regrouping

well i walked out of kroger without my receipt a few weeks ago, which totally thew my running total off, and now i find i don't care that much. i haven't done good with recording anything since then, but i *have* been meal planning and keeping up with that.

i've mostly lost interest in recording this stuff, for a couple reasons i think. first, i suspect my savings amounts are inflated because they're based on retail prices i never used to pay for brands i never bought. that kind of makes them irrelevant. also, i've used the info thus far to come up with a grocery budget that seems reasonable and a system to make it happen. i only started the system last week, but it was simple and worked really well.

here's the budget for now:
$75/week, $300/month
(i can use the monthly budget to give me some play in case of stock-up sales on high-dollar items like dh's voila entrees or frozen pizzas.)

unfortunately, that's pretty dang close to what i was doing before.

i'm going to practice *using my system and *having a budget,
and then i'll work on *cutting the amount back a bit.
i don't think i spend as much as lots of families i know, but i'd like to slash it.
maybe *meal planning will help with that.

and here's the system:
i'll look at my calendar and the ads, and figure how much i need each week for groceries, gas ($30/wk at $2/gal), newspapers, activities, and events. then i'll withdraw that much cash, put away my debit card, and when it's gone, it's gone. simple, right?? well, i'll want to budget a bit for last-minute activities, but that's one more thing to work on.