I thought I would kick off the start of my blog with a little challenge my husband and I are doing. We tend to buy whatever we feel like when grocery shopping. If we have a craving for junk food...into the cart it goes. With that comes no idea of how much we spend on groceries. I suggested we need to budget a bit more responsibly in order to get all our bills paid off before we move (more on the move later).
Not only do we have my husband and I, but our 14 year old son, who eats like an adult and a half, and an 11 year old daughter that can eat as much as me on most days. Since we have no child portions in this house, we decided our food budget was for 4 adults.
I did some research online and found that a family of four in my state (Texas) gets $155 a week on government assistance, so we decided that was our budget goal. To me, that doesn't seem like much, but I have determination to make this work.
These are my guidelines:
1.) This will not include any paper products or other non food items, animal feed, or for going out to eat.
2.) Our menu will be balanced (no ramen noodles every day because they are $0.17 a package).
3.) I will try to make as much from scratch as I possibly can.
4.) Payday (for my food budget) is on Friday. My menu will state meals from Sat-Friday so Friday's meal money comes from the previous week.
5.) Money not spent (if there is any left over) will be carried over to add with the money for the next week. I have a special bag I bought just for a money bag. Every week, I will add $155 to whatever change is in it.
To add to the challenge, I have a separate bag that I will be adding $20 a week for eating out money. Most places I like to eat (besides Subway) cost twice that, or more for our family, so eating out may be something we only do every few weeks or so.
What tips and suggestions do you have? Care to join this challenge?
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