May Grocery Shopping Spending and Eating Out Totals

My family budgets $160 per month for the 3 of us to purchase all of our household goods including groceries, paper goods and personal care items.  I shop sales, use coupons and do the best that I can to stretch that budget as far as I can through the month by paying the least for items that I can.  In addition, I have a $40 budget for eating out for the month.  It often is very challenging but I do my best to stay under budget with under $200 total per month for all our food.

I make most of our food from scratch including meals and baked items like our bread, rolls, breakfast treats and desserts which helps stretch foods between trips to the store (or towards the end of the monthly budget).  We like to use everything that comes into the house so stale chips, pretzels and bread turn into bread crumbs.  Ends of veggies go into the freezer to make chicken broth when I get enough chicken bones.  The best is turning leftovers into new meals to make sure that they are all used up.  We try to use all these low prices items from these monthly trips to make lots of yummy meals.

Below are all the trips that I made to the store this month and a picture of what I got in each one.  The pictures at the beginning of the month just have the total because I described them all in this post here.  For the rest of the month, the amounts I spent and breakdown of how much I spent on each item is in the description.  For some reason, I missed a beginning of the month picture and breakdown so I included that as well.

Harris Teeter $9.23

Aldi $2.04

Safeway $0 

Giant $0.29

Harris Teeter $8.87- $4.46 (removing diapers for gift)= 4.41

Harris Teeter $1.88

Harris Teeter $8.36

Harris Teeter -$0.90

Harris Teeter $7.19

Harris Teeter $8.40

Harris Teeter $0.69 

Shoppers $0.08

Harris Teeter $28.18 

Harris Teeter $19.52

Giant $0.32

Harris Teeter $5.19

I went to the store to get the free pineapple and Lindt chocolate bar.  They were out of the other freebie so they gave me a second free chocolate bar.  I had a coupon and clearance on the Old El Paso which made them $0.39 each on yummy taco shells.  I went a little crazy with the olive oil but it was $1.89 and we love to dip bread in seasoned oil in the summer so I decided it was a great price to stock up (saving over $4 each).

Safeway $0

Target $0 (used pay pal)

Harris Teeter $6.38

Harris Teeter $3.41

Harris Teeter $3.41

Harris Teeter $3.41

Aldi $6.32

We were out of milk, butter and shortening so I went to the store to grab the minimum.

Giant $0.37

There was a freebie on the Body Armor Sports drink so I figured that my husband and son would like it so I grabbed it.  I was hoping for overage but I didn't get any but I grabbed two bananas anyway.  My husband enjoyed them the next week for his breakfast and snack.

Trader Joes $3.58

We love our blue cheese and Trader Joes has the most flavorful one so I always grab theirs because the container lasts me months!!  We were totally out so I had to grab some more to restock.

Shoppers $0.08

Another freebie day with Fage yogurt and Power Crunch.  I tried to get the Fage that I loved but they said that I could only get the circle kind like the picture even though the other one was all variety and 5.3 ozs which was all the instructions.  I gave up and ran all the way back to get the circle one and forgot to pay attention to the rebate that I was trying to get so I didn't pick the one that went with the rebate but I will use this so I give up!!

Harris Teeter $3.81

I went a little crazy at the store and got 4 six-packs of soda, Chloe's Popsicle, Ken's Salad Dressing, and LaBrea bread all for free!!  I got three lemonade for $0.50 each and Quaker granola bars for $1.50 per box.  I did a return of a bottle of water that I got before that opened and the credit was put towards this meal.  I turned it in for $3.35 in Ibotta rebates.

Harris Teeter $0.16

I went to get my yummy taste and tell free tea.  I also planned on picking up free bread and free Popsicle so I was super glad to see that they had both! I paid only tax.

Harris Teeter $0.14

Great freebie and paid only tax!!  YEAH!

Shoppers $0.06

I love this candy so I was excited to get it and even shared it with my husband.  YUM!

Giant $31.47

I went a little crazy and grabbed all of the chickens that added up to a little over $30 to get the $5 off coupon with the already great price of $1.99 per pound.  After getting it all, it worked out to $1.69 per pound so we will have plenty of chicken to last the next few months (as soon as I cut and freeze it all).  We also grabbed the two freebies of Chobani yogurt and Happy Baby food.  There was Ocean Spray for $1.88 limit one sale, I never understand those sales but I grabbed our one to put in our stockpile.  I was a little worried with how much I spent but then I realized that I still hadn't subtracted the diapers so I was grateful to still be under budget and keep shopping.

Harris Teeter $5.24

I still had ton of money left in my budget ($2.52) so I went to grab more of the freebies for the week with the Chloe's Pops and Sour Dough Bread!!  I decided that I was going to get the Dominos sugar which was on sale for $1.97 limit 4.  I thought that I only had one coupon so I was only going to get two but I found a second coupon so I decided to go crazy and get 4.  I used the $0.75 off 2 coupon so that they were $1.22 each after sale and coupon.  I shot through my budget for the month but I figured it was worth the extra sugar.

Harris Teeter $0.14

I decided that I needed to get a few more boxes of Chloe Popsicles that were $0.01 after sale and coupon on the last day of the sale.  

Total Retail $874.09

Total Savings $711.23

Total OOP $162.86

Overall I think that it was a great month even if over budget $2.86!!  I got a ton of deals and stocked up on a few things that we needed while getting a few rock bottom deals.  I am most excited about the ice cream, Cran Grape juice, McCain frozen potatoes and Cheez Its because we will really enjoy them.  I loved free bread, candy, butter and Frank's sauces.  I know that all of my purchases will go far over the summer to make lots of meals to share with friends and family.  I also have less time to spend at the store in the summer since I have my helper at home so great news that I got lots of great trips to the store to stock up on lots of things.

I went a little crazy this month with the rebates and have gotten $30.35 in rebates and bonuses.  I will also get some for the Cheez It and Pringle purchases through Saving Star through my 1% bonus but it is so slow that only $0.56 has been added so far this month.  I am still waiting on $1 for the Barilla pasta through Saving Star and maybe some more of the smaller rebates.  The even better news is that I finally pressed the button and got my rebate check from Checkout 51 for $73.55.  I also transferred $41.85 from Ibotta to PayPal.

Eating Out

We got a take out pizza from Pizza Hut after spending the whole day out with my son's race and then an event at my husband's school.  We enjoyed our pizza and spent $8.47.  I thought that it was tasty treat with a really low price so we enjoyed it on two aspects. Super low under budget and happy to end the month on that note which makes up a little for my grocery overage.