So Far So Good!

There's lots on my mind today so bear with me while I ramble on. Last night Aaron and I had a MUCH over do family budget meeting. I feel very firmly that we both need to be on the same page if we're ever going to be successful in our finances. It's hard to make a family budget work if we have different ideas about where the money should go and how much should be spent. If both of us spend the same $10 on different things then all of the sudden our checking account is thrown off. It went well and I'm hoping this year is off to an even better start than the last 6 months have been. As far as my grocery budget for this pay period of two weeks I've spent $75 dollars of the $100. If I average my budget out that's $50 a week so I've already dipped into next weeks by $25. That should be fine, I don't see why I'll need to go over. My grocery money was spent this way:

Walgreen's $14.50 ( Starbucks Frappuccino 4-pack, 3 cans of Ripe Olives, 4 packages of Poptarts and 4 snickers bars)

CVS $7.50 ( 2 Skintimate Shave gels, 2 canisters of Planter's trail mix)

Kroger $53.00 (too much to list)

My Last Shopping Trip For The Week....Hopefully

I ran to HEB this evening while the kids were at church which turned out to be a bad time to shop, it was c-razy in there! I was planning on this being my only shopping for this week and I knew I'd probably not be able to stay within the $20 I had remaining in my grocery budget to spend. I really only "needed" a few of the items I bought but there were some great deals I wanted to take advantage of. I'm hoping I'll be able to create a snowball effect and eventually be spending less but we shall see, it's all experimental. I came away spending approximately $60 putting me $40 over the $20 I wanted to spend. I came home with the following:

(2) Red Baron Pizzas (2/$5 used two 55 cent of coupons)

Red Baron French Bread Pizza (free w/purchase)

Ceaser Dressing (Free with purchase)

Pork Spare Ribs ( $1.77 lb. Aaron loves to put these on the pit so I buy them and other items he likes to smoke when they are on sale and when I get several he cooks them all in one day and I freeze it for individual meals later on)

Tyson Chicken Fries (used a $1 off coupon and got some freebies w/ it)

Zatarain's Rice (no coupon but it's the only kind I like and I was completely out)

Wing Sauce ($1 coupon made it $2.15)

HEB Orange Soda 2 ltr. (free w/purchase)

(4) 12 pack cans of Dr. Pepper (4 for $10)

Hot Wings ( Regular price but came with freebies)

Salsa Bowl (free w/purchase)

Canola Oil (regular price but I was out)

2 lbs of Sausage ($6 my family likes the "good" kind)

Bottled Water ( regular price but we're very picky)

Ranch Dressing (free w/purchase)

Potato Chips (free w/purchase)

I don't plan on going back to the store for the rest of the week, especially since I've already spent more than I wanted to.

Update On Things...

We started our second week of meal plans. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. I sat down with my calendar, a list of things I could make and in less than twenty minutes had a seven day meal plan. My family is really getting into, they love going and seeing what we're having to eat. Even Aaron is liking it, he gets excited when stuff he likes is on the schedule and thanks me (whoa!). Today the kids and I were gone during lunch and when I got home he had eaten what was on the schedule, awesome:) Last night I went to a Homemade Gourmet party, I hadn't been to one in years. It was very inspiring, they have all sorts of seasoning mixes and recipes that you can use to plan ahead and freeze which is right up my alley. I think I'm going to look into a little more and see if it fits in with my budget.

Speaking of budgets I realized that I was never going to be able to stick to my $50 a week grocery budget if I included household and cleaning items with it. So I decided to make a separate budget of $40 every two weeks for that. I'm not sure if that will work but it's something to start with. After adjusting that if gave me $50 back for my grocery budget which is what I have to work with this coming week. I'll probably be cutting it close because I've already spent $30 of that but I think so far I've done well with this being my first pay period to try it.