2018 Budget Year In Review

I went to the grocery store and the manager that checked me out told me that he was so amazed with all my savings.  He asked me how much it said at the bottom of the receipt for 2018 and I told him that I wasn't sure because I never look at that because it doesn't include rain checks and other stores that I track.

I hadn't added up everything yet so I decided to come home and figure it out.  I went to my spreadsheet and realized that I uploaded the formula to the last page and added the months at the beginning of the year that weren't on my spreadsheet.  It included Spending, Savings, Rebates and Eating Out as seen below:

Months	Spending	Savings	Rebates	Eating Out
January	$158.61	$789.99	$13.00	$46.25
February	$125.11	$682.37	$12.50	$25.65
March	$165.51	$1,009.93	$23.55	$22.00
April	$156.27	$702.45	$9.25	$13.76
May	$162.86	$711.23	$31.35	$8.47
June	$139.03	462.06	$28.95	$21.59
July	$74.69	$286.96	$22.25	$57.66
August	$118.38	$861.38	$13.10	$10.42
September	$183.49	$443.40	$9.70	$8.47
October	$126.60	$650.33	$17.15	$6.00
November	$108.14	$143.93	$1.00	$33.00
December	$153.81	$649.46	$32.20	$61.55
Yearly Total	$1,672.50	$7,393.49	$214.00	$314.82
Monthly Average	$139.38	$616.12		$26.24

I was so excited to see that everything worked out so well and we were under budget for every category of monthly grocery budget and eating out budget.  My monthly budget is $160 for groceries and household goods and I came in at $139.38.  My monthly budget for eating out is $40 and we averaged $26.24.  Even with some months over budget in different categories, I was able to make it under budget which is why I don't worry too much but still try to stay within reason when shopping.

I didn't start tracking my rebates at the beginning of the year so I am not sure how I did for the whole year but it was a minimum of $214.  I thought that it was amazing savings for what I could put together.  January through April just includes the amount from Ibotta because I can't see the old Saving Star rebates and the Checkout 51 rebates do not have the date associated so it is too hard to add either of those savings.

How did you do this year??  Looking to do better next year? There are tons of way to save money and be frugal.  Hope that you will follow and learning how I do it!!  I am hoping to be better in the coming year of tracking and remembering all of my saving methods.