Week 4 Grocery Shop Challenge

Hi

I've done it!!! Yeah!!! I've managed to stay under our grocery budget this month for the very first time.  And what makes it even better is that it is the first month of our family challenge to take control of this item of our budget and it was under.(Imagine happy dancing here)  It gives us a good feeling for the rest of the year.

Here's how the figures stacked up this week.
Aldi              $65.26
Coles            $33.27
Fruit and Veg $ 9.05
Woolies         $0    
                    $107.58        

This means we have come in at $47.15 under the $606 monthly budget.  This money we are going to put towards our holiday saving budget.

How I think this came about?
Well one major contributing factor is that I finally GET the idea of a proper detailed shopping list and not treating it as just a reminder note and adding other items as I see them.  There have only been a couple of times I have deviated from it because I realised I forgot something like cat food when I saw it on the shelf.

Another was making a detailed menu plan each week.   I sort of did this before but I guess I was a little half-hearted about it.  This time I took a little more time to figure one out.  I even tried a couple of new recipes so I'm even happier I still stayed under budget.  I decided to put a little copy of the plan next to the list so I knew what was planned on what day and why I was buying this or that while I was a the supermarket.   

I think maybe the biggest contributing factor was paying with cash except at Coles.  Also the last couple of weeks I have put a little dollar amount on the side of the list with approximately how much each shop would cost going by experience.  I must say that this has been very helpful and I'm going to keep doing it.

Putting these changes,menu planning and list planning etc, into action would have really only added about 15-20mins a week, which I'm sure will become less as I get better. So if I look at an hour for the whole month and I saved nearly $50 then that's a pretty good return on time.

So with the first month a success, I know that I can't become too complacent either.  But I now have the confidence that I can do this and even look for ways to improve.

Mrs BB