January Month End Grocery Shopping and Take Out Budget

 I haven't been able to post these for the last few months because my phone was a mess.  I took pictures of all of the grocery hauls but I couldn't download from my phone and I couldn't email. Everything was stuck on my phone with no way out!!  Luckily, I got a deal on a new phone so I am back up and running with my pictures for 2021. 

We normally have $160 for groceries and $40 for eating out so that we spend $200 for the month. I have maintained this budget for many years but prices are starting to get a little crazy and couponing is getting impossible.  I am still trying to shop sales and use coupons where I can to stretch our money as far as it can go. I am not sure now that we are running out of many things in the stockpile if we can continue at this budget but we are going to put in our best effort. During the pandemic, we used up most or all of our toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, cleaning supplies, and more. We still have enough trash bags for another year, tons of laundry detergent and lots of personal care products. Tons of spaghetti is left to last for ages but we are out of most other pastas. I have worked hard to make the menu with the things that I have in the house and few items from the store.

I am using everything we have and trying to get creative with what we have at the house.  I had barbecue sauce that we didn't like so I mixed it with grape jelly that we also don't like and some seasonings that we haven't been eating.  It was an amazing addition to grilled chicken sandwiches.  I dug frozen swiss cheese out to top the sandwiches which normally isn't my favorite cheese but was pretty tasty.  I have worked hard to make quick breads and muffins to have for breakfasts to stretch the cereal longer. I make a cake or cookies to have for treats during the week. I am still making our own breads, rolls, and pizza dough. We wanted a fun side dish for dinner so I quickly fixed up a baked potato from all the things we already had.  Below are all the things that I got in January to help us through the month and hopefully set us up for a good February.

Giant $0

I got a freebie added to my card so I went to the store to get that and a few other things but I rang it up by itself so that it didn't mess up the other transactions because the manager had to override.

 

Giant $10.88

I went to the store to get the deal on cereal because we were almost out.  I got two boxes of Cheerios and two boxes of Golden Grahams and there was a sale, electronic coupon and printable coupon to get these at a good price.  I got the Doritos because my son asked for them and they were on sale and it was a special birthday treat. The Children's Motrin was normally $6.99 but there was a sale, electronic coupon and printable which brought it down to $1.99.  The tissues were on clearance for $0.22 so I got what they had left on the shelf. 

Giant $6.46

I did a second transaction to try to get the cereal deal again and the Doritos. I got two boxes of Golden Grahams and two Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I got one Nacho Cheese and one Cool Ranch.  I put two boxes of tissues on this transaction at $0.22 each. I also added the Kellogg Tropical Fruit Loops because they said that they were on sale and I had a coupon....but they didn't come up on sale. This is where everything went wrong because the customer service person tried to help but the coupons were attaching to the wrong item and she would enter $1 off and then it would go up and then go back up.  The biggest problem is that to get the prices corrected, Giant enters them as a coupon instead of correcting the price because that works for other people but I always have a coupon for each item so I got some great deals but didn't get the prices that I totally should have.  I stopped because the computer was only going to get worse but I do miss my wonderful Harris Teeter employees.

Target $8.67

I went to the store to get a few birthday gifts but managed to bungle the transactions horribly!!  It was like I haven't been in the store in ages....wait, totally true.  I put the stuff up on the belt and didn't do three transactions like I was supposed to.  I was going to pay for them separately and use the cartwheel and my gift card but I checked out everything and forgot to use my gift card and had to go back to customer service.  Then I even messed it up over there more so life goes on but I got two packages of toilet paper and one tube of my son's tooth paste (not pictured) 

Lidl $41.23

I had a coupon for $10 off $50 so I went to the store to get a few things on my list but they were out of a lot of the things that I wanted. I wasn't sure if I could get to $50 but I put in my best effort and added a few extra things to the cart that we didn't really need but would last us many months. I got one apple juice and one berry juice because they were out of Cran Grape. I got three bags of their restaurant style chip and three of the bite sized rounds. I got four packages of the mint cookies which are just like girl scout cookies and only $0.97. I got the $7.49 Goldfish container as a treat for my son. I grabbed two salsas and three margarine a fillers to get to the amount I needed to spend. I got a package of bacon because there was a coupon to make it $3 so it was cheaper then the new price at Aldi. I got a package of turkey lunch meat to get my husband through the rest of January. I got one of their take and bake pizzas because there was a coupon that made it $4 but we hated it.  We tried to eat it and then ended up throwing it out.  I think that it is the first thing that we have gotten from there and not liked. I got an extra pack of special cookies for my husband which are like the Girl Scout Samoas. I got the Vanilla Wafers because everyone likes them and just added to the box until I had spent $50 which was 11 boxes.

Harris Teeter $20.42

I went to Harris Teeter because they had the 16 oz bacon packs on sale half off so I bought 8 packages because the price at Aldi went up a lot and I thought that we should stock up at $2.49. I was surprised that they still had so many left because it was the end of the sale. 

Aldi $52.41

We were totally out of milk so I was excited to see that they had it. We got 4 packages of pepperoni because we were down to the last few slices at home because they were out the previous month when I went shopping. I was almost out of cheddar cheese so I grabbed 6.  I decided we needed 6 more mozzarella to get through all of the month. I added Parmesan cheese because we were under half in our container at home. I got a bag of Aldi nuggets because we used up all the nuggets in the freezer that we have been eating for the past year. I got another bag of tater tots because we have been enjoying having them and I didn't want to run out. I got a few bananas for my husband. Grabbed a roll of sausage for spaghetti sauce and pizza bites. We were down to the end of the sugar and I had been looking for a good price but I gave up and got two because we really needed it.  I also got another vegetable shortening to fill the fryer and grease the pans. I got two jars of salsa because my husband and son decided that Lidl salsa tasted different so we were almost out of Aldi salsa. I got 6 bottles of Cran Grape because that is what the boys normally drink in a month. We also returned the chips we got last time which were a fail and got the Big Dippers as a free replacement.

Lidl $11.31

It was across the street from the Aldi so I went over to grab a few of the deals while I was out and because my son already finished the Goldfish crackers.  They were on sale for $7.49 for the big container. I also needed eggs and the prices went up at the other Lidl and Aldi so I took a chance that they would be cheaper but they were not. I grabbed an 18 count to hold us over. I decided to grab an extra ketchup because we go through them so quickly and Lidl was the runner up closest in taste to Heinz and only $1 makes it a bargin. I added a last minute oil to the cart because I had just opened one from the cupboard at home.

 

Total Retail $316.10

Total Savings $164.72

Total Rebates $1.00

Total Spent $150.38

I was excited to end the month under budget with $9.62 left in the grocery budget. I thought I was going to head out and grab another deal at the end of the month even though I had already been out enough. I think that I got a lot of great things to last us through February and now I am off to search for the next set of deals to enjoy through March. 

Eating Out or Take Out Budget

January is my son's birthday month so we have a lot of fun treats this month.  We started off the month by getting Pizza Hut for $10.60.  We got Pizza Hut on my son's birthday for $23.31 because we got lots of fun stuff that he wanted to try.  We got Dunkin Donuts on his birthday weekend for breakfast and used two gift cards so we only paid $0.80 for our six donuts. Then later in the month, we used the gift card that we won from our neighborhood light decorating contest to get Chinese food so we spent $5.20 for that we used a Book It coupon to get my son a personal pan pizza and points to get free bread sticks so that we could all enjoy a great dinner.  The spending for all of the Take out for the month was $39.91 which was just $0.09 under budget. Although this is the highest it has been in a year, we enjoyed all the celebrations and fun and stayed under budget.