$203.61! That is what I spent on groceries for January! I thought I could, but wow, I can't believe I really, really did it! Looking back in my Quicken reports, I have spent anywhere from $500-$800 a month on food in any given month in 2008. I am definitely going to keep this $50/week thing up! I was talking to my friend last night about the $50/week grocery budget and I think the one thing that we don't buy as much as we used to is pre-packaged snacks, crackers, etc. She wanted to know what we eat for snacks. With all the couponing, I have found we always have tons of cheap yogurt, so the kids get lots of yogurt. And I have had really good coupons for string cheese, so there's always lots of that too. I also go searching out packaged ripe bananas at .25cents a pound and can usually find 4 pounds of bananas for $1, so then I will make smoothies or muffins with them, and those are good for snacks too. I will still get fruit snacks if they are .28 cents a box like they were a few weeks ago ;-)
The only other thing in my life that I can't really budget is our (TJ's) eating out habit. I don't eat out, but TJ does. There is absolutely no possible way to not have him eat out. Half the time he doesn't even know when he's working which makes things hard. Then, there isn't a real place to take a lunch and put it in a fridge or anything like that. So, he has been allotted $2/day for lunch :) He gets his little envelope with his $ for the week, then if he doesn't end up working that day, or he's at home and eats lunch, the money just stays in the envelope. Then his lunch fund will grow because he doesn't work every day, but he's still getting his $2. So if there's a day he needs to spend more than $2 it will work out. TJ is still looking at me like I'm crazy, but hopefully he'll appreciate all my hard work someday!
