes along I know how good the sale is to stock up. This is certainly not my idea, but one borrowed from that famous Frugalista
Amy Dacyczyn, author of the The Tightwad Gazette - go to the library and read the books if you haven't already for frugal ideas,some over the top and some very good ones that anyone could benefit from. The budget is likely to get blown again this month due to Christmas as we are flying back to Alberta for five days and the four kids will be over at our house for at least four of those days. They consume huge amounts of food being 15, 17, 19 and 21 but we are really looking forward to the time with them so I will have to do some meal planning for that timeframe. Family time is worth blowing the budget!

October Budget Results

October's Grocery Budget $425
Year to date overage prior to October $182.65
Actual October grocery spend $503.60. Over by $78.60 this month for year to date overage now at $261.25. No shock, I am still working at getting my freezer and cupboards full and grocery prices seem to be increasing. This month included Canadian Thanksgiving which added a bit of extra expense as well.

If you are a new follower the grocery budget includes all over counter medications, grooming and cleaning products.

Coupons Used $13.

Annual Clothing Budget $200
Remainder after September $30
($105 was transferred out of clothing to cover part of grocery overage in September)

Bought new pantyhose, and thrift shopped pants, belt, and shoes for a monthly total of $23.60 (see post here)and balance remaining for the rest of the year $6.40.

Annual Hair Budget $400
Balance after September $104.73.
The only expense in this category for October was a root colour kit bought on sale for $5.60 which has yet to be used.
Balance remaining for rest of year $99.13.

Goal this month - stay on budget!! Hubby is out of town on business for a few day so my goal is not go buy any groceries at all until Friday to restock for his return. That should save a few bucks.