My New Budget

David and I are noticing that we are needing to adjust our grocery budget. We used to spend about $100 a week on groceries, and it seems that no matter how hard I try we just can't seem to spend less than $130-$140. I don't know what it is. I try my darndest, but it just doesn't seem to work. I know there are some extreme couponers out there that could feed their family a month with that budget, but I am not that good. :) Since we were already adjusting the budget, I decided to google a little to try and find a good way to do a budget. I came upon one that I think will work for my family over at couponingtodisney.com. I had remembered hearing about the site a long time ago and well....David and I are dying to go back to Disney. Her budget seemed to make the most sense although she spends less on her groceries because she's a great couponer. Here's how it works: Each week you take out your weekly budget in cash. This budget is NOT for gas, bills, or things like clothes. This is how our budget will look:

$140 for Food/Non Food Grocery Items

$20 for Dining Out

$20 Shopping

$20 MISC

The $20 Shopping will most likely be put toward snacks for picnics, and deals online like groupon. If you go over in one area, you suffer in another area...and have less to save. At the end of the week any money not spent (Plus all the change from using cash) goes into a savings jar. So here is a scenario: Spend $130 on groceries, $18 on Dining out, $15 on Shopping, and $18 of MISC and at the end of one week we would have $19 in our savings!!

I am SO excited to try this out and see if we can start saving toward family adventures. First I would love to buy a pass to the zoo, David would like to save for a few camping trips, and then we will start saving for Disneyland. We would love to try and go during Spring Break if we can save fast enough, but most likely it will be next summer.

I think even if we aren't saving money toward anything this budget will save money overall. We tend to buy food for cooking meals and get lazy and get take out. If we are using cash only we are more likely to stay under our budget because we will have no other choice. Every time we vacation I set our money aside and we use cash the whole time. I haven't ever gone over and actually end up saving money usually. It helps cut down on major impulses. Now it's time to start applying that same plan to our everyday expenses. I'm excited to see how it will work and will update in a week or two and let you know how it's going for us!