May Month End Shopping and Eating Out Budget

My monthly budget for all of our household goods is $160 which includes all our groceries, paper goods, and everything for the house.  I use sales, coupons and anything else that I can come up with in order to stretch our budget as far as I can and get the most for my family.  Normally our meal plan is made from the the things that are in the the freezer and pantry from the previous months and I use sales to stock up for future months.  Sometimes there are urgent needs but mostly I get as much as I can that is on sale to stock for future months.  This month seemed to be getting a lot of things that we were using right away because stock has gone down in most areas in the fridge, freezer and pantry.

We also have a monthly eating out budget of $40.  This spending together with my grocery spending keeps my budget at $200 for all of our expenses.  I used to track the budgets separately but I try to do better about taking the over spending on one category by taking it out on another one. Below is how I did for eating out spending.

Check out below what I got and the breakdown of my shopping trips and eating out.  The shopping trips in the first half of the month don't have a break down because I broke them down here.  There are details on the second half of the month trips but all trips show the total and items purchased.

Aldi $27.61

Harris Teeter $3.58

Harris Teeter $1.67

Harris Teeter $16.88

 

Harris Teeter $20.10

Harris Teeter $25.84

Harris Teeter $2.19

Harris Teeter $3.85

Harris Teeter $0.08

Harris Teeter $3.65

Harris Teeter $11.12

Harris Teeter $1.95

Harris Teeter $0.11

Walmart $0

We were out of CranGrape juice and my family really wanted it and we were also running low on peroxide so I decided that it was best to get it at Walmart.  I went and got the two Pink Cranberry juice with coupons that I had in my stash.  The total was $8.85 and I had a $10 gift card so that I could get it all free.

Safeway $0

I went to get soda which was $14 for the 4 cases after the Buy Two, Get Two free.  I had a free electronic coupon to get the orange juice and the yogurt.  The sale pricing made more money come off the total so I spent less than that on the soda.  It is the reason that it is so hard to go get just the free things at the store.  I have $1.08 left on my gift card and I got another free item on my account so I guess I will see what I can spend it on.

Harris Teeter $2.86

I needed potatoes and I thought I would grab them at Safeway but they were really expensive and I didn't get them there so I ran over to Harris Teeter where they are cheaper then Aldi and they last longer.  Get them just in time for dinner that night!

Aldi $1.93

We were running out of milk so I grabbed another gallon from Aldi when I passed it from appointments so that I didn't have to go back out a day later. Love it when I remember!

 Giant $0

I went to the store to get my freebies.  I gave the Sabra Hummus to my mom and she bought a little treat for my husband (gum) and my son (popsicles) so that they had something when they came home and she left.  It was about $2.50 but she paid for it.

Harris Teeter $7.06

It was the first day of Super Doubles and I was not prepared even though I knew I was going.  I got the Taste and Tell cheese because I hadn't picked it up yet.  I got the Kool Aid because it was on sale for 6/$1 still and we were out again.  I got the Cinnamon and Sugar Pretzels for $0.99 per bag. My husband was out of Tums so I got two bottles of those.  I tried to get sunblock but the pricing didn't ring up correctly so I asked them to take it off.  I started the process and explained to the new cashier that he needed to cover the part of the coupon so that the computer didn't crash and he promptly crashed my register and I had to go check out at self checkout.  It was upsetting because I was in a hurry to get my son and because I literally just told him and he ignored me.

Harris Teeter $17.86

I was going to try a second try and super doubles and hope to do better but I don't think that I did.  I got the ground chicken for $1.49 per pound.  I got the Coppertone for $3.99 each.  I got the lunch meat for my husband because I thought he was out...he wasn't yet.  I got the McCain wedges with the evic coupon to get them buy one, get one free and then did the Ibotta rebate to get $1.60 total back ($0.10 any item and $0.75 each for McCain).

Harris Teeter $4.49

I got excited because I found coupons on the bottles of Franks with a new flavor and went to check out with them and they were expired by a lot. The customer service person said that they would give me the coupon value but not double it so I didn't get the sauce and had to have them all taken off.  I got my free bacon bits.  I also got the sunblock that I wanted.  It turned out that I didn't look at the receipt but it didn't ring up correctly so I was a little sad that I forgot to check my receipt but I hope to go back and get the price fixed.

Total Retail $665.99

Total Savings $513.16

Total OOP $152.83

I had a rough beginning of the month with high spending so I did a better job later in the month.  I went to Walmart to get a few things and got a My Points Gift card to pay for it.  I used the extra gift card to pay for part of a birthday gift that my son picked out for his friend.  I got another gift card awhile back for Safeway and used it to get some soda and a few freebies.  I love having the flexibility to stretch my budget when I need to using my gift cards from points.  There were a few more sales that came up with super doubles at the end of the month that made it hard to pass up. Great news is that I ended up under budget!!

Eating Out

Too much eating out this month for sure!!  I used the rest of a Burger King gift card to get a hamburger so I paid $0.33 out of pocket so that I could go straight from physical therapy to the book fair at my son's school.  We got Pizza Hut for my cousins and our family before going to Fun Fair at school for $22.25.  My cousin bought Chinese food the next day so we didn't have to pay for it.  We went out to dinner to Cheesecake Factory and split the bill so we paid $55.82.  I went to Pisano's for lunch one day with my dad and he paid for the sandwiches.  We got take out from the Chinese restaurant and my father paid so no more out of pocket for the month.  The total eating out was $78.40 for the month which is well over the $40 budget for eating out.  We ate out way too much this month but made it through only $38.40 over budget but taking it this month and moving on.