$500 challenge - on your mark

Pay check hit the account this morning, so here we go. I think I'm going to do stream-of-consciousness style posts, so you can see how I go about grocery shopping in a month. LMK if it gets confusing, or if you need more explanation.

A reminder - my $500 for the month includes:
food & eating out
gas
clothing
coffee & beer making supplies
household necessities
entertainment
crafting supplies
gifts

I've spent the past couple of days going over what we have currently. I need to restock diapers/pull-ups for Kira. Kroger has a deal this week on Huggies that I may take advantage of. I also have a back-up raincheck from a sale at Walgreens from a couple of months ago - for $4.50 per pack on the Walgreens' brand diapers. I had the cashier write the raincheck for 4 packs. Rainchecks are a great way to guarantee yourself a sale for later.

We've also used almost all of our canned organic tomatoes stash, so I'll be keeping an eye out for a chance to restock those.

We're good on pasta, but getting low on brown rice.

Whole Foods has ground beef for $2.49/lb this week - I need to get there by Wed.

Derek ordered coffee this morning - $52.05 for 10 lbs including shipping. We'll be drinking this and this this month, if you're interested.

There's a moneymaker at Walgreens right now that I may try to take advantage of. I'll do a separate post on that - if I end up making it over there today.

Just read back over this and realized that I should start at the beginning! Before I shop, I look at the current ads. I check for organic produce sales and any obvious freebies. I then check the blogs over in my blogroll for any deals they've mentioned. I check the individual forums at Hot Coupon World and then I click on "new posts" to see what people are talking about - that's how I found the moneymaker deal mentioned above. I usually do all of this checking in little bits of time a couple of days before I actually plan on shopping.

I have an envelope for each store. I note the sales I want to hit on the outside of the envelope and then put any relevant coupons inside. I try to list things in the aisle order of the store. It cuts down on my time in the store, since I rarely have to back track. I do take my coupon binder in the store, too, but I rarely use it.

Kind of a random post here, but hopefully you find a nugget of useful info!

Now for the math:
I'm taking the $52.05 from the coffee off the top and adjusting my weekly amounts. That leaves me $111 per week to work with.

$500 Challenge running totals.
$52.05 - coffee

And finally - I changed the format of the blog - I didn't like how the last template ran the top and bottom of each new post together. What do you think?

I'd love questions! Ask away!

Q&A - part 2

Linda asked: Would you ever consider posting recipes?

Sure, if you want to see them! Derek and I usually work with modified versions of things we find in cookbooks or online. We're also prone to just dumping a bunch of different stuff into the crockpot.

Lots of questions about the coffee roasting. Tara asked: I know you can buy a hot air popcorn thingy at Walgreens but would like to know what brand, what to look for, instructions, and where to go from there.Do you have to store them any certain way? Different ways to roast to get different types (we prefer DARK beer and coffee...espresso, french roast, you get the picture).

Derek started here. Tara - the popper we got from Walgreens was Kitchen Gourmet brand. The main thing on the popper is that the air vents are on the bottom inside part of where you put the popcorn - like this. We have also used a Chefmate that we bought at Target and a couple of different ones that we found at thrift stores. Again, the vents on the bottom is the key.

When he was roasting with the popper, he usually roasted every morning for that day's coffee. Now that we have the Behmor 1600 roaster, he roasts a pound at a time. We store the roasted beans in a jar with a sealed top. We store the green coffee beans in the bags that they're shipped in.

I'll have to get Derek to answer the actual roasting questions.

(and Lourdes - I loved the making labels for coffee gifts idea!)

Lourdes asked: I have a stockpile question: when do you stop stockpiling?

When I started couponing, it wasn't long before we were swimming in toothpaste and shampoo. I wasn't sure how often those deals came around, so I wanted to get while the getting was good. Now I know that those deals are ALWAYS around.

Any product that needs to be newer, better, faster, have more blades, get your teeth brighter, whiter, hair shinier, fuller, softer, etc, etc, etc will always be cheap or free several times a month. The highest dollar coupons are for those products and those are the things that are free after RR (Walgreens) and ECB (Cvs).

So, when do you stop? For me, I stop when the drawer/shelf/box is full. I then either send things with Derek for the ladies he works with, give to the Mission, or start planning my next garage sale.

I do try to take advantage of every free toothbrush or floss offer, though. Those don't seem to come around quite as often.

Our food stockpile is obviously a continuing work. Dang family keeps eating. Again, though, I'm limited by the spot where I store whatever it is.

I'm thinking about a stockpiling post - so let me know any stockpile questions you may have.



Keep the questions coming!

Coffee & Beer

Random title - huh? My friend, Kam, is worried that y'all are going to think that we live a deprived life. So, this post will address two of Derek's hobbies and how they fit into our overall budget.

Derek home brews beer and home roasts our coffee (we order green coffee beans in bulk). Two hobbies that I am more than happy to support! Mama needs her coffee and life on a budget without alcohol is madness. (My apologies to any teetotalers out there.)

The beer has it's own line item in our budget every other month or so. I usually budget $50. Depending on what he's brewing, it usually works out to about $10 per 12 pack. And it's really, really good. I don't roll this into our food budget, because it is a treat. If we're having a tight month, it's obviously one of the first cuts. However, it's not just about beer - it is his hobby. And, I figure there's a ton of other hobbies he could have that wouldn't afford me nearly as much pleasure!

The coffee works out to about $5 a pound, because we buy in bulk. That is actually about half the price of buying whole coffee beans at the store. Derek likes to order from Sweet Maria's, if you're interested. He's used a hot air popcorn popper to roast for the past two years. We recently used some gift money to purchase a small home roaster. Again, an unnecessary expense, but one that keeps us willing to stay on the getting out of debt track for the long haul.

We spend around $30-$50 every other month for the green coffee beans. I usually try to roll the orders into months when I'm not trying to stockpile cat supplies, diapers, or other higher $ items. So, technically the coffee usually comes out of the grocery budget. There have been a couple of months that it bumped our grocery spending to $300 for the month. I can't live without high-quality caffeine. For real.

If anyone is interested in learning more about either the home brewing or the home roasting - I might be able to talk Derek into a guest post.

See, not deprived at all!! And after all that coffee talk - I now need a cup.