My Grocery Budget Goals 2011

My Goals for Our Grocery Budget in 2011

1. Stick to a Budget of $120 Per Month. With a new baby we are sure to have many more grocery expenses.  My goal is to spend $120 or less each month.  Last year we did pretty well overall at sticking to $100 per month.  I will evaluate how we are doing on the $120 half way through the year to determine if I am able to meet my other grocery budget goals with that amount.

2. Challenge Me.  My goal is to have just enough in the budget.  Our overal budget is very tight in order to save as much as we can.  Many of our budget categories are pre-determined amounts (like rent), while I can change my grocery spending.

3. Encourage a Healthy Stockpile.  Allow me to buy all the groceries (food, personal care products, and household items) that our family needs for that month and stock up for future months. (When I can get items cheap or free, I try to get enough to last us 3 months as long as it fits in our budget.)

I am definately not perfect at sticking to our grocery budget.  Several times last year we did go over our grocery budget in order to stock up on items that were on a great sale.  In order to do this, we took money from other budget categories that month to pay for the extra groceries. 

Happy New Year!

A Glimpse of What's to Come
Happy New Year!  I hope that you all had a great 2010 and are excited to start 2011.  As you may have noticed, I am big on setting goals.  Here are a few of my goals for this blog in 2011.

1. Continue to share my favorite coupon and store deals.
     I apologize that I do not always post about the most recent store deals.  I do post about my favorite deals and great sales, but great deals often depend on individual needs.  In order to better help you find the best deals on the groceries you need, I have added a Store Deals tab on the top of my blog.  On this page I have links to my most recent favorite deals for that store along with a link to a complete list of store deals.  The complete list of store deals will direct you to another blog that consistently updates deals for those stores.   

2.  Share more simple, inexpensive craft ideas.
     I love crafts.  I plan to spend more time crafting and posting about my simple, inexpensive craft ideas and do it yourself projects.  I will also be sharing my sewing adventures as I learn to use my new sewing machine.

3.  Share my experience as I try to be more efficient in the home.
     This year I will be making the transition from working out of the home to being a stay at home (hopefully work at home) mom.  My goal is to learn to be more efficient in the home.  Here are a few of the topics I plan to explore:

• Freezer Cooking- I have done some freezer cooking in the past, but I want to try more recipes.  I  usually freeze one or two meals at a time.  I want to work up to freezing 15-20 meals in one day.
• Time Organizing Ideas- It is easy for me to get side tracked on an exciting project and not complete my basic chores for the day.  I will be sharing my experience as I try some time organization techniques.  I hope to learn ways to be more efficient with my time.
• Coupon Organizing- I currently have a coupon binder, but I am not great at keeping it organized.  This year I am going to experiment with other ways of organizing coupons.  My goal is to find the simplest organizing technique that works for me.  I will let you know which methods I try and what I decide.

4.  Continue to share my financial goals, and budgeting techniques.
    A big part of frugal living is learning to handle money wisely.  I will continue to share our financial goals and progress, grocery budget progress, and my budgeting experience and tips.  As I share my experience, I hope you are encouraged to make and stick to your budget and financial goals.

If you have any suggestions or things that you would like to see on The Coupon Basics in 2011, simply send me an email at thecouponbasics@gmail.com.  I would love to hear your input and suggestions.

The purpose of this blog is to motivate myself to reach my goals and learn new things while inspiring others to set and reach goals in finances and in the home.  Join me on my journey as I explore ways to make frugal living a lifestyle in 2011. 

Financial Goals for 2011

2010 was full of unforeseen events- and 2011 is starting off with a lot of unknowns.  I last updated you in October right after Daniel started a new job.  Shortly after that he was laid off, and he is again searching for a job.  Even though we are unsure of our exact income, we have set several savings goals to start off the year. 

2010- Learning From History
Before we set our new goals for this year, we reviewed our spending and saving habits in 2010.  It is always interesting to me to see how fast those small expenses add up! 

First we evaluated our expenses and made a budget for 2011 based on how much we spent in 2010.  We chose to eliminate several expenses, and highlighted a few areas where we could cut back when things get tight.

Second we reviewed how we did on savings.  We learned a lot this year about how to save more effectively.  We began the year with one lump "savings"  We now have our savings divided into separate accounts for each of our savings goals.  We learned to put a name on every dollar, and save for all upcoming expenses.

We were happy to see that we saved 43% of our income in 2010.  We also recognized that we will be loosing a lot of that income once our baby is born sometime in January.  I will be a stay-at-home mother.  Our goal is for me to find a few ways to earn a little income from home that will help us put a little more into savings. 

Our savings goals encourage us to use our money wisely.  We recently began using Mint.com to track our budget & goal progress.  I highly recommend Mint to anyone who is looking for help on setting and keeping to a budget.

2011- Setting Goals
Because of our unknown income, we are starting off the year with a few basic savings goals.  I will be updating you on our progress at the end of each month.

Health- 44%
We have a little saved for health care.  With a new baby, we are sure we will need a little more put aside.  We will be saving a little each month to help cover any doctors visits and medical expenses.

Second Vehicle- 0%
We have decided that it would be nice to have a second vehicle.  We will begin saving towards that.  

School- 0%
We continue to save towards Daniel's further education.  We have made a new savings goal for this year and will keep you updated on our progress!

For Daniel and I, setting goals gives us direction and helps keep us motivated and focused.  We are excited to see what the New Year will bring to us.  Good luck on your goal setting!

October Budget Review & Goals Update

October Review
It has been an awesome month for couponing!  I have decided that the fall is my favorite time to coupon shop.  There are a lot of great deals on medicine, baking goods, and other items that we use a lot. 

Our plan was to make up for going over September's budget by staying under budget in October.  It did not work out that way.  We decided that it was worth it to take a little from other budget categories this month so that we could spend a little more on groceries and stock up on items while they were at a rock bottom price.  We ended up spending just over $130 on groceries in October.

This month we will be closely monitoring our spending using Mint.com.  We are determined to continue stocking up while staying withing our $100 budget for November.

Good News!
At the end of September Daniel was out of work and looking for a new job.  We had no idea what our income would be over the next few months.  I am happy to report that he found a new job that is better than we ever hoped for.  God has truely blessed us.  This month I have been reminded that God knows us & our needs better than we know ourselves.  Daniel's new job will help us to meet our current savings goals and set bigger goals for the future.

Current Savings Goals
Here is an update on how we are doing towards our current savings goals.  We have set these goals to be reached by the end of January when the baby arrives.  Once we meet that mile marker, we will be setting new goals.

Thanksgiving Trip to California - 100%
Daniels family lives in California and we will be traveling to see them this year for Thanksgiving.  We have to save the gas money to get there.
Christmas Gifts-47%
We are not big on spending a lot on gifts for ourselves.  But we are saving for a few small things and gifts for our family members.  We hope to use Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks for part of this.
Emergency  Fund- 75%
Our current emergency fund is only enough to live on for one month.  We want to boost it up to 3 months before the baby gets here.
Baby-100% & 31%
We have two funds for the baby.  One for maternity & medical expenses.  The other is to help buffer the additional expenses and needs that we might not be expecting.  I plan to use cloth diapers, so part of this fund will be spent purchasing those.
Vet School-78%
We continue to save as much as possible towards vet school with the goal of aquiring as little debt as possible during those 4 years. 

As we do our best to be self reliant and live within our means, I know that the Lord will continue to bless us.  I am so grateful for a husband that will work with me as we try to live a debt free life.

September Budget Check & Financial Goals Update

September Review
September has been a crazy month.  We are trying to adjust back to a regular schedule after being gone so much during the summer months.  I was able to stock up on flour and canned goods at the case lot sale at Smith's at the beginning of the month.  We decided to allow ourselves to go a little over budget to get some of those good deals and a few good deals at Walgreens this week.  Total we spent $121 on groceries this month.  We will try to keep next months total close to $80 to make up for it.

Looking to the Future
We are so blessed. While Daniel and I have been able to both work we have been able to really save for the future.  Both of our work schedules have been changing a lot in the last few weeks.  We are very unsure of what our income will be over the next few months, but we will save toward our goals a little bit at a time.

Since our income will be fluctuating quite a bit over the next few months, we have decided to do a month to month check up.  At the end of each month we will sit down and see how we are doing towards our big savings goal, Vet school.  We have also set small savings goals to keep us motivated and help us focus on the little improvements.

Vet school is our big savings goal, but we have several 'accounts' that we are saving toward right now.  We will make goals on saving towards them each month based on what we think we can earn.  Here are our current savings goals & percentage saved:

Current Savings Goals
Thanksgiving Trip to California - 67%
Daniels family lives in California and we will be traveling to see them this year for Thanksgiving.  We have to save the gas money to get there.
Christmas Gifts-0%
We are not big on spending a lot on gifts for ourselves.  But we are saving for a few small things and gifts for our family members.  We hope to use Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks for part of this.
Emergency  Fund- 67%
Our current emergency fund is only enough to live on for one month.  We want to boost it up to 3 months before the baby gets here.
Baby-75% & 6%
We have two funds for the baby.  One for maternity & medical expenses.  The other is to help buffer the additional expenses and needs that we might not be expecting.
Vet School-60%
We continue to save as much as possible towards vet school with the goal of aquiring as little debt as possible.

As we do our best to be self reliant and live within our means, I know that the Lord will continue to bless us.  I am so grateful for a husband that will work with me as we try to live a debt free life.

The Road to a Debt Free Education- A Recap of May

Another month has gone by already!  We have been working hard & saving hard.  First, our grocery budget.

We came in just under $100 this month at $98.07. We have not spent much on toiletries recently, so I am hoping for some good deals at Walgreens this month!  I am going to try my hand at the drug store game again so that I can keep stocked up on the essentials.

Our Vet School Savings is at 56%.  Yupee!  It will be a tough next couple of months to reach our goal, but I think we can do it!  We have written down our preliminary 4 year plan for school.  There are so many variables, but we have a base plan!  We will see how it really turns out.

Amazon Savings for School Books: $45 thanks to Swagbucks!  That may sound small, but I think it is great for just searching the internet! Learn more about Swagbucks here.

Other Ways to Earn a Little Extra
Swagbucks is definately my favorite reward system.  But these are a few others I have participated in and enjoy:
Shop at Home: I try to remember to go through my Shop at Home account whenever I make a purchase.  It is small growth, but every little bit helps!

Opinion Outpost: This is a survey company where you can get paid a few bucks to take a survey.  I am going to try and do one a week.  That should earn me $2-$3 every week. Opinion Outpost is the best survey company I have found so far.

My Points: This is a company that gives you points for certain tasks.  The two that I do are reading emails & printing coupons!  I have a junk mail account that I use to sign up for things.  I just click through the My Points emails once a week and get 5 points per email.  You can also earn 10 points per coupon you print and redeam through My Points.  You can then redeam these points for various prizes.  I plan on getting $10 Subway gift cards.  We enjoy splurging & eating out every once in a while.

The Road to a Debt Free Education- 40%

March & April Progress

March & April were crazy months!  We have had a lot going on.  We went on a vacation, moved, and have been without internet at home for almost a month!  I never realized how dependent we were on the internet until we did not have it.

Unfortunately, our budgeting technique also depends on the internet.  We have been very behind on our checks and balance system, but we spent a few hours last weekend getting everything caught up.  We also evaluated our new system & made some changes to improve the efficiency.

The month of April, as you probably noticed, I did not do much coupon shopping.  We used a lot of what we had & went to the store for the essentials. This month we will be doing a little re-building of our stock pile.
I am happy to report that our savings for vet school is going well.  Our original goal was to have enough to pay for a year of vet school (living and tuition).  In Feb. we revamped our savings technique to be more practical and accurate.  Our goal now is to have enough to pay for tuition & school expenses by August (not living expenses).  We now have 40% toward that goal.  We also have several extra earning ideas to help us reach it.  I will be blogging about them throughout the month!

On the Road to a Debt Free Education- A Step Back

We began the year with a lofty financial goal- to get through 4 years of vet school debt free.  Our goal for this year to help us reach that goal was to have enough saved by August to pay for 1 year of vet school.  It is time to see how we are doing to date.
 
This month we have re-evaluated our savings plan.  We have listened to several of Dave Ramsey's CDs from the Financial Peace University series.  Dave talks about putting a name on your dollar.  We feel like we do pretty well at budgeting and saving towards our goals, but we found a flaw in our savings plan.

We had money in "savings" that was going towards vet school.  This was good.  The problem was that this was also our emergency fund, our summer vacation money, etc.  So we had one pool of "savings" and 10 different places that we subconciously planned to use it.  We have worked out our new plan, and I am very excited about it.  We still use Quick Books to keep track of our spending, but we have created an excel sheet to plan our spending and put a name on each dollar in savings. 

How It Works
Every time we get a pay check, we input the amount into our excel sheet.  After our expenses are taken out, the remainder is divided into the categories that we are saving for.  We have planned the allocation so that each 'account' will reach the necessary amount by the time we need to use it. 

For example, we will need $230 to pay for gas & food expenses on our trip to visit Daniel's family this July, so every month we are putting $46 into that savings 'account'.  We are also planning on a trip to California in November that will cost $230.  Since it is further away, we are putting $25 a month into that category.  Both 'accounts' will have $230 when we need the money.  Our actual money is still in one place, but each dollar has a name & purpose.

Where We Are Now
I am very excited about our re-vamped saving plan, but there is one sad part.  Once we started dividing up our savings into other categories, our total saved towards vet school took a big step back.  Though I wish we had more saved for that, I am very glad that our new savings plan is much more accurate.  Our percentage saved towards vet school to date is now 18%.  This makes our goal to have one year of vet school saved for by August an even harder target, but we have a plan.

Our Plan
Daniel & I are both working full time. (Daniel was able to beat the economy & find a job- Hurray!)  So we will keep to our little budget & put as much of our income as we can into savings.  We also plan to take advantage of the many online opportunities to make & save money.  Here are a few of the things we are trying:

Swagbucks- we are using this to make money on Amazon to buy Daniel's books for school.
Online Surveys-  Daniel & I have both tried several sites that pay you a few dollars to take short surveys.  I will be posting about our favorites & ones we don't like this next week.
My Points- Print Coupons through My Points & earn gift cards for gifts & travel.
Online ING Savings Account- We oppened an online savings account that gets 1.25% interest.  This is not much, but it is way better than the savings accounts at our other bank!

These are all little things we are doing to reach our big goal.  The few dollars we make on surveys seams so small sometimes- but every little bit counts!  We have decided not to lower our goal for August even though we might not reach it.  If we have a larger goal to shoot for, hopefully we will be motivated to work a little harder and get a little closer.

Vet School Savings Plan

A few weeks ago Daniel had an interview at Washington State University, College of Veterinary Medicine. We have had our fingers crossed to see if we will be going to school this year.  Last week we got a letter in the mail...  and Daniel is an Alternate for the entering class of 2010.  So we are back to the waiting game.  We might be going to school this fall, and we might be applying to go in the class of 2011.

Either way, we still plan on going to vet school- so we will plan towards that! 

The Road to a Debt Free Education
In our Monthly Evaluation for January I mentioned that we would be researching income earning methods to help us to reach our savings goals for vet school.  Last week we re-discovered the potential of Swagbucks and realized how it could help us towards our goals. In the process, we have made an additional goal:

Earn enough Swagbucks to pay for Daniel's vet school books on Amazon

We realized that we should be able to buy the majority of Daniel's books at a lower price on Amazon using money we have earned from Swagbucks.  A $5 Amazon gift card is 450 Swagbucks.
This means taking advantage of all the opportunities to earn Swagbucks- namely free codes in the toolbar, Mega Swagbucks Friday, and Referals.  If you are interested in giving Swagbucks a try, use my link & help us towards our goal!

I will be keeping you updated on our progress & reminding you of earning opportunities.

New to Swagbucks? Read my Swagbucks post to learn more about my experience with Swagbucks.

On the Road to a Debt Free Education

It is the end of January, can you believe it?!  Time to evaluate our goals and see how we have done this month. 

Daniel and I have made the long term goal of getting through vet school debt free.  The more research we do the more un-reachable this goal seams- but we are going to try our hardest to reach it and hope that we are close.  We made a few goals for 2010 to try and get us closer to our debt free education.  Our main goal for this year is to have enough money saved by August to pay for 1 year of vet school.  Each month we will evaluate our position and see how we are doing and what else we need to do to reach that goal.

We started out the year with 29% saved.  I would love to say that things have gone exactly as planned and we now have nearly 50% saved toward our goal, but when does life go exactly as planned?  Life takes its own course and we learn to run with it!

We began the month hoping that Daniel would be able to find a job within a week or two, but he is still battling the economy trying to find a decent job.  My job provides enough for us to live on, but does not allow us to save as much as we had hoped.  We are happy to say that we have increased our savings this month.  With one month down we have 34% saved toward our goal.

Even though we are not as close as we had hoped, we are still aiming to have 100% saved for our first year of vet school by August.  This next month we will be researching new and different ways to earn a little extra income to help us with this goal- Stay tuned!

There are a few other goals that we have done well on this month.  We have began menu planning & experimenting with freezer cooking.  Read more about my experimenting with freezer rolls and Chicken Noodle Soup.  I am excited to continue experimenting with freezer cooking.  I am sure these time saving tips will come in handy during the busy days in vet school!

Financial Goals for 2010

New Years Resolutions and Goals

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010! The New Year brings both new opportunities and new challenges.

2009 Recap:
Daniel and I both graduated with our bachelor degrees. Yuppee! Daniel has applied to 4 veterinary schools, and so far has at least one interview. We made it through our undergrad debt free thanks to savings and frugal living.

2010 Goals:
I have been following Crystal’s blog at Money Saving Mom. They made it through law school debt free, and now they have saved enough money to pay 100% down for a house! We have been motivated by this success, and Daniel and I have a new long term goal to Get through Vet School Debt Free! I know that is huge, but I think we can do it- or get super close!

Since this is a huge goal with a lot of unknowns, we have broken it down a bit. Our New Year financial goal is to have 100% saved for one year of vet school by August. We currently have 29% towards our goal. Here are a few of our steps to help us accomplish this:

Careful Budgeting
We have always used an excel sheet for our budget. We have decided to upgrade to a free version of QuickBooks. This will make it easier for us and for our accountant. We will be able to precisely monitor our goals. I will let you know how it goes!

Minimize Spending
This means fully taking advantage of coupons & freebies. Our goal is to continue spending $100 a month ($25 a week) or less on groceries. As usual, this will include stocking up on both food and personal care products.

Menu Planning & Freezer Cooking
We want to take advantage of this time that we have and learn ways to make frugal living easier. If we master the lifestyle now, we will be able to continue it during hard/ busy times at vet school.

Investing
We are still working out the details, but we plan to invest our savings this year to help us reach our long term goal of getting through vet school debt free.

That is our plan in a nut shell. At the end of each month I will let you know how we are doing. Even if we do not get 100% of our goal, we will get a lot closer than if we did not even try! 
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
                                Les Brown

Have you written down financial goals for the New Year?