May Budget Challenge Week 1 – Spent $42 on groceries (see what we ate), saved $28/mo on cable, plus made $60!

I announced last week that we are on a major budget challenge this month. We are trying to spend as LITTLE as possible on groceries and eating out this month. We are off to a great start! I only went to the grocery store ONCE all week and we only spent $42 on groceries ($37 was a 40-lb box of apples!).

SHOPPING TRIPS – $42 spent
Here was our menu plan and our planned shopping trips.

Here’s what we ended up spending this week:

QFC shopping trip – Eggs only $1 a dozen. I hard boiled a dozen for snacks and salads. The other dozen I used for deviled eggs for Grandpa’s birthday party. Peanut butter is on sale for $1.50 each, I purchased two.Total cost = $5

Olympia Local Foods – A 40-pound box of organic Fuji apples, $37. My kids have been eating at least one apple a day – they love them that much. Buying them by the case is the best price I can find on organic apples. Yes, I could have probably saved nearly 40% off if I would have bought non-organic apples, but I’d rather do without in other areas and stick to organic, local apples. I mean, we live in Washington state, known for it’s apples for goodness sakes – I love supporting our local apple production! I wrote about this in my post – Want to Save the Most? Do Without. Total cost = $37

MEALS
Just because we are being frugal doesn’t mean we can’t eat well. We are making full use of the foods we have in our freezer and our stockpile.

Here are some of the meals we ate this week:

Last Wednesday we had tacos with moose meat I had in the freezer.

Thursday night was soccer practice night and we spent $20 at Subway for dinner (we are gone from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.). Yikes! We are making different plans this week and will either pack meals or trek home to eat.

Last Friday night we had Grilled Pizza with homemade pizza dough.

Saturday we had lunch with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa and then went to Grandpa’s birthday party, so we didn’t have to cook or buy food! I used the $1 dozen eggs I bought to make deviled eggs to bring to the party!

Sunday night we roasted two chickens that we had in the freezer. Today I have a big crockpot of homemade chicken broth simmering thanks to the leftover bones and meat.

Monday night we had roasted chicken pesto pasta with leftover chicken from the roasted chickens we had the night before.

Tonight (Tuesday) we will have Mango Curry Chicken because we have ripe mangoes that need to be used and we have all the ingredients on hand.

Here are some ways I’ve saved so far this month:

• Saved $28/month on cable bill – Yes, we have cable. Yes, we could live without it. But we don’t at this time (we go through seasons of life when we do). My husband likes to watch major league soccer games, I’m a sucker for reality television (don’t tell anyone) and my kids like Disney Junior. So, anywho. . .I called my cable provider and asked about a less expensive package. After a 10 minute phone call they were able to drop my bill by $28/month, plus add additional channels. That will save us $336 this year! 
• Planted my garden! Finally. I doubt any of it will be harvested before the end of the month, but I did get my plants and seeds into the ground! This is a big savings for us during the summer months, I can’t wait to harvest produce on a weekly basis from my backyard!
• Heat is OFF. In years past, before we had little babies running around the house, we cut the heat in early, early spring and just bundled up. But this isn’t as easy when you have little kids, so we just shut our heat off this week. Nights will get chilly, but we’ve layered on extra blankets!
• Made $60 by selling a play kitchen that we took out of my daughter’s room when we did our big clean back in February. We sold it to a family friend for $60.

I think we did pretty awesome for our first week! 

WEEK TALLY

• We spent $42 on groceries ($37 was apples)
• We spent $20 eating out (yikes, we will try to avoid that this week)
• We made $60 by selling something we didn’t need anymore
• We saved $28 by changing our cable plan

Not too shabby! I’m looking forward to another week of saving as much as we can. I’m definitely going to need to stock up on some fresh produce this week, but I’m waiting for the ads to come out so I can pick the best place. I will post a new meal plan tomorrow that will get us through to next Tuesday!

Please note: This doesn’t include all  of our living expenses. I’m only reporting the amount we spend on groceries and eating out – as that is where we are focusing our efforts this month (although we are being more conscious with all purchases!)

Read my first post about the budget challenge here.

I’d love to hear from you! How are you saving money this month!