Challenge One - 26 Cents a Can Del Monte Vegetables can we say savings!!!

Can you say savings "Hello" and with coupons we got these absolutely free.... 20 cans FREE.......

Suggestions: Coupons and savings....... plan ahead.

Challenge One - The staples, the basics

The basics or staples....  What you need or what you and your family use every day.

We as a girlie household go through:
Paper products: Toilet Paper - we go through so much TP that we should own stock in a TP company.
Fresh don't last things:  Milk, bananas, eggs, salad and bread.
We eat tons of banquet chicken, chicken patties, chicken nuggets, chicken strips......
So these are the things I always look for on sale!! or a coupon for them or any savings at all....
Order things online and have them shipped to you.  You would be surprised of online specials or first time or sample offers. 
We used to eat a lot of hamburger meat however we have changed to turkey meat besides hamburgers we use turkey meat in almost all of our mixes.  Even in my meatloaf, I use turkey and no one can tell the difference.  Let's face it we have some picky picky eaters.  If they do not see me doing it they do not know.  Not that deception is really part of the thing here; however my family does not know the difference until they catch me doing it. 
Now I know that there are some recommendations out there to water down the milk or water down the ketchup.  I don't do that except in recipes I will water down the milk if I do not have canned milk but only to use in the recipe not to give to my family to drink.....  Nor do I mix up evaporated milk to give to my family to drink.  Now there has been suggestions to get milk on sale and freeze it.  Yes we tried it, but when it was thawed out I did not like the taste of it and neither did my family.
Someone suggested to buy eggs and freeze them.  Now it is to my understanding that this is the way they come for restaurants so we are going to try this and see how it works out.  Also on the eggs if you know someone who raises chickens you might want to see if they will give you, trade you or sell you eggs.  Even at $1 a dozen you are getting a good deal.
Suggestions:  Go to your friends and family and see what they do, every little suggestion could be worth a savings!

Challenge One - coupons coupons coupons

There has been several debates amongst friends about the coupons.

How you get them?
How you use them?
How you get them?
How you use them?

Yes, I did write these questions, twice!!!
Yes, it is a huge debate.........
There are coupon swaps.
There are coupon groups.
There are newspaper coupons.
There are online coupons.


I have to tell you in looking online for manufacturer coupons kind of got me going.  There are tons of programs out there or coupons that they will mail you or email you.  One of favorite is banquet dinner coupons.  You can get banquet dinners for around 88cents, I have found coupons for as much as $1.50 off of 2.  This to me is great and worth the 26 cents that I pay for 2.  Though I am not generally a big fan of TV dinners for 13 cents a dinner my girls can have these for lunch at anytime.  You know for 13 cents they could have these as a snack.
"Just Saying"  If you can find a coupon for something that you can get cheaply then why not!!!
Through doing this challenge I have found that nothing is done without looking at something else and detail is the key!

Suggestion: Cannot say enough ask your family what they like, look at what they eat.  Just because you are cutting your grocery bill does not mean that there should be a HUGE sacrifice on you or your family's part.

Challenge One - Coupons and Savings Deals

I created another email account and that is where I get all my coupons and savings to go to.  I did not want them to go through my normal email.  I found that this is a good idea and you need to sign up for mailing list on your favorite items.  Because of coupons my last grocery shopping trip would have been over $200 just alone.  With coupons and ad savings I was able to get it down to $23.

Challenge One - Feed 6 people for $100 a month

We did our last grocery shopping and just spent $23, we are jazzed about it.

This is what we got:
4 - Tombstone Pizza
4 - Hot Pockets
2 - Totino Pizza Rolls
10-Yogurt
2-Milk
1-Eggs
2-Ketchup
3 - Banquet Chicken
1-Lasagna
2-Toilet Paper
1-Salad
1-Sugar
4-Wolf Brand Chili
4-Frozen vegetables
2-Barbeque Sauce
2-Lipton Rice
2-Bag of potatoes
6- Banquet dinners
1-Coffee
3- 8/pk Coca Cola/Sprite
1-Crackers
2-Bread
1-Water

We had $45.62 in Kroger Savings.
We had in $67.50 in Coupons!!!
Our bill totaled $22.90

Bringing our total for the month to $120.00 for a family of 6.

Challenge One - 9 days left $100 for groceries for a family of 6.

We have 9 days left and still have food in the pantry and in the refrigerator.  WooHoo...
I have had people email me and ask if this was truly for 6 people.  Our children go to an online school, so they are here, and Robert takes his lunch every day. 

So it is truly for 6 people, we do not have small farm animals such as chickens.  So we get our food from outside sources. 

I scourer the internet for online groceries and my favorites.
http://www.netgrocer.com/
http://www.amazon.com/

We like pasta and I have ordered our pasta online for years.  Here is my favorite website for pasta
http://www.edenfoods.com/

Suggestion: Do research, if you have no time to research, ask a friend that is a little geeky for them to help.  Most likely they are looking for some of the same things and wont mind in their search.

Challenge One - running out of fresh stuff

We went shopping yesterday and had a little over $18 to spend.  We still have 12 days left in this 31 day month.  We spent $7.32 at Ms. Baird's store and $6.76 at HEB for a total of $14.08. 
Mrs. Baird's outlet:
hot dog buns
hamburger buns
tortillas
bread
chips
pound cake

HEB
Milk
Ketchup
Bananas
Lettuce
Eggs
chili
cheese


Suggestion:  Go in with a little extra to a store that it is out of the way or not in your area, carry a $20 and your list for unexpected sale.

Challenge One - still 12 more days to go in this 31 day month

We have stuck to our menu and have had no complaints out of our crew.  Which is very surprising considering they are very picky eaters.  We are out of eggs, milk, and bread these are things that I expected to run out of.  So not really surprised, we are also out of ketchup which does surprise me.  We had to run an errand close to the Ms. Baird's outlet store, so we are going to get bread there.  I am only planning on spending $10 there so this better be good. Going through my list and making sure that there is nothing else we need for the 12 days left in this month.
Looking through our menu, I am noticing that we will need a head of lettuce for the tacos we are having on Monday.  Looking ahead at next week even though I still technically have over $100 that we set aside I do not want to go over my challenge of $100 a month.

Suggestion:  Be flexible if you have to shuffle things around in your menu, take a little time a do it.

Challenge One - The shopping is done

This is what we spent:
Walmart : $76.97
Kroger:  $4.19
Bringing our total to $81.16

Ad and coupon saving at Walmart was $23.23
Ad and coupon savings at Kroger was $16.17

On Kroger, we used coupons and on Walmart we took other ads

Now the trick is to make this stretch for as long as we can for the month.  Notice I did not spend all of our money, we are allowing for fresh items such as milk things that won't last the whole month and do not feel can be stored for the whole month.  But in the guidelines of $100 a month that only leaves us with a little over $18 for the rest of the month.

Suggestion: Try it out and see what you can do.

Challenge One - The List part 2

Once we had everything listed from our menu for our list.  We separated them into categories, then we looked at the stores and we had some forethought in this.  For example, we knew that we could get ketchup at Walmart less expensive than Kroger or that we could get tortillas less at HEB.  Just a little research and the stores do have different prices such as Walmart has roll back prices. 

We have made our list and we are ready to go shopping.  We took our entire list,
Our girls are older so when taken them all with us they are not as much of a distraction.  I usually send them to get other things don't be in a rush, take your time. 
My oldest daughter and I decided to go late at night.  We went to Walmart then to Kroger.  The stores were not busy and we were able to take our time and browse around.  The people that were stocking the shelves were very helpful if we could not find something. 

Suggestion:  Only buy what you have on the list unless you find an unbelievable price on something.  Write down the prices on the list even if you did not get it.

Challenge One - writing your list

This part was the most challenging for me, I did not take under consideration that when making baked chicken that I usually put barbeque sauce on it before I baked it.  Or if I make baked chicken and rice, I usually use Uncle Ben's wild rice and bake together. 
The minor details of the recipes that my brilliant children pointed out to me; it gave me the realization that I needed to be more detailed.  Saying to myself once I do this it will be simplier the next go around.  You realize at this point that I am the mother of 4 and have other obligations as well.  So I needed to do something that was not that time consuming but as accurate as possible. 
Here is where my family came in to play once again.  I gave each one a week of our menu, crossing out the double meals leaving the first week for the oldest and the last week for the youngest.  We did a simple database on the computer and did index cards.  Now you have to realize at this point that I am very comfortable with computers and so is our family.  We did the index cards first and then entered them into a database.
Those of you that have small children or are not comfortable on the computer, you could use index cards and your grocery list compared to your inventory would be your list.
Your index cards need to have down to the last detail if you are having grilled cheese it needs to say bread, cheese, butter, etc....
We did this and placed on a huge foam board and that allowed everyone to see what we were having and be prepared for the next day or even the next week.

Suggestion: Detail, Detail don't be scared!!! If it gets overwhelming take a break!

Challenge One - Money------

Some suggestions have been made as to how to pay for the groceries so temptation does not enter into play and fees etc.  If you have extra money then you will spend extra money.  Our choice is the cash method, one of my frugal friends got into a discussion with me about how credit card fees etc.. I needed to count into my budget or my budget was not truly accurate.  Trying to be as detailed and accurate, we have decided to use cash. 

We have started out with $200 and this does not include any toiletries or paper products which is a good thing for us because we could own stock in a toilet paper factory and still not have enough toilet paper. :)

Now please take into consideration that this is our first attempt at this and this is fairly new to us and we will try our best.  Considering our inventory of 40 boxes of mac and cheese.  I am hoping that we will be way under our budget.

Suggestion:  Make your list and stick with it set an amount and don't budge!

Challenge One - Buying on Sale

ok grocery shoppers, help me out here!

These are the suggestions that have been made:

Only buy items on sale if it is not on sale dont buy it.
Create your menu around the sales ads for that week
Create a day of shopping geared toward the stores going closest to the farthest and hitting the sales for each store.
Buy in bulk when items go on sale, freeze and store.

This is what we are doing,

We have certain things that our family likes and wants that are name brands or that we use every day.  They are going on our list.  We have certain meats and produce that we like and only will buy when they are on sale.
We have a list that lists out the brands and the meats or produce that we use.  These items we find to expensive to purchase without some sort of better buy or are items that we use all the time.

We have not chosen at this point to center our menu around what is on sale, rather to look for sales and coupons that go to the items that we want or use.

Suggestion: Do your homework now and it will become habit and easier for you in the future.  Write a list, writing down makes it real. 

Challenge One - Buying in Bulk

WOW what can I say about "buying in bulk"

I have found that there is 3 ways of buying in Bulk

#1 is buying a large quantity that is in a larger container and packaging it yourself into smaller containers
#2 buying a large quantity of something in individual containers.
#3 buying on sale and buying quantity

Example of #1
Let's take Ketchup, our family eats a lot of ketchup doesnt matter what kind it is; however we go through at least a 36 oz bottle of ketchup a week.  Our family comes by this honestly, I am a huge ketchup eater, my husband on the other hand is not.  All our girls are huge ketchup eaters, on eggs, mashed potatoes you name it. 
It was suggested that I look at the cost of buying it in cans and bottling it ourselves.  I thought sure let me see what the cost would be.  I found on the internet, I can buy bulk 6 #10 cans which is 115oz of Ketchup for $17.99 plus $4.95 shipping for a total of $22.94 making it .033 an ounce.  Our typical bottle ketchup is 36 oz so it would make our bulk ketchup $1.18 a bottle.  

Example of #2
Buying a case of Ketchup at a warehouse type setting such as Costco.  At Costco Heinz Ketchup 3/44oz $7.47 making it $2.49 a bottle.

Example of #3
Watching the ads and seeing when the ketchup goes on sale and buying more than one.  As we know for our family that we go through 6 - 32oz bottles of ketchup a month.

At anytime, I can get the same bottle ketchup for around .99cents no recycled bottles no mess and since my family is not picky on the brand of ketchup.  We are better off on the #3 sale savings.

Suggestion:  break it down and see what your family uses constantly and catch sales.

Challenge One - Store bought mixes or mixes from scratch

I have read a lot on this the last couple of days and have researched this enough for me to say "I am on the border on this".  There are certain items that you can buy pre-made mixes that unless you are making mix and distributing to all your friends and family.  It will not save you enough money, and that is if you were to charge your family and friends for the mixes.  I dont know about yall but I am not up to charging my friends and family for mixes that I can easily buy at the store for under a $1 or around there.
When I calculated it out for example cake mix, it came out to $2.39 per cake mix.  Another thing I calculated was ketchup, we eat a lot of ketchup.  
My family even though we eat a lot the thought of making my own pancake or cake mix from scratch rather than having it on the shelf is a little overwhelming to me.  Or making our own ketchup for example is really not feasible for our family.

There was a suggestion to make your own hamburger helper or tuna helper, we personally do not eat hamburger or tuna helper but if that is what your family eats, then that is a personal decision you need to make.  I calculated was the traditional helper mixes and these calculated out to a little over $2 a mix. 

Now on mixes, I have come to learn that if you have to add all kinds of ingredients extra then the mix kind of defeats the purpose.  For example: pancake mix if you buy a mix that you only have to add water then you are good to go; however if you buy the one that you have to have eggs and oil, etc.... then you should make it from scratch or if there is something your family wants, I am certainly not telling to you to run to store and buy it.  Go back to your inventory and see what you have readily available and you probably have it in stock to whip up something.

Suggestion:  Go back to what your family wants this is not torture for anyone this is being a little more prepared and being more organized.

Challenge One - Personal choices - store, generic brand or name brand

This is a personal preference and will depend on your family. 
Our family has a list of items that we prefer.

For example
Name Brands:
Stouffer Lasagna
Banquet chicken

Generic Brands:
crackers
ketchup

You will have to determine what works best for your family.

Suggestion:  If your family will not eat it your are not saving any money!

Challenge One - Editing the Menu

Editing the Menu, having a back up plan for the items that we try and that are family does not like.  Value of homemade recipes verses the value of ready made.  Less processed foods and planning on more whole foods just a better, smarter way of doing this.  Not so much left overs but planning for each meal and if we are planning on left overs letting them be for another meal or ingredients to another meal.  Breaking it down per week and then breaking it down per day.  Learning that this is not a quick fix and that it is requiring some detail planning on our part.  For example: store bought lasagna is better for us because it is cheaper than to make it ourselves from scratch.  Having tried the generic brand of lasagna in the past we prefer the stouffer's lasagna our family would not eat the generic brand.  Yet generic or store brand pancake mix for example our family cannot tell the difference and it is less expensive and a mix that is affordable.

Suggestion: Decide on name brands rather than generic brands, keep in mind if your family won't eat it then it is no savings for you!

Challenge One - The Menu

There are various menu generators online that come up when you run a simple google search.  We selected one that was just columns that we could print off with a simple breakfast, snack, and lunch, snack and dinner, snack.  We wanted a menu for the whole month.  This presented a challenge, a Menu for the whole month.  Not wanting us to have the same thing, but coming to the realization that we eat a lot of the same meals over and over.  So bringing another challenge to put some better choices and variety in our menu and trying to eat better in the process.  We layed out the menu with all the choices that our family had listed.  Those items that we were having continuosly we went back to the internet and recipes from friends to see what other choices we might have.  Something for everyone we have picky eaters that would prefer not to eat at all as to have something they do not like.

Suggestion: Lay your Menu out put it down in writing almost lke laying your cards out on the table.  

Challenge One - Inventory

I read nothing about this, this was a suggestion from a friend.  We went through our pantry, freezer, cabinets, and refrigerator and inventoried everything.  We discovered we had 6 bottles of pancake syrup, 3 of which were unopened, 30 packages of dried beans, 12 cans of black-eyed peas, 7 cans of cranberry sauce, this is just a few of our over abundance of things that we do not use barely at all.  40 boxes of macaroni and cheese, we eat a lot of macaroni and cheese but I think this is over doing it.  LOL.  We put everything in an excel spreadsheet.

Suggestion: Inventory your whole food supply including staples!

Challenge One - listening to your Family

Our family is close, we have 4 girls that are all opinionated and have been raised to have minds of their own.  They have lots of good suggestions and opinions about a lot of things.  We sat everyone down, I explained what we were doing and that we had been challenged as a family to do this.  Will the comments starting flying and the suggestions and questions starting over powering each other.  Would they have to do without their favorite cereal would we not be able to have pizza ever.  I could tell right away to make this work, I needed to have more information about the things that we did not want to live without.  No my nutrition friends are chopping at the bit, I know; but we need to try to do this right.  I gave everyone pens and paper, yes Ladies this does include your husband and came up with foods that they enjoy and that we have regularly.I will post these later and you can see that they are not long list just basic things that they would like.
Suggestion:  Sit your family down and ask their opinion!

Challenge One - Research getting started

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a blood hound for research.  I want to be informed, I want information to draw my own conclusion.  I like to talk, I like to ask questions and I like hearing the answers, doesn't matter good or bad, or do not agree with my views.  I just like the information.

I asked friends about this challenge and will post their opinions.  I looked through the Internet and read several books.  They all talked about compromise and eating less or using less.  Buying only items that were on sale with coupons, buying bulk and buying store or generic brands. 

Not one of these articles suggested what I am going to suggest to you.  I would love to take credit for this but there again my friend that challenged me and my other friends gave me advice and people I listen to my friends and family.

Challenge One - Feed a family of 6 for under $100 a month.

A friend of ours feeds her family of 5 for under $100 a month.  She is an awesome woman and her family has a modest income.  She challenged me to see what I could do here in Texas.  Her and her family live in Maine out in the country, they have various small farm animals such as chickens.  We live in Texas and do not live in the city, we live in a small town out a bit but we do not have any small farm animals.  I am going to give this a shot without any of the farm animals being more realistic to our situation.  Hopefully we can see how low I can get our food bill.  Any comments please feel free to share!!

Challenges

An introduction, My name is Pat. I am a mom to 4 beautiful girls and married to my best friend, Robert. Our family has been through a lot. Through the grace of God we have always made it and always will. This blog journal is to help our and other families live as frugal and as low cost as possible. So with introduction out of the way let the journey begin!