All You Grocery Challenge

Looking for a way to challenge yourself to spend less money on groceries? All You magazine is running a Grocery Challenge that begins July 13 and runs for 4 weeks. The challenge is to only spend $25 per person a week. This would be $125 for a family of five. The nice part is you can use food from your stockpile or your garden, or even food that you barter for. As long as you aren't spending money on it, it doesn't count. All You will pick 10 finalists and the winner receives a $1000 grocery card and a year's supply of Knorr's side dishes, plus a chance to appear in All You magazine.

I have entered the challenge and am hoping to slash our spending for the next month dramatically. I have $200 for the month budgeted for food, but would like to actually spend less if possible. We shall see. So, for the month of July, I will be documenting here how much we spend on groceries, eating out, and even my husband's occasional coffee at the convenience store. Unlike the All You challenge, I will be including household and bath products in my overall grocery budget. The only thing I will not include is diapers. I have 3 packs left, but Rite Aid will be having some rebates this month that I would like to take advantage of when they have the packs on sale for less than $10. Even though I have quite a few Pull-Ups, I have a coupon for $5 off that expires this weekend so I will make sure to take advantage of that also. Thank goodness my little girl decided she wanted to start using the potty. This is saving us so much, since she only wears them at night now!

If you have any suggestions on how I can cut my food budget further, or would like to share how you are cutting your expenses, leave me a comment. And don't forget to go sign up for the Grocery Challenge.

Blog of the week

Each week I will be posting a blog that I find interesting or informative. I will add the link and talk about things I find particularly interesting. Please feel free to add your comments.

This week I chose 5 Quick Ways to Save on Money on Groceries on The Daily Dish blog.

The first way she says you can save money is to cook from scratch. This is so true, especially if you have a family. If there are 5 people in your family and you each eat a frozen dinner at $2 a piece, that is $10 for one meal. Many times I can make a dinner that will feed all us plus have leftovers for a day or two for around $5. I have heard that 90% of your food should not have any ingredients, they should be ingredients. My family is currently working on this, though I do sometimes resort to using a box of macaroni and cheese or a can of soup. An added bonus to cooking from scratch is that you know what's in it and you can control the amount of salt or sugar that is added.

The second way she talks about saving money is by using coupons. Coupons are great and in the past I have saved a lot of money. I would go from having to pay like $50 down to $30 or even less. Lately though, the amount of coupons in the Sunday paper have been decreased dramatically. Last Sunday I think there were 10 actual coupons in the paper. You can print coupons online but not all stores takes these, so you will need to ask them. Also with coupons you need to look at how much other brands cost. Sometimes it is not worth it to use the coupon, even when doubled. Lately we have been buying generics and shopping at Aldi's.

Buying in bulk is the writer's third way to save money. This is true sometimes. You have to be careful though. Just because it's a bigger box, doesn't mean it's a better price. I have noticed a lot lately that buying several smaller boxes/cans can often times be the same price or cheaper than buying in bulk. Check out the unit price on the shelf or use your calculator/cell phone calculator to find out if you are actually getting a better deal. To figure the unit cost all you have to do is take the price of the product and divide it by the ounces or pounds that are in there. I also sometimes divide it by the number of products if there are single things in there, like granola bars, oatmeal packets, etc.

Number four is 100% correct. Shopping on an empty stomach is just asking for trouble. If you're hungry, all those packages of chips and cookies are going to be really tempting.

Meal planning and making a list will save you quite a bit of money, especially if you can stick to your list. I meal plan for 2 weeks, since this I shop every 2 weeks. I take my list and next to each product, I write down where I want to buy it and an approximate cost of that product.

So, what do you think? Do you agree or disagree with what the blog says or with what I wrote? Let me know what you think.