End of the February Grocery and Eating Out Budget

I was working this month to end up a little better then last month to stay under my $160 budget for grocery purchases and $40 for eating out.  I wasn't sure what I was going to get but February is a nice short month so it is usually an easier month for maintaining a budget.  It is also a month where we don't eat out as much because we over do it for January. With that said, it was also Girl Scout cookie season so that made things tough because my family decided we needed cookies which even though it was a treat, I took it out of the grocery budget because I couldn't decide.

I have gotten lots for the month and you can look at my pictures here.  The purchases in the first half of the month were broken down here in case you missed them.  The transactions in the second half of the month are more details.  All items are pictured here with what I spent on the total transaction.  The bottom will tell you how much the retail, savings and total spending was for the month.

Harris Teeter $54.73

Harris Teeter $1.75

Harris Teeter $9.04

Harris Teeter $2.43

Aldi $16.20

Giant $2.05

Giant $5.40

Aldi $11.32

Harris Teeter $5.98

Girl Scout Cookies $20.00

Harris Teeter $16.80

The granola bars were on sale half price so I bought everything on the shelf.

Aldi $1.01

I was totally out of tortillas for me so I got these because these were the cheapest and they are bigger then I would normally choose but I get to have one huge taco instead of two smaller ones.

Harris Teeter $13.96

I knew that I had like $14 left in my budget and I wanted to get the free sauce and my husband needed lunch meat.  I found some cheap chicken and clearance ground beef.  My husband asked for chili so I decided I had to get the ground beef for $2.27.  We were almost out chicken in the freezer so I grabbed this for  $7.80 and I cut it into one meal for the fridge and four in the freezer.

Harris Teeter $3.42

I went through the checkout with my other stuff and then realized I forgot the goldfish that I promised my son.  I had to go through back through the store and grab these to check out a second time. They were on sale cheaper here then Aldi so I promised I would get them for him.

Harris Teeter $1.38

I decided since I was already over that I might as well go for two more free sauces.  I also had a coupon for a free Uncle Ben's Ready Rice up to $2 so I wasn't sure how it would scan so I got to.  They were on sale and then there was an evic deal so the coupon rang up with the sale price so I paid  $1.27 for the second pouch which my son really enjoyed as a fast dinner.

Total Retail $418.22

Total Savings $252.75

Total OOP $165.47

I was pretty happy with the month even though it was over budget because my eating out was a lot better so it sort of covered those extra Girl Scout cookies that my family really "needed." Check out the Eating Out total below to see why I think we ended up okay at $179.66 total spent so under my total budget by over $20.

Eating Out

My son had a day off school at the beginning of the month and he was great at physical therapy so we used the rest of our Dunkin Donuts gift card and got hot chocolate and two doughnuts.  We paid out of our change purse and paid $0.38 after coupon and gift card.  We went to Family Bingo at my son's school and my husband promised my son that he would buy him popcorn when we were there which was $1.  We went to Starbucks one morning for breakfast but I used a gift card so we didn't spend any money.  We were out running errands and decided to get Burger King so I bought a gift card from MyPoints and we paid $0.81 after gift card.  We bought family $12 of Girl Scout cookies and they paid for my husband and son's dinner that night so we are going to count those under eating out since they were used in trade.  We went to Dairy Queen for a Basketball Awards Ceremony after the season and we had a gift card so we didn't have to pay anything there either.  I love that we could get through the whole month with lots of gift cards to enjoy some time out as a family.  Normally February is much lower because January is so much higher so only spending $14.19 for the month wasn't totally unexpected but a great low spending and use of lots of gift cards.