You are here: Home / Archives for $40 weekly budget

My $40 weekly grocery budget shopping trip

February 9, 2009 by

I typically post this on Saturdays, but the stomach bug that got my kids all last week finally got to me, so I’m a little behind on everything.

If you’re just starting to read my blog, you may want to click here to read about my challenge for 2009, so you’ll get a better understanding of how this all works. My Kroger stores triple three like coupons up to .35 face value and double three like coupons up to .50 face value. My Randalls stores triple one like coupon up to .35 face value and double one like coupon up to .50 face value.

Here’s a summary of my shopping trips: (my total spent for groceries for the week was $34.09)

Target: Total OOP = $3.17. I used a $10 gift card I got from Lila Guide, so my total before the gift card was $13.17. The chicken breasts were on sale for $5.99, the Pop Tarts were .19/box using coupons, the Carnation Instant breakfast was $2.29 per canister using coupons, and the dog treats were $.92/each using coupons. Check out this post to see my coupon match-ups and find other Target coupon deals.

Kroger: Total OOP = $51.60. There are some items in this picture that don’t “count” toward my weekly $40 budget (like the diapers, the dog treats, and the toilet paper). I just included them so you could see the “big picture.” My total OOP without the diapers, dog treats, and toilet paper was $30.92. I will also get $2.25 back from Caregivers for the Huggies.

The match ups for the Daytona items are listed here, so I won’t be listing them in this post. I had originally purchased Pull-Ups because they were on sale also and other areas had them listed as being part of the deal, but they are not part of the deal in my area, so I had to return them and exchange them for some diapers.

Here’s what I got: 3 packages Cottonelle (used 2 $1 printables and 1 .50 printable which doubled plus a .25 Cellfire coupon), 6 cans Kroger broth, 2 gallons milk, 3 bell peppers (they are on sale 3/$1), bananas, sirloin steak, 2 cans Vienna sausage, 4 cans tomato sauce, 1 can chickpeas, yogurt (free coupon from Kroger mailer), eggs (I bought Egglands best so I could use the .35/1 coupon which tripled), and dog treats. Then, from the Daytona deals, I got: 3 packages Huggies, hot dog buns, Totinos pizza rolls, 3 boxes Ritz crackers, 8 jars Ragu sauce, 6 cans Chef Boyardee, 4 cans Pillsbury biscuits, 3 boxes Betty Crocker Fruit Stickerz, and one bottle of Kroger dressing.

Here are my updated savings totals: (if you’re new to my blog and not familiar with my savings goals, click here)

Baby Emergency fund – $764.92 (Goal = $1000)
Gift savings – $132.42 (Goal = $1500)
Rolling entertainment fund – $0 (Goal = $500)

Sadly, I didn’t add anything to any of my savings funds this week. I had a great mail week, though. Here are some of the highlights: (off the top of my head!)

*$20 in Target gift cards thanks to Swagbucks. (When you cash out for gift cards, they are actually “E-cards” but I used that to pay for regular gift cards!)

*My “freebies” from the Kraft instant win game –
*1 coupon for a free package of any Kraft regular, 2% milk natural cheese, cracker barrel, or Polly-O (any variety of shredded, chunks, cubes, cracker cuts or string, up to $3.99)
*1 coupon for a free planters snack product (up to $5.00)
*1 coupon for free Nabisco cracker product (up to 16 oz. up to $4.49)
shows Ritz, Triscuit and Wheat thins on the coupon

*My free Kid’s “Boost” coupon – click here to get yours

*A free coupon for tomatoes from DelMonte

*Free samples of Emergen-C Kidz from SheSpeaks

*Kroger coupons

*A 20% off Gymboree coupon

Here’s how much I have saved at individual stores:
Total Target savings – $165.40 to date (47% savings)

Total CVS savings – $272.75 (84% savings…this would probably be higher, but I do buy my stamps there to go toward my quarterly ECB earnings and you can’t use ECBs to pay for those!) – this # has not been updated because I have not entered my receipts for the week into my spreadsheet yet

Total Kroger savings – $228.25(55% savings)

Total Randalls savings – $76.33 (88% savings)

**If you’re looking for spreadsheets to help you track your savings, there are some good ones here on the Mommy Snacks blog

Filed Under: Savings Saturday Tagged With: , ,

Menu Planning Monday: My Menu for the week of 2/1/09

February 2, 2009 by


Sunday – Rice a Roni chicken casserole – this came from Marci’s blog and my kids love it. It’s a standby for me when I want to cook something quick and easy. We were originally going to have chicken tortilla soup, but then my husband got invited to a Super Bowl party, and I figured there was no sense making that for just the three of us since I knew the kids wouldn’t really enjoy it anyway.

Monday – Simple Italian Chicken breasts (slow cooker meal)

Tuesday – Ham and Swiss Casserole

Ingredients:
1 8 oz pkg wide egg noodles, cooked and drained
2 cups ham, cubed
2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream

In a 9X13 pan, layer noodles, ham, and cheese; mix lightly. In a separate bowl, mix the soup and sour cream together. Pour soup mixture over the other ingredients in the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Cover during the first half of baking.

Wednesday – Crockpot chicken and rice

Thursday – Taco Pie – This recipe comes straight from the Bisquick website! It’s easy to make and my kids love it, too!

Friday – Ham to go biscuits – This is actually my adaptation of a “chicken to go biscuits” recipe because I have some canned ham that I want to use

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 dash pepper
1/2 cup milk
1 can ham
1 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sliced drained mushrooms
1 can buttermilk biscuits
1 egg, beaten
3 cups cornflakes, crushed

Directions:
Heat oven to 375 degrees.

In saucepan, melt butter, stir in flour, salt and pepper until blended. Add milk, cook 1 minute or until thickened, stirring occasionally. Stir in chicken, cheese and mushrooms, set aside.

Separate biscuit dough into biscuits. Pat each into 5 inch circle. Place 1/3 cup chicken mixture on each biscuit circle. Wrap dough around chicken mixture, pressing edges to seal.

Dip rolls in egg, then coat with crushed cornflakes. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Saturday – Lasagne – I use this recipe from Barilla – I love their “oven ready” lasagne noodles. It makes the whole process so simple!

Filed Under: Menu Planning Monday Tagged With: ,

Savings Saturday: My $40 weekly budget

January 31, 2009 by

If you’re just starting to read my blog, you may want to click here to read about my challenge for 2009, so you’ll get a better understanding of how this all works. My Kroger stores triple three like coupons up to .35 face value and double three like coupons up to .50 face value. My Randalls stores triple one like coupon up to .35 face value and double one like coupon up to .50 face value.

Here’s a summary of my shopping trips:

Randalls: Total OOP = $7.59 – I went to Randalls to pick up a few ads so I had some extra copies of the $30 coupon for new or transferred prescriptions since they are good until March. I wasn’t planning on buying anything, but as I glanced at the ad, I noticed that they had 4 12 packs of soda for $7.99, which was a deal I couldn’t pass up. I had thrown in some Twizzlers also. For some reason, even with the Twizzlers, it only rang up at $7.59 after I gave them my Randalls card. I checked my receipt and everything that I bought was listed, so I’m not sure what happened, but I am not complaining 🙂

Kroger: Total OOP = $32.76 (I went over budget by .35 this week. I should have been just under budget, but when I got to the register, I realized that I had an extra bag of cheese in my cart that I hadn’t planned on buying and I just went ahead and bought it anyway….there was a long line and I didn’t want for someone to have to put it back) Here’s what I got: 13 bags of cheese (yes, you can freeze cheese, but all of the expiration dates are May or June, so we will probably use them all before then…I used the .75/1 blinkies on these), 2 boxes of Kleenex (used .40/1 coupons which doubled), 1 container Daisy sour cream (used .50 coupon which doubled), 3 cans Rotel, bananas, Juicy Juice (used $1 coupon), cucumbers, cantaloupe, carrots, clery, rice, DelMonte grapefruit (used free coupon from home mailer), Dannon yogurt (used free coupon from home mailer), 2 Vienna sausage, avocadoes, roma tomatoes, 3 packages Jell-O pudding (used .50 coupons which doubled), chicken marinade, ricotta cheese, parsley, one gallon of milk

Here are my updated savings totals: (if you’re new to my blog and not familiar with my savings goals, click here)

Baby Emergency fund – $764.92 (Goal = $1000) – I got $16 in rebate checks

Gift savings – $132.42 (Goal = $1500)

Rolling entertainment fund – $0 (Goal = $500)

I also cashed out for $35 in Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks (which technically could go toward my gift savings because that’s what it will be used for).

Here’s how much I have saved at individual stores:

Total Target savings – $139.27 to date (45% savings)

Total CVS savings – $272.75 (84% savings…this would probably be higher, but I do buy my stamps there to go toward my quarterly ECB earnings and you can’t use ECBs to pay for those!) – this # has not been updated because I have not entered my receipts for the week into my spreadsheet yet

Total Kroger savings – $172.54(57% savings)

Total Randalls savings – $76.33 (88% savings)

**If you’re looking for spreadsheets to help you track your savings, there are some good ones here on the Mommy Snacks blog

Question of the Week: Where’s the beef?
You may notice that my weekly grocery trip this week didn’t include any sort of meat. One of the beauties of having a stockpile is that sometimes you don’t have to buy meat. This week, I chose to use my budget to stock up on other items that I will use (like cheese) because I already have plenty of meat in the freezer and there weren’t really any good sales this week.

Filed Under: Savings Saturday Tagged With:

Menu Planning Monday

January 25, 2009 by


I posted a lot of information about my family and how we plan meals in this initial post.

You can check out my $40 weekly shopping trip for the week here.

Here is my meal plan for this week:

Sunday – Tuesday is my husband’s birthday, but since I have to work, I’m doing the big family dinner tonight. I am also making breakfast, which I rarely do.

For breakfast, I made the Puffed Pancakes recipe that I got from Marci’s blog.

For dinner, I made manicotti, which is my husband’s favorite. I use the one straight from the Barilla website.

I also made this recipe for Basil Garlic Bread, which I got from someone off of a Babycenter cooking board years ago:

Basil-Garlic Bread

Prep: 10 min., Bake: 10 min.

1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 6-ounce Italian bread loaf

Stir together 1/4 cup melted butter, 1 teaspoon dried basil, and 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder. Cut a 6-ounce Italian bread loaf in half horizontally; brush cut sides evenly with butter mixture. Wrap loaf in aluminum foil, and bake at 350° for 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Yield: Makes 4 servings. (I added some parmesan cheese on top also)

Then, I made cheesecake, which is another one of my husband’s favorites. This recipe is super easy, but good:

Philadelphia 3 step cheesecake
Ingredients:
2 packages (8 ounces each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese (I use the 1/3 less fat and it works fine)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp grated lemon peel
1 Honey Maid graham cracker pie crust

Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Stir in fresh lemon juice and grated lemon peel. Pour into crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool and refrigerate 3 hours (or overnight). I add a can of cherry pie filling on top.

Monday – Green enchiladas – this is a modified version of a recipe my dad makes

Ingredients:
1 can green enchilada sauce
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can Rotel
3-4 chicken breasts
corn tortillas
monterrey jack cheese

I place the chicken breasts, enchilada sauce, cream of chicken soup, and Rotel in the crockpot on low all day. When I get home, I shred the chicken and add it back to the mixture. Then, you can either do stacked enchiladas (pour some of the mixture on a corn tortilla/add cheese and repeat for as many layers as you would like) or do rolled enchiladas (place some of the mixture in the corn tortilla, roll, and place in a pan….repeat 9 times…then, pour the remaining sauce mixture over the top and top with cheese and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes).

Tuesday – Mix in a Blender cheese souffle – this is a recipe from my mother in law and is one of my husband’s favorite. Since tonight is his “actual” birthday, that’s what we’re having! We have yummy sourdough bread with it.

Ingredients:
1 T butter (softened)
6 eggs
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp prepared mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 lb cheddar cheese (sharp)
11 oz cream cheese

Butter souffle dish. In blender, combine eggs, parmesan, mustard, salt & pepper. Whirl until smooth. Cut the cheddar cheese into pieces. Add piece by piece to mixture in blender. Do the same with the cream cheese. Pour mixture into the buttered souffle dish. Bake at 375 degrees for one hour. (If souffle is prepared ahead and refrigerated, add about 5 minutes to the baking time)

Wednesday – French dip sandwiches (slow cooker)

Thursday – Creamy bacon ranch chicken (slow cooker)

Friday – Ravioli (slow cooker)

Saturday – Lemon Chicken Puff – this is from Marci’s blog and has become a family favorite!

Filed Under: Menu Planning Monday Tagged With:

Savings Saturday: My $40 weekly budget

January 24, 2009 by

Even though it was a “short” week for me because I didn’t have to work on Monday, it still seems like it took forever to get to the weekend and now that the weekend is here, it’s flying by way too fast!

I always like to add a little disclaimer before I post this. I am able to “make it” on a $40 weekly budget because I have been couponing for a long time and my garage looks like it could double as a grocery store thanks to my stockpile. I am also blessed to have several grocery stores that double and triple coupons regularly and I don’t have any family members with allergies or dietary restrictions. If you aren’t able to make it on $40/week, don’t feel bad or pressured. My goal is just to help you find ways that you can save money. Challenge yourself to do better, even if it’s just cutting your grocery bill by $10 a week (that will give you $40 extra each month!)

Here’s a summary of my shopping trips for the day!


Target: Total OOP = $0 (spent $3.33 on a gift card). The Ocean Spray juice was “free” using the $1 Target printable and the $1 manufacturer’s printable. Details and links to the coupons are here. The Pop Tarts are on Price Cut for $1.67 right now. There are $1 off peelie coupons on some of the boxes making them .67/box!

Kroger: Total OOP = $49.28 (the total for all of these items before coupons would have been $142.63!) – Technically I am over budget for the week, but I had $10.05 left from last week that I never spent, so I am applying that toward my grocery allowance for this week. Here’s what I got: 3 packages of Cottonelle TP, 3 boxes of Kleenex, 1 bag of dog treats, 9 bags of shredded cheese, 1 bag of pizza rolls, 1 graham cracker crust, 1 bottle of Juicy Juice, 3 containers of Daisy Sour cream, 1 container of Ricotta cheese, 1 box of Carnation Instant Breakfast, 2 bottles of mustard, 1 bottle of Cattleman’s BBQ sauce, 2 bags of Green Giant steamers, 1 bag of frozen ravioli, 2 bags of bread, 2 gallons of milk, 1 box of eggs, 1 loaf of french bread, 2 boxes of Rice a Roni, 2 packages of Fast Fixin’ chicken strips, 2 packages of Goldfish, 2 boxes of cream cheese, 1 bottle of Kens salad dressing, 1 can of Rotel, 1 package of corn tortillas, 2 packages of Pilgrims Pride chicken breasts, 2 loaves of Sara Lee bread. There are way too many coupons to list, but you will find most of them included in my scenario that I posted here.

CVS: Total OOP = $0 (used $10/50 CRT, 2 $1.50 Huggies coupons, $1.50/2 Wisk coupon, $2 Gillette coupon, 3 $2 Advil printables, $1 Advil CRT, $2 St. Ives printable, $1 Johnsons Buddies coupon, and a $27 ECB adjusted down), earned $15 ECB…I burned more ECB than I had planned because they did not have the Gillette Fusion razor I had planned on buying and for some reason I thought the Wisk was 2/$7 when it is actually 2/$9. The Wisk detergent was a quick alternative that was around the same price, I had a coupon for it, and it’s something that I will actually use. (The moral of the story is….always have a back up plan when you shop at CVS) My CVS scenarios for this week can be found here.

I thought I would share this picture also. I found all of these in the $1 spot at Target. If you’re new to couponing or just looking for a way to organize your coupons, here are a few possibilities. I am planning a post on coupon organization soon. I love the accordian style holder. That is what I use to organize my coupons for all of my weekly trips. I have a section for each of the stores I shop at most often (Kroger, CVS, Walgreens, Target, and Randalls) and put all of my coupons/scenarios in each section when I go out to do my weekly trips. I also have a coupon binder where I keep all of my coupons. I loved these dividers because they are a lot more sturdy than the ones I am currently using. I use baseball card holders in each section to hold my coupons.

Here are my updated savings totals: (if you’re new to my blog and not familiar with my savings goals, click here)
Baby Emergency fund – 748.92 (Goal = $1000) – I got my $50 “bonus” from opening an ING Orange checking account. I posted about this here. They are still offering this promotion, so if you haven’t taken advantage of it yet, you should definitely check it out! They also give you a $25 bonus if you open a savings account with a balance of $250 and are referred by a current member, so if you are interested in that, e-mail me (my e-mail is in the upper left hand corner of the blog) and let me know.

Gift savings – $132.42 (Goal = $1500)
Rolling entertainment fund – $0 (Goal = $500)

Here’s how much I have saved at individual stores:
Total Target savings – $139.27to date (45% savings)
Total CVS savings – $272.75 (84% savings…this would probably be higher, but I do buy my stamps there to go toward my quarterly ECB earnings and you can’t use ECBs to pay for those!)
Total Kroger savings – $110.86(53% savings)
Total Randalls savings – $39.47 (100% savings) – I have paid for everything here with gift cards/coupons so far this year

**If you’re looking for spreadsheets to help you track your savings, there are some good ones here on the Mommy Snacks blog

Question of the Week: What do you do when you don’t have anymore money left for the week in your budget, but there is a great sale going on?

I thought this was a great question! In the past, I have always budgeted a certain amount per month, and this is really my first time doing a weekly budget. When I was doing a monthly budget, I could float money from one week to the next so that I had money when good sales came along, which is basically what I did this week. Now, I also keep a separate savings for “stockpiling” and I can always dip into that, too, if a good sale comes along!

Filed Under: Savings Saturday Tagged With: , , ,