i need help budgeting the amount of money i spend on food for myself and my daughter (4) . i need to be able to feed us on about $50 a week. right now we spend about $75-$80 a week.
i want t to be able to create a menu and then use that to shop. i tend to just go to the grocery store and put things in the cart. once i get home i realize i dont have what i need to prepare meals thru out the week.
shalisa & alisa
I know EXACTLY what you mean! I used to spend SO much money on grocerys and then get home and be like "oooh, I forgot to get so and so, now I cannot make this meal". So I got on microsoft works and created a menu for an entire month. Then, I made a list of the things I had to prepare meals already at the house. Then I made a list of meals and the things I needed to make each meal. When I went to the grocery store I challenged myself to spend as LITTLE as I possibly could. I normally got name brand stuff and when I needed to spend less, I resorted to getting the store brand or value brands. The only thing I bought that did not taste the same as the name brand was pop-tarts (which are not that great for you anyway). I spend like 30 bucks less than I normally did when buying name brand stuff. If you can get organized with coupons, they're great. Or when there is buy one get one free things that you use a lot, get them! I buy a lot of stuff to make and then freeze so it lasts longer. Things like fresh fruit you need to buy in smaller quantities because they go bad quickly if you don't eat them. You can buy enough for one week. Good luck with saving! Ooooh yeah, whatever store you use, get one of their members savings cards. They usually will save you a good bit of money!