Meal-planning and budget check-in

Well per my last post, Sunday wasn't the best of days...so I'm cutting myself a little slack.. But, this extra expense with my car is all the more reason to focus on cutting our grocery bills and overall spending.  I did well with the coupons, utilizing coupons.com, store coupons, product websites and Organ Deals & Coupons on facebook etc... Week 1 of meal planning is also starting off on the right foot.  Last night we had leftovers from Sunday (which was big for me) and I have every meal planned out through Saturday which is a good feeling. Where I'm still falling short is keeping the total grocery spending for the week under $250 (note that historically my weekly grocery spending could be a car payment for a luxury vehicle).  I'm sure some of you are seeing this and are flabbergasted that I'm spending this much but I'm sure some of you are in the same boat...still trying to figure out how to get all the healthy foods your family wants and needs within your budget.  I was just over the $250 mark this week, and I will add that this included food for a family gathering on Sunday, diapers, wipes (which I usually put in a separate spending category) etc...I have separate categories in my overall weekly budget for kids activities, eating out/takeout, kids supplies and clothes etc, so this week I will be spending very little (hopefully virtually nothing) in these other categories and making NO repeat trips to the grocery store (big improvement over my 5 trips last week).  So week 1 is not a total success but also not a total fail... I'm feeling motivated and competitive with myself to make this happen and making progress...also feeling motivated big time to save $$!  So if you are in the same boat, don't feel discouraged, keep up the good work.  A good tip that I'm figuring out is to plan your meals with a great deal of thought and perhaps one meals leftovers will be the base of another meal.. i.e. roast a chicken on Thursday and Friday will be chicken burritos (with the left over chicken).  BTW-  after a month of doing this and hopefully getting under $250, I'm going to drop it to $200! :-)

Thank you for keeping me on track and letting check in! Any advice for me?  Anyone else trying to budget?

Have a great Tuesday!

Rebecca

---