End of the Month Budget Update for April

I work to maintain a budget of $160 per month for my family of three including all of our household goods and groceries.  I use sales, coupons, clearance and anything that helps me make my budget and get the items that my family needs.  I plan a monthly meal plan on the things that I have in the house knowing that I might have to get a few items from the store through the month but I know what things I will and won't use so that things don't go to waste.  All of those tools help me to make the best choices monthly for my family!!

I really feel like this month flew by again and I don't know where it went although when I look at the amount of pen and different colors on my calendar, I know that we were busy.  There is green, blue, purple and yellow marked all over the pages to indicate all of the things that went on during the day so that we didn't miss anything.

The beginning of the month brought lots of transactions and if you want to see the breakdowns you can look here.  I got lots of great deals including clearance asparagus, apples, bananas and salad which made a lot of quick meals and banana bread and applesauce bread.  Really enjoyed the steak and corn on the cob at the end of the month because it was like summer had started even though it was still cold outside.  Check out all my transactions and costs below.

Harris Teeter $1.90

Harris Teeter $2.05

Giant $0.90

Harris Teeter $5.22

Harris Teeter $0.06

Harris Teeter $4.55

Harris Teeter $0.15

Harris Teeter $0.21

Harris Teeter $0.15

Harris Teeter $1.06

Harris Teeter $0.26

Harris Teeter $0.08 

Harris Teeter $0.18

Harris Teeter $0.82

Harris Teeter $0.18

Harris Teeter $ 0.25

Harris Teeter $1.97 

Aldi $16.24

Harris Teeter $2.21  

Harris Teeter $0.15 (multiple transactions)

Harris Teeter $0.24 (multiple transactions) 

Giant $0.37 (multiple transactions)

Wegman's $16.87

Harris Teeter $0 

I didn't pay for this because my son picked out things and my parents bought it with the coupons that I loaded to my card.

Shoppers $0.08

Harris Teeter $6.15- $1.01= $5.14

Giant $0.12

Safeway $0.00

Aldi $7.39

Out of milk and turkey and grabbed an extra of stick and tub margarine to have for backup.

Harris Teeter $18.11

This was mostly the granola bars which I got without coupons (I know Nathalie just said no she didn't!!!).  They were on sale Buy 2, Get 3 free so they were just a little bit above $1 per box without coupons.  The tortillas were $0.50 each so I grabbed two and put them straight in the freezer.  I splurged and bought the mini cherry pies which weren't as good as the memory but they were $1.39.  The blue bunny ice cream was $0.14 after sale and coupon and I turned in a rebate for $0.50 back on each.  I got the soda for $0.74 and did a rebate for $0.75 on Ibotta.  The Mayfield ice cream was $3 which was expensive but my son had been asking for it.

Harris Teeter $3.06

Free ice cream and yogurt and I got 8 lbs of potatoes because the price at Aldi had gone up a lot!!

Harris Teeter $11.44

My husband and son were out at the transfer station while I was at the store that didn't have any more of these granola bars so my husband took my son out and found 10 of them!!

Safeway $0

I got the yogurt and traded it with Maria for spaghetti sauce.  My son was very excited about the trade because he got to do it but we are much happier with the sauce in the cabinet because we had so much yogurt in the fridge that still didn't get used!

Shoppers $0 

I went to Shoppers and couldn't find the candy in the aisle.  A very nice employee helped me look and couldn't find it but she showed me hers....which I actually did see in the aisle but I was looking for something that said Hershey's and this one didn't but it was yummy!!

Aldi $8.24

We were almost out of pepperoni and it was pizza night so I had to get pepperoni.  We were almost out of cheddar cheese, oyster crackers so I grabbed them too.  I said I was going to make some coco krispie treats with these marshmallows for my son so I grabbed these to use up the cereal that he wasn't eating in a special treat before it goes stale.

Harris Teeter $5.63

I started with the meat clearance which I looked through and found some fun steaks for $2.56 so we will enjoy those on the grill.  I got my free taste and tell from Harris Teeter to taste and write a review.  I grabbed the free bread and decided to look for a few more deals.  I got 5 bottles of Franks and found 5 hang tags which also had $3 instantly off so I paid $0.40 each!!  I grabbed the All Detergent for $1.50 each.  

Target $0 (used Pay Pal)

I ordered the Cran Grape and Ibuprofen for my husband and got to use Pay Pal free money from my rebates because I haven't gotten any deals on them lately.

Safeway $0

Another thanks to Maria for sharing her freebie!

Safeway $0

I got a free pizza with my card so I was happy to put that in the freezer since ours are all gone and they are great fast lunch!!

Shoppers $0.78

I went to get the Yoplait freebie and I thought that I was going to be able to use a coupon but the cashier wouldn't take it.  Then I got a $0.25 ecoupon that came off but it didn't tell me what it was for but it ended up being a good thing that I have a little extra for the coupon just in case it was the yogurt. 

Giant $5.49

Free Brats and Good Culture Cottage Cheese were free with electronic coupons.  I got 6 of the Gerber baby food with lots of coupons that came off electronically.



Giant $3.14 (multiple trips)

I went to the store to get the Old El Paso deal that was running which was buy 5 specific items and get $5 instant savings.  It was as wonderful at my catalina deals since I haven't gotten any of them this month, this was a great find.  On each transaction, I got $0.55 overage to spend on anything so I bought 6 corn on the cobs, head of lettuce 3 bananas, 4 Kool Aids and 2 tomato sauce.  I got 9 different transactions and took one big picture with my wonderful $53 savings!  I was very excited that we are going to have a taco seasoning for a long time!

       

 Giant $0.24 (two transactions)

My husband went with my son and he picked out the Kool Aid he wanted to go with his transaction.  My husband did the same and picked his Kool Aids that he wanted.  They both did one transaction and paid with the change in my husband's pocket.

Giant $0.54 (two transactions)

My son and I went to another store and we were going to look at the produce section to see what he might want and we passed the doughnut case on the way there so we both got doughnuts that we could eat on the way to the next stop.  He did one transaction and I did the other one so that we both got a yummy doughnut which are not pictured because we ate them.

Wegman's $10.39 (multiple transactions)

I have been waiting for a sale on yeast since I saw the new coupon and I hadn't seen one.  I even price checked at Shoppers and Giant and they sell normally at $2.19 each.  I forgot to check at Safeway when I was there but I double checked Wegman's shelf price without a sale and it was $1.29 so it would be free after coupon.  There coupon policy was a little strange because it said only four like coupons per transaction but my husband did a check out at the self checkout and it brought up a coupon error that the clerk had to override.  My son did one transaction and the same thing.  I did one with the chicken and the same thing happened.  I did a few more transactions with three and went through a normal cashier which was much easier then self checkout.  I was super glad to get all of the yeast and only pay tax because it will come in handy in the coming year.

Giant $0.23

I really needed Q-tips and normally I would just get the Dollar Tree ones because they are cheap but I know that they don't have as much cushion on the end and I have been spoiled by the Q-tips that were left in the house when we moved in so I decided to use the Giant deal to get my Q-tips super cheap.

Aldi $20.19

I knew that I still had a little money left for the month and my husband finally told me that he was going to be out of turkey the next day so I went to get some.  We also opened the last bag of tortilla chips so I got two more of them.  Decided to use my extra money to buy more cheese and chicken fries to use in the coming months.  I also splurged on Nacho Cheese Chips and Ice Cream Sandwiches which are two family favorites.

Total Retail $858.72

Total Savings $702.45

Total OOP $156.27

I think that I did pretty well for the month with lots of free tissues, pizza dough, ranch seasoning, eggs, cheese, yeast, taco seasoning and Kind Bars to use for months to come.  I am running low on chicken and Cran Grape so those are added to the list for the coming month.  

I did a good job keeping on top of my expenses through the month with a spreadsheet and my folder with all my receipts.  This is my first month using a spreadsheet and I think that it helped so I knew down to the penny what I had left.  I was excited that I was under budget and that is why I did my last few trips to the stores and then added my receipts to know that there was still money left!!  A great month with lots of savings and still money leftover.

Eating Out

My parents took my son to his favorite restaurant and they paid so we didn't spend any money but he super enjoy it.  He went to Parent's Night Out at the local church so he got to play games, eat pizza and have a blast for free.  We hadn't eaten out yet and I still have my $40 budget for eating out available. We went to the Fun Fair at our school towards the end of the month and they have more expensive food that really isn't his favorite so we made a deal that if he ate lunch at home that we would buy special Pizza Hut pizza for dinner.  He picked out everything online and helped me order the each part of the pizza so it was a special treat for all of us after a long day.  The total was $13.76 for our monthly spending on take out so we were under budget by $26.24!!