Extreme Makeover-Grocery Bill Edition: A New Strategy

In my last few blogs on this topic, we talked about how to analyze your grocery bill and I presented a plan to reduce the overall size of my bill. Our plan was to give our kids a certain amount of money that they had to budget and keep track of and use to buy their own breakfast cereal and snacks. Did Putting Our Kids in Charge Work? Our initial results with putting our kids in charge were rather successful. Because fruits and vegetables were free, they started eating a lot more of those for snacks rather than hitting Dunkin’ … Continue reading

Extreme Makeover-Grocery Bill Edition: I Put the Kids In Charge

In my last blog I shared my very large grocery bill but I didn’t tell you what my strategies were to help whittle that down to less money. That’s because I didn’t know. I am convinced that my best ideas come when it is most inconvenient to write them down. That way, I have to mull on them long enough to ensure that eventually I’ll think of it again. I did share how to analyze your grocery bill to help see where you spend the most money on a daily basis. I was (and still am) determined to whittle category … Continue reading

Extreme (Grocery Bill) Makeover: Analysis 101

I told you I’d share the grand total of my grocery bill from last weekend and bit by bit, break it down and figure out how to save ourselves some money. I mentioned in my first blog, that there are instances where spending the time to save the money is not worth it to me. But I am curious to see if by analyzing our grocery bill I can trim it down a little. Are you ready? Are you sitting? The grand total for our grocery bill. . .for a family of 7. . .is. . . $430.00 for two … Continue reading

Extreme Makeover: Grocery Bill Edition

A big thanks to Mary Ann and Nicole for letting me share my frugal journey here with you all. Truth be told I’m not entirely that frugal. It is in part due to the fact that we live in the city. Categories actually exist in my budget that other people wouldn’t dream of putting in theirs. (Do you have a category in your budget specifically for parking tickets? I didn’t think so.) Furthermore, daily living here is just more difficult to manage without spending any money. Take laundry for example. Mary Ann wrote a great article about line drying laundry. … Continue reading

Frugal Living Week in Review: November 26th Through December 2nd

It is finally December. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by. It has been a year now, since I first started blogging here at Families.com in the Frugal Living Blog. A lot has happened in the world and in my own life. I continue to be in awe of anyone who practices a frugal lifestyle, and I have learned many different ways to save money. I can’t wait to learn even more. I hope that we can help each other in our efforts to save money and provide for our family. And now, here is the Frugal … Continue reading

Frugal Living Week in Review: October 29th Through November 4th

Is it getting chilly where you live? The weather is certainly getting brisk here, and the heat seems to always be on. I’ve been setting the thermostat to about 64, and bundling everyone up with sweaters. I think we are getting used to the cooler temperatures, because when my husband comes home and pushed the heat to 70, the rest of us complain that it is too hot. How have you been saving money this week? If you could use some ideas, then why not take a look at all of the articles we posted here in the past seven … Continue reading

Frugal Living Week in Review: October 15th Through October 21st

From saving money on meals to free flowers, it has been a mix of different money saving tips here in the frugal living blog, where you’ll find all sorts of ideas to make your money go as far as it can. That is important, especially now when oil prices are going up and the cold weather will be setting in for good in the next few weeks. And you really won’t want to miss our guest blogger at the start of her mission to save on groceries. October 15th Keeping Warm with Blankets Using blankets is a very frugal strategy. … Continue reading