Make sure you read the introduction prior to reading this post.
This week’s savings did not amount to the same as last week’s but I still saved a good amount: $18. That money brings our 3 week total of money saved to $53 ($75 total including the $22 we had when we started the experiment). Not too bad. Over the course of 3 weeks, we’ve saved a little over more than 1/2 of our weekly total budget.
The only thing that I did differently this week was take my husband grocery shopping with me. When I go by myself, it is easy for me to stick to my list unless I see a great deal, like last week’s 100 calorie snack or the Amy’s meals. When my husband comes along, it’s the constant “oh, can we get this? can we get that?” And I tend to say “yes”. It’s weak of me, I know, and I need to stick to my guns a bit better but when he asks for a bag of chocolate chips so I can make chocolate chip cookies, how can I say no?
What was nice about this week was the ability to build a little bit of a stockpile. Although I’m not a huge fan of stockpiling, when I see a good deal on something that I know my family will eat, it’s hard to pass it up. For instance, at Aldi, they had varieties of pasta that they don’t normally carry for $.95 per box. And at the supermarket, my daughter’s orange juice (Tropicana 50) was on sale for $2.48 a carton (normally $3.99 a carton) so I bought 2. I did the same thing with my veggie protein substitutes. They were on sale for 2 for $6 (normally $3.99 for one) so I bought 3. I can stretch the “sausage” between 2 meals, so that’s 4 meals I can get for that money. I consider this a wise use of my money.
This week really drove home how much farther our money goes at Aldi than a traditional grocery store. I have not had a week where I have been able to spend less than $40 at the grocery store, which is $15-$20 higher than we had anticipated at the beginning of the experiment, and I only buy approximately 10-14 items. At Aldi, I’ve been buying on average of 30-35 items and spending around $40-$50. That’s almost double the amount of items for the same price! Now, I realize that what I buy at the grocery store are traditionally more expensive items, like low sugar juice or veggie protein substitutes, and I realize that if we would stop buying the low sugar juice and organic milk we could save a lot more money. And if we were in a situation where we could not afford those items, we absolutely would stop buying them. To that end, we are entertaining adding on a week to the experiment where we only shop at Aldi.
I had a wonderful picture all ready to go to show you what $42.10 buys at Aldi but my printer/conduit for uploading pictures stopped working. I will update with a picture when I can!
