Lately I've been searching for more frugal blogs to read and inspire me. Some of them are local ones that have the local grocery deals, others aren't local but have other useful information.
As I read these blogs, I've been thinking more about couponing. I've been printing out some coupons, but the vast majority are for things I can't eat or for overly processed foods, or for toiletries or cleaners that I can't use because of the chemicals. The sales ads seem to be for a lot of the same things.
I find this a bit discouraging because I'd like to be able to coupon and buy on sale and get great deals. On the other hand, I'm not buying cheaply-made, full-of-preservatives food. We're spending our money on food with fewer ingredients, that's fresher, and tastes better. I haven't yet got our food budget where I want it to be, but I'm getting there. I still have to figure out who has the best prices on what (especially dairy and meats) and once I've done that I can work towards staying in our food budget.
I've been stressing a bit about budgeting and doing the grocery shopping and all, but I've decided I'll just do the best I can until I get eveything unpacked and feel less stressed (clutter, i.e. lots of boxes, makes me stressed). Once I've finished unpacking and sorting and feel that I can at least find everything again, then I'll focus on shopping lists, sales, coupons, and all that.
In the meantime, I'm going to the store as infrequently as possible, and trying to keep things as inexpensive as possible. I've discovered that for our family of 3, one crockpot dish can be used for 3 or 4 meals, which drastically reduces the cost of dinners. I did some barbecue chicken a couple weeks ago, the first night we served it with mashed potatoes, the second night we served it with cheese on a baked potato, the third night we used it in quesadillas, and the fourth night we used it in burritos. This week I cooked a roast in the crockpot and are doing similar things for dinner. This is a win-win for me: I stretch the meat out over 4 meals, which spreads out the cost as well, and I have minimal meal prep each day.
One of my recent blog finds is Keeping Life Creative. The author has committed to using beans or rice every day for a year in order to remind herself about living frugally. Some of the meals she's prepared are normal, beans and rice, burritos, etc, but she's also snuck beans into mac & cheese and lentils into cake. I find this intriguing, and once I'm feeling more settled I plan on giving some of her recipes a try. I'll have to alter them to make them gluten free, but it shouldn't be too hard to do.
I've also been thinking about stopping my Melaleuca shipments- I like their products (they have really nice soy candles that don't bother me), but some of the cleaning products have started to bother me. I'm not convinced that it's worth the financial commitment to keep ordering from them (you're supposed to order a min. # of product points each month; with shipping this usually ends up being around $75 for me). It's a chunk of money I could be using for other things. I've found several coupons for Seventh Generation products, so I think I'll give them a try (they even go on sale, so I could get some pretty good deals), and if those give me problems I'll have to venture into making my own cleaners. I don't want to, since it seems like it would be a hassle, but if I can make cleaners that won't bother me, it would be worth it. And I'd be saving even more money.
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Food budgets are tough. There are two things that make it harder for me personally. One is that I shop at Walmart. That's great since the food prices are pretty cheap, but there's that whole other half of the store that I can't seem to avoid. I think if I could JUST grocery shop I would do better. The other thing is establishing a 3 months supply of food. I am always buying more than what we need to stock up and that increases my spending. I also think my growing boys aren't helping either, but those are my grocery shopping woes.
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