Thank you for your patience the past few weeks as I sat aside the usual posts here to focus all my extra time and energy on my book launch. The book is launched and I’m slowly getting back into the normal groove of life — and one of those things on my list to do as soon as the book was launched was to finish out this 8-week series!
If you missed the earlier posts, here’s an overview:
In week #1, we talked about setting up a grocery budget. That’s the most important first step in cutting your grocery bill.
In week #2, we discussed why you need to recognize potential roadblocks. Be sure to read through the comments here to hear about others’ roadblocks. I think it will encourage you to know you’re not alone.
In week #3, I challenged you to commit to change one thing for three weeks. You can see the comments on the post for ideas of what others picked.
In week #4, I encouraged you to check in on your progress to see how you are doing, what you are learning, what’s working, and what’s not working.
In week #5, we talked about evaluating your options when it comes to stores in your area.
In week #6, we checked in on the commitment we made three weeks ago.
And in week #7, I may have ruffled a few feathers by challenging you to try going to cash-only for grocery purchases for a short while.
I hope that this series was helpful! I’d love to hear what you learned, what was hard, and what areas you are still struggling in or working on. Tell us in the comments.
One Thing I Took Away From This Challenge
One thing I was inspired to do more intentionally was to regularly shop at more than one store. I don’t think this is always realistic for me, but I discovered that at least twice a month, I am positive I can make a trip to both Aldi and Kroger work. And by cherry-picking the best deals at Ald and Kroger at least two weeks out of the month, I’m definitely seeing that I’m able to make our money go further when it comes to groceries and we have more food on hand — because there are more options to get better deals!
I had about $130 to spend on groceries this past week ($100 from our weekly grocery budget + $30 leftover from previous weeks that I’d rolled out). Here’s what I bought…
I don’t ever remember seeing grapes on sale, so I was excited about those!
And of course I was excite about this bacon deal!
I was excited about this cereal deal!
And this meat (taco seasoned frozen ground turkey) was marked down by 50% so I got a great deal on it. Always look for the white closeout tags as you might score some fantastic deals!
And I’ve never seen a digital coupon for milk here. So many of you have told me this is a regular thing in your area, so I was so excited there was a digital coupon!
Aldi had strawberries for $1.69/pint. There weren’t very many, but the few they had looked really good!
I could’t believe it! Eggs were just $2.25/dozen! It felt like such a steal of a price!
I was so excited because I got 11 pounds of meat + a whole chicken! This isn’t the best photo, but I got everything for just $119 and then bought two dozen eggs from our friends who have chickens — so all totaled, it was $129, right under the $130 budget!
