Throughout the month of November, I am going to start 2 new challenges that will hopefully save me at least $200.
- I’m challenging myself and my husband to not eat out at all throughout the month of November.
- I’m challenging myself to only spend $70 per week on groceries for my family of 4.
I posted about these challenges on my personal Facebook page this weekend for accountability. My friends and family are curious to see how I am going to manage to feed my family for $70 a week. I’ve had lots of questions asked and I’ll address them here.
Question 1: Why are you doing this?
Over the weekend my husband and I had a hard look at our bank accounts to figure out what we are spending our money on and where we can save money. One thing I saw over and over again was that we were both eating out WAY too much. So that prompted me to challenge us to stop eating out to see how much money we save.
For the grocery challenge, we watched a YouTube video where a New Yorker survived on $1 meals and actually ate good healthy foods. I started thinking about what we currently eat and my grocery shopping habits and convinced myself that I can do better. Hence the $70 per week grocery shopping challenge.
Question 2: What about Thanksgiving?
We bring a side or dessert to family dinner. I can find one of each to make for under $1. I will update you all on what side dishes or dessert I end up going with.
Question 3: What about the kids lunches?
This includes all meals including snacks except for the kids lunches. They eat lunch at school and that is a separate budget.
Question 4: What does your meal plan look like?
This week is really simple using mostly stuff I already had. Dinners include potato soup, beans and cornbread, spaghetti with homemade sauce, taco night, burgers and homemade pizza. Lunches will be leftovers. Breakfast will alternate between oatmeal and homemade breakfast burritos. Snacks will be Shakeology (which I already have), carrots, apples and peanut butter and roasted pumpkin seeds.
Question 5: Do you have alcohol in this budget?
If I have anything left over in my budget I will splurge on alcohol. I’ve been sick and on antibiotics the past couple of weeks so I haven’t been drinking. I figure if I’ve gone this long I might as well save some $$. Beer and wine adds to the grocery bill fast!
So far I am in week 1 and coming in well under budget. Yesterday I planned my meals, went shopping and prepped for the week. I spent $42.18 at Aldi and $6.90 at Kroger. The name of the game this week is to make meals around what we already have and only buy the few extra things that we need. So far, so good!
Has anyone you ever done a challenge like this? Did you survive and make it through the whole challenge?