Saturday, October 2, 2010

SEPTEMBER Budget Results....Food & Toiletries Spending TOTALS



Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for SEPTEMBER 2010.
I have posted September's totals on the right side bar under Total Grocery Savings for 2010.

I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in September.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom information.

These Totals include Food, Toiletries/HBA, Pet Supplies, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable.We are a family of 5(between 5 & 2 at home this month) & 3 dogs. No kids under 14.

BAKERY OUTLET
OOP $20.56
Value $70.81 
Savings  70.96%

CARONE'S(small local independent store)
OOP $18.50
Qs/Ads $6.96
Value $25.46
Savings  27.33%

FAMILY DOLLAR
OOP $8.06
Qs/Ads $6.51
Value $14.57
Savings 44.68%

GERRITY'S
OOP $76.37
Qs/Ads $114.82
Value $191.19
Savings 60.06%

RESTAURANT SUPPLY
OOP $16.15
Value $29.95
Savings 46.08%

RITE AID
OOP $12.78 (whole amount put on Rite-Aid Gift Cards)=$.00 actual OOP
Qs/Ads $687.93
Value $700.71
Savings 98.17% before gift cards/ 100% savings after gift cards

WALMART
OOP $.14
Value $38.14
Savings 99.63%

WEIS (local chain Grocery store that doesn't take IP Qs in my town)
OOP $127.39
Qs/Ads $247.01
Value $374.40
Savings  65.75%


I don't track CVS's ECBs & Walgreen's RRs. They will be included when used on purchases under "Coupons".   I'll keep track of what rebates are received monthly.  Rebate money/gift cards will be considered 'income' & will go into the Food/Toiletries budget, offsetting the Out of Pocket. Cash will go immediately into the Budget kitty, while Gift Cards will be calculated in when spent.

REBATE CHECKS RECV'D. IN SEPTEMBER
Finesse Shampoo...$2.50
Focus Group Payment....$75.00
Lypsyl Lip Balm....$2.39
Pinecone Research....$6.00
Rite-Aid SCR....$40.98
Sure TMF Rebate...$2.63
Subtotal........$129.50


GIFT CARDS and CERTIFICATES
$0.00
 
TOTAL Value of Cash/Store Checks/Gift Card Rebates Received..$129.50


My best 3 Store Savings Totals were from Rite-Aid at 100%, WalMart at 99.63% and the Bakery Outlet at 70.96%.

TOTAL Out of Pocket...............................$267.17
TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$1178.06
TOTAL Value of Items Purchased.............$1445.23
TOTAL Savings of..........81.51%

TOTAL of CASH Rebates........................$129.50
TOTAL OOP After  Rebates....................$137.67
TOTAL Savings of..................................90.47%

This closes out the September spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month-
The garden was giving us an ample supply of goodies but I did stock up on some frozen veggies with a Catalina deal.  I resumed moderate use of coupons when shopping this month after not using many in August.
While I went over slightly on the budgeted $250 amount for the month, the rebates & focus group payment added to the food budget kitty went a long way to help keep my OOP under the set amount.

What's ahead for October 2010.....
Since we just got the new fridge I haven't stocked up on much fresh farm stand veggies for winter yet, but I'll be doing that in early October. 

I am setting the October 2010 Food/Toiletries Budget at $250. I am figuring $150 for regular monthly purchases and the other $100 for the stocking on farm buys and any good seasonal deals(sugar, flour, pumpkin, eggs, pork, apples, etc.)

As always, any rebates received this month will be added to the food budget spending.  I have 4 outstanding rebates due in but I have no rebates going out so these 4(plus any Rite-Aid SCRs)will probably be all the rebate money for the rest of the year.

With nine months of the year behind us, we have averaged $179.21 per MONTH after rebates on food/toiletries spending for 2010 for a family of 4-5 adults/teens + 2-3 pets.

How did you do in September with your Food Budget?  Leave a comment or link to your post and let us hear!  By sharing our struggles and efforts we can help each other stick to our budgets and learn to be better guardians of our resources.

Sluggy

2 comments:

  1. Way to go (as usual)!!!! I confess that I led my tally slide for Sept. I realized I was making things too complicated, trying to keep my purchases separate from DH's (since we're still living apart), but then sometimes shopping with him and occasionally paying for his stuff with gcs I'd gotten off a gc website, etc. Started to make my head hurt :)

    I also fell into the trap of doubling my ECBs. I started out in my monthly budget spreadsheet listing them in the rebate column, which would cause them to be subtracted from that shopping trip's total. But then they'd get listed as coupons in the next trip, so very inaccurate. I like how you've come out and said your ECBs are not included in your purchases because they're listed as coupons later. I kept letting myself get confused about when to log them, and again my head would start to hurt (can you tell I'm not good with headaches?).

    Once DH and I are living together again, I will start anew with budgets and logging on the spreadsheet and all that fun stuff. For now, I'm just trying to be as economical as possible to make up for DH not giving a flying fig about how much he spends on anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great job! I need to go figure out how I did.

    ReplyDelete

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