Ways to Save Money

OK, so while I have a minute, this class Dave Ramsey does is great... I must say though that I was ready for a change... For a while, I have known that my spending habits were not good... It's not that I shopped a lot for myself, but I was spending more than necessary at the grocery store even, and Target just on STUFF... and I knew that I needed to be making more sacrifices if I wanted to continue to stay home... I had struggled for a while with wanting more and more and the more I was in stores, the worse it got... Not that there is anything wrong with this if you have the means to pay for it but I did not and it was becoming consuming to me... This class has helped me to sit back and get perspective on things and realized that in order to one day be able to spend more freely, I needed to be more wise in my spending and savings now.

So, I've taken this on as a new challenge and have been amazed at just how much I can save by making just a few small changes... they are all small, but do add up! I wanted to share a few...

Sams- members mark diapers rather than pampers cruisers...
-pack of 200 for 32.00 will last Gabe 5 weeks versus buying pampers weekly in smaller packs... (saving of about 35 dollars a month)

buying lean ground beef at Sams in bulk... 2.50 a pound
I bought 10 pounds (25.00) but that will last our family about 2.5 months... I would have spent 50.00 at the grocery store buying it each week (25.00 savings)

Milk at Sams is 2.60 for regular and about 10 for 3 1/2 gallons of horizon... we have now switched to regular and saved about 11.00/week (44.00.month savings)

Coffee- this one was hard but I've switched from my gourmet flavored to good ole Folgers and it has been fine, still does the trick! It was 9.00 for a huge container which will last the month, I used to spend 9.00/week on coffee (27.00 savings a month)

Frozen all natural chicken, broccoli, green bean, and sweet potato fries are all much cheaper at Sams too although I have not figured out the exact savings on those....

A huge bag of romaine lettuce (6 heads) is 3.78 at Sams and also the gourmet salad mix is about 4.00 for a huge container that would last a week or more... it is twice
this at the grocery store...

Raisins are a great price there and I just buy them in big bags and bag my own snacks for the boys..also Cheerios, granola bars and applesauce!

OK, so I'm big on Sams..

Also, I have discovered that the Dollar Tree has some great buys...
-antiseptic mouth wash
-adult bath washes... I still get the boys Aveeno
-frozen strawberries and peaches for smoothies (1.00 /lb... savings of 1.29 a bag)... this is even cheaper than Sams
-even Nature's Own Bread for 1.00, it's fresh too... crazy!

Audi is a great place too, lots of brands I've never heard of but they've all been fine...Several great buys I've found are:
olive oil
canned goods
yogurt


Last of all, I'm trying to STAY OUT OF STORES unless absolutely necessary, and just send Jay in between my big shopping trips, it's amazing how much it helps! My goal is to buy in bulk and try to stretch my trips to once a month... we'll see how it goes ! I'll let ya'll know how much I can reduce my grocery bill per month!