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[rockthecrown]

I went to the grocery store by myself. BY MYSELF! That was the first hour that I've had to myself in almost 2 months. It was either go to the store in the pouring rain with both kids or have Jay watch them. He watched them both! Granted I made sure that I didn't leave until the kids were down for their morning nap, but that's ok. The past two weeks

Comments

[quara]

I don't know how you do it. I wonder if groceries are just really expensive in Montreal, or what! Neal and I are trying to tighten our belts and have alloted only $150 in groceries for the next two weeks. For two people! And that's going to be hard to do! We have cereal for breakfast, PB&J for lunch (bought in bulk from Costco), and we usually only make about two dinner meals for the week and just make it last. Ground beef is usually the only meat we buy. This week our dinner will be acorn squash stuffed with rice, ground beef, mushrooms and onions. Last week it was chili. It's not really that fancy. We don't buy pop or chips or cookies or crackers, rarely cheese.

Last week when I was home in Burlington I saw that milk is sold for abour $1.50 cheaper there than it is here (per 4L bag) among other things. I just don't know how to be more frugal!! It's so awesome how you can budget for your family like that! I'm trying to work our 2-week budget down from $200 to something closer to $100, if I can figure out the tricks of the trade!!

[rockthecrown]

Prices could definitely be a regional thing. I find food to be expensive here...but the prices at Aldi are just amazing. I pretty much only buy store brand, try to buy what's on sale, and do my best to stick to my grocery list. I know I spend less when I already have dinners in mind. I used to spend a good $150 a week on groceries...but we don't have that type of money anymore, so it's just not an option.

The bill would be maybe $15 more, but right now we get a certain amount of staples like milk, eggs, beans, veggies for free since I'm only 4 months post-partum. Once I hit 6 months we won't get that assistance anymore.

[quara]

I do the same thing, store brands, sales, etc. We are doing better now that we have a budget, though. We used to just go to the stores whenever and buy what we needed plus whatever else looked good. We weren't monitoring what we were buying, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was $300/2 weeks. Once we worked out a budget, we started taking a set amount of cash out at payday, and kept it in an envelope, and that was our food money for the pay period! It's working pretty well, and now we're working on decreasing that money

[angelly_bean]

ahh, it's nice to have that little time to yourself, even if you're just running errands :)