shopping cartI’m not sure how realistic this was going to be, but I tried it anyways.

I started this challenge a week before Christmas (not good planning on my part) but made sure I had all the things I needed for 30 days of meals, Christmas dinner, entertaining and emergency eating.  All totaled I spent around $342.00.  But as you read further, I didn’t make it, and was off on some of my food calculations.  This is key to a successful once a month shopping haul.

This does not include meat or canned vegetables as you remember I bought 1/2 cow in November and can and freeze a lot of garden vegetables.

This does not include soap, shampoo or toothpaste either…I buy these items on sale with coupons every 6 months or so…Sometimes I even make my own soap, but that’s  another story.

So this is just food related purchasing.

And I had to factor in that I would have extra children home over the holiday until the first week in January.

Your already thinking this is a lot of work.   But really it just takes a bit of time, planning and forethought

And it’s totally doable.

But first why it didn’t work for me:

I work from home, which make life easy…I can throw a load of laundry in between phone calls.  But I still have to work.  So my plan was to make bread, rolls and etc during the day’s that were slow.  However, I had very few slow days and other business related fires had to be put out and I found myself staying up to make bread.  This is not the end of the world but when your tired and just want to go to bed, bread takes forever to rise and bake.

I don’t have a set schedule where some people work 9-5 they can count on their free time…So again I had to make time when I could find time.

I don’t like the same meal every day of every week…This is how I grew up and…..well it gets boring after the second week, this again takes more planning.

Snacks had to be made, again not the end of the world but I had to make more time.

My basic complaint was time or lack of it.

Why I did like this plan:

I didn’t have to grocery shop-which I loath!

I would know exactly what I spent for the month.

I had to become even more organized than I already am.

My younger kids learned a few things

We ate less

Wasted less

I learned a couple of new recipes my family loves, like homemade egg rolls and Crab Rangoon. I will post these later.

And a few we will never repeat-but the dogs loved them.

My kids love salad in a jar to take to school or on the go to practice.

So this is doable if you really are organized and plan.  I made it 2 weeks 3 days.  And the only reason I went was because I ran out of coffee.

What I did find a lot easier was using coupons.  I had a list of everything I needed, took an hour and cut coupons and saved and extra $15.00

So after all was said and done I have decided a 2 to 3 week shopping plan would work for our family.  It has made life a little easier.

If you really want to get a good idea of how to shop once a month, buy or down load “The complete Tightwad Gazette” by Amy Dacyzyn

Tightwad Gazette

Tightwad Gazette

She did this back in the 90’s with 6 kids in Maine with a salary of 22000.00 per year.

I have read this so many times the pages are worn, it has saved me thousands of dollars.

It may be a little dated but the premise is still the same.

So if you have time and are able to plan meals a month in advance I would highly recommend this program.

Give it a try and let me know how you fared.

~RHoM

 

 

 


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