Under budget!

I've been working with a $75 weekly grocery budget this month for our family of four, and although I went over last week, I was thrilled to see I came in UNDER budget this week! And I didn't sacrifice ANYTHING. Included in the total were two packs of boneless ribeye steaks, two packs of ground chuck, two packages of bacon, several boxes of cereal, orange juice, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and iceberg lettuce, yogurt, apple sauce, sodas, chips and dips (for Super Bowl Sunday), cookies, peanut butter, two gallons of white milk, two half-gallons of chocolate milk, two loaves of bread, butter, crescent rolls, mustard, cat food and still lots more! Whew!

I'm fairly certain that I'll be able to scale back to a $60 a week budget next month once I'm fully stockpiled, but I probably won't try to go much lower than that. Considering we go through two gallons of milk and two loaves of bread per week, that's over $9 of the budget right there, even using store brands (which I do). I've been watching a show on CNBC on Saturday nights called "Til Debt Do Us Part," in which couples who are deeply in debt work with a financial/budgeting expert for one month to map out a plan to pay off the debt. I always shake my head when the expert tells them they are allowed $125 or $150 a week for groceries (even when it's just a couple with no children!) and they STRUGGLE with this! Oh, if they only knew what WE know!! *wink*

Publix Shopping Trip: $4.49!!

Had a great shopping trip at Publix today! I got all this for only $4.49 after coupons!

* 1 gallon Publix milk - 3.39

* 2 boxes Toaster Strudel - used 2 $1 off coupons, makes them 24 cents each

* 6 boxes Honey Maid crackers - used six $1 off coupons, makes them 1.06 each

* 1 Lubriderm lotion - used one $2 off man. coupon and one $1 Walgreens coupon, makes it 79 cents

* 2 cans Fancy Feast - 1.10 each (no Q's, but I was out!)

* 1 loaf Publix bread - 1.17

* 2 bags Chex Mix - used two 50-cent off coupons, which Publix doubled, makes them 24 cents each

I also had a $10 RR coupon, which brought the grand total down to $4.49 after tax.

PLUS, there is a mail-in rebate offer on the Honey Maid crackers (I bought 4 more boxes the other day at 1.06 each) for a $10 rebate when you buy 10 boxes. That brings the cost of each box of graham crackers down to SIX CENTS EACH!! Holy cow!!

The electric bill cometh

Oh my! I knew the electric bill would be bad this month after that Arctic blast came through a couple of weeks ago and the heater was running pretty much constantly (and we had it set no higher than 68 at any given time!). But I didn't expect it to be THIS bad! Last month it was $207 and this month it was... $322!! *gulp!* We have a two-story house (which I do NOT recommend, just for this reason!) so our electric bills are always higher than in our last house, but this is just ridiculous. We were even using the fireplace more, but clearly it didn't make a whole lot of difference. We're changing the filters again, but I'm not sure that would have helped much on this bill. Luckily the temps have been much more mild the last week or so and the heater is running much less now. Hope it stays that way! I'm WAY over my wish for snow now! Hee!

This on top of the return of the dreaded furlough days at work is NOT a good combination! But the good news is all of our tax info is now ready so we can file our taxes this weekend. Here's hoping for a nice refund!!