December Month End Budget Update for Shopping and Eating Out

I work every month to save money through our grocery shopping.  I budget $160 for groceries and $40 for eating out so that we are under $200 every month.  I shop sales, use coupons and as many deals as I can find to come in under budget.  We try to cook almost all of my meals at home from scratch and use all the groceries to spread the deals as far as possible.  We have tons of stuff in the pantry, fridge and freezer to use for the coming months but sometimes that doesn't always mean that I don't go over budget because of amazing deals that I find.

Below is what I got for the month which just so happens to be everything that I bought during the first half of the month.  Normally I break down the second half of the end of the month post but there this nothing new from when I posted here.  We took some time on vacation and enjoyed time with family without too much shopping.  Here is the quick summary of the month with link to more details here.

Harris Teeter $0.06

Harris Teeter $10.28

Harris Teeter $4.29

Harris Teeter $0.06

Harris Teeter $11.10

 

Harris Teeter $0.06

 

Harris Teeter $0.06

 

Harris Teeter $0.04

Bought two yeast but didn't take a picture...oops

Harris Teeter $2.30

Harris Teeter $0.13

Harris Teeter $9.87

Harris Teeter $6.45

Harris Teeter $0.18

Harris Teeter $1.76

Harris Teeter $9.59

Harris Teeter $2.15

 

Harris Teeter $0.89

 

Harris Teeter $15.83

Harris Teeter $6.16

Aldi $28.89

Aldi $30.28

Trader Joes $4.09 

Harris Teeter $4.08

 Harris Teeter $5.21

Total Retail $803.27

Total Savings $649.46

Total OOP $153.81

I went a little crazy at the beginning of this month with some splurges including laundry detergent, beef jerky, lotion, and cookies but I had $6.19 left for the month to spend and I actually stopped spending money.  I know that I got a ton of great values and stocked up on a lot of things so hoping that I made some good choices to get through the month even though I spent almost all my budget for the whole month in half the time. Lucky that I did!!

Eating Out

We got Pizza Hut at the beginning of the month for $10.60.  I had a gift card for $5 for Chik-Fila and I stopped and used it to get a sandwich which was a tasty treat in a busy day of running around and no money out of pocket.  We had a gift card which we used to go to lunch after furniture searching and we only left an extra $3 tip beyond the gift card.  We earned a free pizza which we used on a late night out to get a free pizza.  This brings us under budget for the month for eating out until the end of the month where we had a big family dinner and ordered Chinese food for $94.45.  My sister in law paid for half of it and we paid for the other half but it was more like a Christmas gift instead of eating out but $58.05 does make it over budget.  All together, I was only $11.86 over budget which really isn't that bad during the holidays.