The Death of my Budget

Well at least for this week. Next week is another chance to try to succeed in my grocery challenge of spending less than $100 a week. I know so many of you are doing so much better on $40 a week or even less, but for me, baby steps.

This week Ralphs and Stater Bros broke my budget over the course of 2 days. Right now milk is 3.99 a gallon for the cheapest stuff you can find. They have 2/$5.79 deals but you have to buy 2 of the same kind, and with a toddler I am forced to buy 1 of the 1% or 2% and one of the Whole milk, both at full price. As milk is something my family goes through rapidly, you can imagine how overjoyed I was when Ralphs came out with their 2/$3 half gallon sale. All milk types, NO LIMIT! I bought 4 half gallons of 1% and since they were out of the Whole milk, I got a rain check to use later, with again NO LIMIT! Then I went and bought some VitaminWater 10/$10, and cherries 41.99/lb. Then I went to Stater Bros and bought 2 Pepsi/Diet Pepsi cubes for 7.99 after a $2 instore coupon and 12 packages of Oscar Mayer Weiners for .99 each!

The deals were so good that my husband and I decided it was worth it to go back, so I did. The next day I went back to Stater Bros and bought 8 more hot dogs, 2 hot dog buns at $1.49 and 2 loaves of bread at $1.29 each, then back to Ralphs. At Ralphs I did my best to get the Huggies deal listed here bought 4 more 1% half gallons and (since they had restocked) I bought 4 Whole half gallons of milk, and I still have that rain check for when the sales end! I also bought 20 more of the VitaminWaters, mostly the Revive flavor because as I have spent every day for the past month falling asleep all day long, I tried it and spent the ENTIRE day not falling asleep ONCE!

Add to that the CVS 2 Hawaiian Tropic = $10 ECB bucks. After wandering each and every isle I was finally able to find a cashier that had the only two chap sticks in the store, allowing me to get the 2 items at $1.99 each giving me $5.71 profit. I also took advantage of the Target Glade Flameless candle deal here. All in all I am hoping that my stocking up over the last few weeks will make up the difference for next week's budget, but for now I am really getting back to having a fully stocked house.