Middle of the Month October Budget Update

I work to maintain $160 monthly budget with using sales, coupons and deals to get as much as I can as low priced as I can.  I make as much of our food as I can from scratch and use the items from the pantry and freezer to stretch the budget as far as possible.  Making our own bread, rolls and baked goods means that I am not running out of things and going to the store to get one thing that means that I get more then we need.  We also work to maintain a budget of $40 for eating out.  The total for both is $200.

The trips to the store are detailed below with the amounts and break downs with a picture of everything that I got.  The bottom has the total retail and the total savings with the total out of pocket spent so far this month.  Check out how I did against my monthly budget and what I got for that amount.

Harris Teeter $8.10

The rice was free and the chicken ended up free because it rang up wrong.  The pasta was $0.25 per box. The Children's Motrin was $2.99 each which is a huge discount off the $7.99 shelf price.  The salsa was $1 and there was a Ibotta rebate for $0.50 back. I got back $1.10 in rebates.

Harris Teeter $10.97

I got the same thing from the last trip which is free rice, $0.25 pasta, $1 pace salsa and $2.99 Children's Motrin.  I also grabbed peas because they are on sale for $1.25 and we were out and only had frozen corn left.  I like peas in my fried rice.  YUM!

Harris Teeter $1.04

I just got one salsa for $1.

Harris Teeter $9.63

 I got $0.25 pasta, $1 pace, and $2.99 Children's Motrin and put in the Ibotta rebate for $1.10 for the pace and any item.

Target $1.52

I got a gift card from Swagbucks and went to the store to use it up and the new Target cartwheel replacement didn't work right.  I was hoping for very little out of pocket after coupons.  I went to customer service to get a little bit back that didn't come off but they gave me a $5 gift card instead of cash back that would have come off this total.  Way more money so it will work out later.

Aldi $9.19

I went to the store to get a few things that we were out of before vacation so we didn't need too much.

Harris Teeter $15.42

I went to the store to get some lettuce and my free Taste and Tell ice cream. I saw the evic specials with the tomatoes for $0.37 and the sugar for $0.97.  With all the tomatoes, I decided to grab sausage to make lasagna which was on sale for $2.50 each.  I got the limit on both but the tomatoes didn't ring up correctly so I got it fixed at customer service and my Taste and Tell didn't come off either.

Aldi $32.01

After vacation trip to the store to get lots of things that we were low on or out of.  I wasn't planning on chicken but I figured that I would grab it to cut and add to the freezer.

 Total Retail $244.28

 Total Savings $156.40

Total OOP $87.88

Eating Out

We got Pizza Hut take out and went out at Cracker Barrel while on vacation but my parents paid for it because I made all the dinners in the room and packed lunch and snacks.  When we got home, we bought Chinese food for all of us to have for dinner for $40.12.  We got take out pizza after a soccer game but I used points to get it for free.  We only went over budget by $0.12 so I would call that a win.