You know how they talk about the many many MANY hats of a mom. The chef, the chauffer, the nurse, the teacher, the counselor, the doctor, and the list really is endless.
Well, who has the cash to pay for all those outfits? Not this girl! That’s for sure!
The good news is that there is a simple solution to help you dress the part of carpool in the morning and flawlessly transition for a hot hubby date night! All with making a few simple tweaks to a must have closet staple.
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Nah! I don’t need a few extra hundred dollars this month. I am SO loaded that I really don’t care about those hundreds of dollars that could be sitting in my bank account right now!
Yeah right! Are you kidding me!?! I don’t know a single person, poor or well off, that would EVER say this!
Even if I could save just $100 a month I would totally do whatever it took. Wouldn’t you? Do you want to know why? Because that is $1,200 a year my friend! Talk about cutting expenses!
How Much Could I Really Save?
That is exactly what monthly meal planning has done for our family! We used to spend close to $900 each month on food. Now we are down to less than $400 each month for our family of 5.
If you combine that savings over a one year period, that’s around $6,000 we are saving each year! Simply by sticking to a meal plan!
YOU can totally do this too! Most families in the USA spend more that $900 a month on food. How much money could you be saving?
Think about what you could do with that hard earned cash!
So every month over on my YouTube channel, (which you should totally subscribe to because it’s pretty fun over there) I give you guys a behind the scenes look at our monthly grocery haul.
Would you guys be interested in seeing exactly what we I put on our menu every month?
Are we Going to be Eating Boring Foods on Such a Small Budget?
I do like to mix it up a lot. I don’t repeat any meals within the month and I like to keep the cuisine types fresh and new. We aren’t eating mac and cheese every night, if you know what I mean.
Mexican, Italian, American, and maybe Mediterranean. I find ways to make delicious meals five times a week, all within our $400 monthly grocery budget! I can share the details with you guys if you would like?
Leave a comment below if that’s something that you would be interested in!
It’s More Than Just a Grocery Haul!
In each of my grocery haul videos on my YouTube channel, I do a lot more than just walk you through what we bought that day. We are better friends than that!
I LOVE to share with you price points that I look for while I’m doing my grocery shopping. One of the best things about shopping for a month’s supply of food, is that you can shop in bulk on more things, which usually gets you a really great price!
Within each video I also share my quick and easy tips with you to save even more money. I’m talking, saving MORE money then what you are already going to be saving by meal planning.
This month I am sharing with you my very favorite rebate app called Ibotta. You will have to watch the video to get more detail but the main reason it’s my favorite right now is because you can get rebates on off-brand items. So look for the product with the lowest price, and then get a rebate on top of that!
I just bought several new fall outfits using the money I have earned through using Ibotta! Seriously! Okay, I’ll do a video to prove it to you! Stay tuned for that!
October Grocery Haul
Without further adieu, here is a look at what our MONTHLY grocery shopping looks like! Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss out on the fun!
The key to having a productive day is sleep! Think about it. You start and end each day with sleep. Our brain physically cannot live without sleep! It is just as important to our health as food and water.
It turns out you can get so much more done in your day when you sleep longer at night! Here are some tips on how to have a more productive day by sleeping more.
What do you think about once a week, we get together, eat something super tasty, pretend like we don’t care how many calories we are devouring, and all the while we have some heavy (in a fun way!) girl talk going on!?
The chitchat will all be centered on a few chapters taken from the current book that we are obsessing over.
Doesn’t that sound super fun! I’m a lot excited about it! What a great way for us to better get to know each other?
Our first book is THE PERFECT read for someone who needs a heavy dose of shopaholic’s anonymous! It’s for someone whose desire to spend is borderline addiction.
We used to be those people who say things like, “Yeah! I think we can afford that.” Then spend the money without another thought. Four days before payday, we would get the dreaded notice of Overdraft & Fees!!
This literally was happening to us more than once a month! Things are quite a bit different now!
What did we change? Well, it’s not complicated at all. It’s called a B-U-D-G-E-T. Don’t freak out! (I feel like I say this a lot! Haha!!)
Dang it! We did it again! Oh no, another $30 overdraft fee! Why are we always over spending?
This scenario was recurring way too often in our bank account. We would think we were staying on budget but the reality was, we really had no idea where all our money was going.
Every month, three days before the next pay day, I would send a frantic text to my husband, “Don’t spend another penny! We only have $18 left!” Then some months, it was too little too late.
Pending purchases would push us over the edge and we would end up paying overdraft fees. Getting us ever further behind on the next pay periods spending! Ugh!
I am so sorry if this dramatic reenactment sounds all too familiar for you.
The good news is that we eventually figured it out! In fact, we are actually an entire month ahead of our bills now! We haven’t had overdrafted our bank account in over a year!
Can you imagine how wonderful that feels? How completely freeing it is to have your spending under control! Looking at our budget no longer provokes tense conversations or anxiety driven swipes of our debit card.
You’re trying your best to eat healthy but your dang bank account keeps getting in the way!
There is a rumor going around. I have heard it from many different sources. You know, it’s just to dang expensive to eat healthy!
Don’t fall for it!
I’m going to break it down for you and share some quick tips that you can use on your next shopping trip to help you eat healthy even if you are broke!
We love smoothies in our house! It doesn’t matter what time of the year, we will always eat them. You might find us huddled around our kitchen table wrapped up in layers of sweatshirts and blankets because we are freezing. It doesn’t matter what the temperature is outside, we will keep drinking this frozen treat!
One of the reasons it is a constant in our home is because I love that my kids will actually be eating something healthy! My kids are uber-picky eaters and feeding them smoothies is one way I can easily get some nutrition into their little bellies.
The hard thing about this is that frozen fruit can be super expensive! Not only is the price hard to handle sometimes but the flavor of store bought frozen fruit is not always wonderful. The solution, start freezing fruit on your own! You will save at least 50%!
What in the world happened to our family budget updates? Remember I used to be sharing these things every month? Yeah, sorry about that!
The complete honest truth is that I just forgot. Going forward, I don’t plan to share these every single month, but you are more likely to see a scenario of me sharing maybe every other month. Unless something important comes along, then I will share more frequent.
