Feeling Frustrated

I need to vent. Can I do that? Is anyone willing to listen? I just have to get a few things off my chest.

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Mike is a money guy. He's an Accountant, it's in his blood. So when the economy starts getting all crazy, he gets tense. Here's the thing: we are very blessed to have rental homes (Mike's 2 previous houses...the one he had when we got married and the one he had straight out of college) but if Mike could have it his way, we'd sell them, take the money and sock it away somewhere. But we would take a huge loss selling either house in this market, so we continue renting them out. It's working out fine, but it's just another burden to him.

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Given all of this, I've been making some changes over the last few months. I've seen some amazing savings tips on different blogs and I'm always up on the latest sales because of Money Saving Mom. Love it.

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In fact, because of her blog, I got into the CVS game. Does anyone else shop at CVS Pharmacy? I used to only get my prescriptions there because they always seemed to have $25 gift card coupons if you filled a new prescription with them. I'd use the gift cards to pay the co-pay for future prescriptions and that saved us money here and there.

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But there is much more to CVS than meets the eye. This post gives the details on their savings program and if you have further questions about it, read this post. The short version is that when you buy certain products, you get extra cash back (ECBs) toward future shopping trips. Back in July, I spent $20 on my first shopping trip and have shopped there weekly since then, never spending more than a dollar. No joke. Buying toothpaste, deoderant, diapers, stuff that I'd buy anyway, using newspaper coupons stacked on top of their ECBs, plus they'll randomly give out $4 off a $20 purchase coupons...it's really crazy. I have no idea how they make money. (Actually, I think I do...it's a part of the drug industry's conspiracy, I'm sure!)
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I digress. I have gotten tons of free stuff going to CVS, which I thought was saving us a bunch of money. I've also been using Diapers.com for cheaper diapers. They have free shipping on orders over $49, so it's convenient, too. (for a $10 coupon off your first order, use the code: KatieRoose) And I've been doing the produce co-op. And consolidating errands to save gas. And meal planning.

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Let's stop there for a minute. I'm meal planning, yes. But I'm not tailoring it to our budget and I think that's the problem. I basically take inventory of our food and plan our meals for the upcoming week with it. I saw a suggestion once to not make the protein the "star" of the meal (so instead of doing a whole chicken breast per person and 1/2 each for the kids, use only one chicken breast and put it in a casserole or stir fry or something like that) and another idea to work in a vegetarian meal or two into the meal plan. I did that and figured it had to help our bottom line along the way, right?
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OH - and get this: somehow during these last few months, I've managed to gain 7 pounds. And Mike's been complaining about his waistline, too. What's going on here??? My first thought was that, somewhere along the way, we must have increased our portion sizes. I can see this happening because I've been trying new, healthy recipes and some of them are delicious, but even healthy recipes have calories. This could also be directly related to our budget: if I make a meal intended for the four of us intending to have some leftovers and we end up eating it all, well...the extra meal is gone and we've retained all of the calories. Lovely.

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I read on another blog recently that you should only buy food on your shopping list when at the grocery store and I think that's where I'm failing. I routinely shop at Trader Joe's, Costco and Super Walmart. I have the "regular" things I buy, but I'll admit there's lots of impulse buying going on. I'll grab some chicken mango sausage at TJs to throw in the freezer or a quick-fix item to have "just in case." Then the higher priced items are ready to go when I need them, but I'm not taking their cost into consideration when meal planning. It seems like so much more work to think about the total cost of our meals each week and pay attention to every little thing, but I'm starting to realize that it's a necessary evil.

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I'm rambling...my point is this: I thought I've been saving us money, but I haven't. Mike asked me to compare our grocery spending in Quicken from recent months to earlier this year and it's almost identical. Within $20-30 per month, even compared to February thru April, way before I started being really careful. Granted, I should be thrilled since food prices have increased 17% lately, but I'm not. I was positive I was saving us big bucks. Of course, I never actually looked at it on paper, so I was wrong. (*sigh*)

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So I'm feeling frustrated. And overwhelmed at the thought of adding dollar amounts to our meals to make them fit our budget. On Money Saving Mom, she once mentioned that she spends roughly $40 per week on groceries for her family of four. No joke. Her breakfasts and lunches are about $.25-.50 per meal per person and dinners are around $1-$1.50 per person. A maximum of $2 per day for each person's food and household items!

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Knowing that we eat either an apple ($.50 each at TJs) or a Kashi granola bar (one per person) almost every day for a morning snack, and that they're just under $3 for a box of 6 - so $.50 each, I was shocked that I was spending more on a snack than she spends on a whole person's meal. (she's dealing with new-pregnancy morning sickness and has recently increased her weekly budget from $40 to $70 so she can buy more convenience foods...check out this post for some of her meal suggestions with her "increased" grocery spending)

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All that said, I'm motivated to decrease our grocery budget. Without sacrificing our healthy-eating ways. Oh man, this is going to take a lot of brain cells. Does anyone have any tips or guidance because I don't really know where to start!