Weekly Spending: Spend less money on groceries
This week I spent about $75 on entertainment. Of that, $50 was on books and $15 was on bank fees that really could have been avoided. After that, I spent $10 on a pizza for my daughter and her friends one day. I packed my lunch all this week and brewed Tim Horton’s coffee at home which cut down significantly on what I would normally spend on crap during the day.
We also ventured into our first “shop the sales” adventure this week by going through all the flyers to find good deals. We ended up going to Walmart, Sobeys, Shoppers Drug Mart, and No Frills. Husband went one way and I went the other to get everything accomplished. Altogether we spent about $150 on groceries. I learned a few things from our first venture into flyer shopping:
1. Always read the fine print. If you don’t pay attention to the whole ad in the flyer or on the little sign at the store, you’re going to end up buying the wrong item. I’m not really a details person so I did this more than once. Thankfully I realized this before going up to the cash register to purchase my erroneous item.
2. Not all sales and prices are created equal. While a 2 for 1 deal might seem swell at first, the brand on sale might not be the bargain you hoped for when compared to other lower-priced brands available (regularly priced or not).
3. Go early. Apparently, I’m not the only one reading the flyers. By noon on Sunday, people have already descended like a swarm of locusts on the super sale items and cleared everything out. Good luck trying to find anything after that point.
We didn’t do a lot of driving or waste a lot of gas to accomplish our first frugal shop; we live in a small city so everything was within fifteen minutes of the house. As we go along and learn more, I imagine we’ll get a lot more skilled at prioritizing our shopping and finding the best deals that work for us.
Life Under Construction:
I decided that my new blog posting schedule will be Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sunday and Friday will consist of my Weekly Update and Sweet Savage Love which are less labour-intensive posts. Wednesday will be my whale post. I’m going to try this for a while and see how this goes. Hopefully this will be more sustainable over the long term for me.
Monthly Challenge: Spend Less Money on Entertainment
I’ve been thinking about my entertainment spending and how I tend to spend only on food during the week. If I were to cut out food spending, I bet I could stretch my entertainment budget a lot further. So for the next month, I am going to reduce my entertainment budget to $50 a week.
I want to get more creative with how I spend my time and money. Reducing my spending to $50 a week will require far more prioritizing and planning on my part. I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone and find new ways of having fun on a frugal budget. I plan on starting this week and going through until the September. Wish me luck!
ooh new site design. I like it! For me it’s not the posting schedule, it’s the HOUR upon HOURS I spend commenting. That’s what eats up most of my time regarding blogging. But I don’t see a way around it, since I also really enjoy it. Hope you find your new schedule works!
Thanks buddy! I wanted a site layout that offered more flexibility for readers to navigate my site. I think this will help.
I know what you mean about the commenting. I love it too but it is very demanding time-wise. I learn a lot too. I am beginning a schedule for this too. There are about thirty blogs I comment on regularly – I’ll try commenting on seven blogs a day (I read more though).
I think that $15 in bank fees could be the world’s most depressing form of “entertainment”!!!
Laugh, so true. It wasn’t really entertainment but the bank fees came as a result of my not paying attention. Money came out before other money went in and I was charge for overdrawn account fees. It was my own stupidity. I figured it should probably come out of entertainment budget – kind of like a stupid tax. 😉
Yay. New site design and new blog schedule. I guess that means your sticking around. Whoop whoop.
I am sticking around! I love blogging way too much!
I’m trying to make a game out of getting the most out of my time and challenge; I find this more motivating than just powering through the stuff I don’t like.
Good luck on your challenge! I am sure you’ll be able to do it. I think I need to follow suit and start spending less on entertainment. In the summer I tend to spend way more.
I’ve been reading a lot about how summer seems to cost more money on PF blogs. As a learning, I think I will reduce my entertainment budget by a little bit for fall and winter and then save up all the extra for summer. Who doesn’t enjoy patios, festivals, and camping? It’s totally worth scrimping a little the other months of the year.
I’ve never been big into watching for coupons or sales. It’s really just a matter of hassle for me, though I’m sure I could save money by being more cognizant of them. It will be interesting to hear how you guys hone your strategy.
Hey Matt, I’m not sure we’re going to be big couponers either. My husband is already bored with it and he didn’t do anything with it. I want to try doing this for the next couple weeks and see what we can learn from it, at the very least.
Nice site design, Lindsey! Glad to hear you’re sticking around, my friend. Sounds like a good plan to me. I have to confess that I’ve never been the best coupon shopper, although when I shop online, I will take the time to do a quick search for a free shipping code. 🙂
Coupon shopping isn’t for everyone. I’m not sure it’s for anyone – it’s a pain in the ass. But I think we’ll learn a lot regardless of whether we make it a habit or not.
But online shopping and doing a quick search for a coupon code before ringing through the purchase saves me money almost every time.
It sounds like you are making some progress!!!! And, I’m also glad to hear that you’re continuing your blogging journey!
Thanks! Blogging has been a great ride so far, why end it now? Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
I like the new design!!
I totally think you can lower your entertainment to under $50/week you just need to get creative!!