January BUDGET RESULTS-Food & Toiletries Spending

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for JANUARY 2010.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in January.
These Totals include Food, Toiletries/HBA, Pet Supplies, Cleaning Products & tax where applicable.We are a family of 5(4 at home-all 5 home for 2/3 of this month + an extra relative for 1 week)& 3 dogs. No kids under 13.

BIG LOTS
OOP $20.60
Qs/Ads $9.90
Value $30.50
Savings 32.50%

CARONE'S(local Independent Grocery that doesn't take IP Qs)
OOP $8.82
Qs/Ads $0
Value $8.82
Savings   0%

CVS
OOP $1.98
Qs/Ads $150.31
Value $152.29
Savings 98.70%

ENTENMANN'S OUTLET
OOP $12.89
Ads/Sales $23.61
Value $36.50
Savings  64.70%

RITE AID
OOP $135.42 before rebates
Qs/Ads $188.91
Value $1324.33
Savings 89.78%

WALGREENS
OOP $23.75
Qs/Ads $16.99
Value $40.74
Savings  41.70%

WEIS (local chain Grocery store that doesn't take IP Qs in my town)
OOP $182.21
Qs/Ads $333.06
Value $515.27
Savings  64.64%

I've 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 JANUARY

Ducolax.....$5.00

Pinecone Research....$6.00
Raisin Bran Extra(Kellogg's)...$4.39
Rite-Aid SCR........$40.78
Subtotal........$56.17

FREE ITEMS

Stacy's Chips
International Delights Creamer

COUPONS

None Received 8-(

GIFT CARDS and CERTIFICATES

Nothing this Month.

TOTAL Value of Cash/Store Checks/Gift Card Rebates Received..$56.17
This was a very light month for Rebates.....

My best 3 Store Savings Totals were from CVS at 98.70%, Rite-Aid at 89.70%, and the Entenmann's Outlet at 64.70%.

TOTAL Out of Pocket...............................$385.67
TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$1722.78
TOTAL Value of Items Purchased.............$2108.45
TOTAL Savings of..........81.70%

TOTAL of CASH Rebates........................$56.17
TOTAL OOP After  Rebates....................$329.50
TOTAL Savings of..................................84.37%

This closes out the January spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month-
With the extra mouths to feed in January coupled with the dirth of Rebates coming in during the month, the Food Spending was high for me and I waaaaay overshot my $200 goal. I see now that it was unrealistically low.  

What's ahead for February 2010.....

The February 2010 Food/Toiletries Budget is set at $250 cash out of pocket.  Any rebates received this month will offset this OOP spending.  I sent away for $65.38 in Rebates in January and am still waiting on $26 in Rebates from December, so hopefully some of those will come in this month and augment my food budget.
If I don't spend all the money in the budget in February(HAHA), I'll carry over whatever is leftover into February's food budget.  I've already spent $90+ at Price Chopper on Catalina Deals last week and I'm going to be doing some Catalina Deals this week at Weis so I'm crossing my fingers that some rebates come in. 

How did you do in January 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

KA-BOOM!

Well I was coasting toward the end of January having spent $277.20 on my food/toiletries budget(before rebates that is).  Not too bad but not too great.

And then Friday daughter needed Gas-X(on doctor's orders)so I spent $23.75 at Wags on $30 worth and some Jello for #2 son as he was having dental surgery that morning, and he'd be needing that very soon.
I did get a $10RR so I didn't feel too badly about spending that $23.75 in the end.

Then I hit the grocery store(Weis) Friday evening and found a great sale on Ground Beef for $1 a lb!  I walked out of there with $20 less in my pocket and enough cow to fill a shelf in the freezer.

And then on Saturday I hit various Rite-Aids to get some more deals and finish out some other deals to the tune of $6.89 OOP but a profit of $1.61 AFTER SCRs + credit toward some Gift Card rebates too.

Then I hit CVS to spend some ECBs, use my Free Stacy's Q and do the Chips/Soda/Etc deal.  I found 1 pack of Ivory soap so got that for free before the $1/1 Q expired on Sunday.  I did the Chips/Soda deal but this store started next week's sales on Saturday so my ECBs didn't print, as the Lay's didn't ring up the right price...I bought 1 more bag and the cashier printed the ECBs manually.

Then I was naughty....imagine that SonyAnn!lol.....I saw that my card showed I still was $8 from getting the $10 ECBs for the Chips/Soda deal so when I went by another CVS and bought 3 more bags of Stacy's chips to test my theory.  Since the ECBs were printed manually at store #1, so my card still showed I was $8 away from getting $10 ECBs, I could get $10 more ECBs by buying $8 more of chips/soda items instead of the whole $20 worth.  3 bags of Stacy's was $9.  I used $9 in ECBs and the $10 ECBs printed.....bonus ECBs....lolol  So altogether, I ended up buying $29, spending $.98OOP put on a gift card, and gettting $20 in ECBs back.
I know it was wicked.....but who am I to stop CVS from giving me more ECBs?lol

So another $40 or so tacked onto the January budget spending for all of  Friday's/Saturday's spending wasn't so bad, considering all I got for that.

And then Sunday happened.
If you felt the ground shake and tilt on Sunday, that would have been the after affect of me blowing up the budget on Sunday.
To.
Smither
Eens.

We hit the Bread Outlet first.....hadn't been there in a bit and needed bread.
There went $6 for 3 loaves and 3 boxes of doughnuts for DH's evening snack.
A good deal.

Then we went to Big Lots to use that 20% off coupon.  I bought.....
14 1/2 gallons of juice
2 boxes of popcorn
2 corned beef hash
2 sloppy joe sauce
1 parsley
1 hot sauce
1 pudding for dental surgery boy
1 apricot jam for making my pork chops glaze
2 boxes of oatmeal pies
1 bag of rubber bands(DH's purchase)
$90+ worth of food had we bought it at the cheapest grocery store here on sale using coupons, spent $41.02 with Big Lots prices and the 20% off Q.

After Big Lots I just sort of lost my mind temporarily.

Yah see....it was the last day of January and all those lovely lovely coupons were.....were.....EXPIRING!

I felt like a possessed woman released from a prison who hadn't been in a store for a year, compelled to use those coupons......and spend, spend, SPEND!!!

We were off to Walmart since DH needed something there.  While I waiting on him, I picked up....
2 Beech-Nut baby foods for .08¢ each.
2 packs of Ivory Soap for .07¢ each.
4 Finish dishwasher tabs for $1.37 each.
2 cans of Sauerkraut for .42¢ each.
5 Duck packing tape for .67¢ each.

Then it was off to Price Chopper.
PC decided to gift us with TWO CATALINA DEALS this week!
Around here it's mostly famine but on a rare occasion we do get FEAST.
There is a Spend $30(reg. shelf price)/Get $10 OYNO Deals.
One for Unilever stuff.
Another one for Kraft stuff.
AND there are TWO Doublers in the Store ad!
DH and I went to PC to reconnoiter and gather the reg. shelf prices on items in those Catalina Deals.
I ran 1 transaction too, got my 1st $10 OYNO Cat and I've been rolling it once a day.  Once the extra Qs I ordered come in the mail, I'll step up the pace the rest of the week.  After the initial outlay to get the $10 Cat, I've been averaging about $3 OOP a transaction.  I've been picking up some items we need/want and the rest are flea market goods for the spring.....basically I pay for the couple of items we want/need with the OOP and the flea market stuff is free so everything I sell will be gravy. ;-)

Sunday night I hit Rite-Aid to do this week's deals....spending about $8 OOP and I'll get $9.99 back in SCRs and I have credit toward the Healthy Heart SCR and the Nivea Products SCR Gift Cards.

I finished off Sunday by hitting Weis markets to get 5 free Marcal Small Steps items, 2 tubs of Heluva Good Dip & 2 boxes of Jimmy Dean Turkey sausage for daughter for $1 ea.....and a big containers of ricotta cheese to make Monday night's Stuffed Shells dinner per my Meal Plan.  $6.62 OOP with a savings of 72% according to my receipt from Weis.

So, this is just my way of explaining what I've been doing and why I haven't finished totaling up my January receipts yet.  I'm still pulling receipts out of bags as I put things away in between runs of Price Chopper and Rite-Aid this week.
I'll get them finished off and the books closed on January, hopefully tomorrow.

Sluggy