Earning My Keep

I love being on a budget. Call me crazy, but it actually gives me the freedom to spend when I have money to spend and it gives me the challenge to make my money go as far as possible. I have a friend that talks at various groups about living on a budget and shopping smart. She guessed that in ten or so years she's saved her family roughly $60K just by being smart with her money and being on a budget. So I began thinking, wouldn't it be cool to actually know how much I'm able to SAVE our family??  My budget tells me how much I have to spend, but how much have I saved!?

So when I started "getting serious about couponing" back in January, I found a tracking chart that would help me keep track of what I spent & saved.  I know I am still missing a handful of receipts (they'll show up along the way!), but I've been trying to track my spending/savings since the beginning of the year, or at least mid-January. Although I'm only at about an average 70% savings, and I still see myself as an amateur, I'm pretty proud of what I've been able to do thus far. And my family isn't having to "suffer" being on a budget. I can assure you, I've NEVER had this many different kinds of name-brand cereal, razors, shaving cream, shampoo, cleaners, juices, etc, etc, available to us!  And for pennies. If not free!! :)

There was actually a friendly challenge this week on one of the bargain blogs I follow to see how far you could make $20 go in one week. Well, I made a few mistakes along the way, but I was able to get $141.64 worth of items at Walgreens for right about $16. Then I also got 12 cases of water at Albertson's for $13.88 - saving $46 - and being able to donate some of it to our MOPS garage/bake sale.

So although I'm "just a stay-at-home mom" I like to think (and know!!) that I'm earning my keep with what I've done so far this year. And if the proof is in the pudding, then here's the pudding - with whipped cream!! (which would have been on sale of course!) :)

Total since Mid-January 2010 to Mid-May 2010:
   $613.83       Total Spent since mid-January (groceries, toiletries, diapers, household items, etc.)

$1,062.59       Coupon Savings (yes, those glossy inserts from your Sunday paper do pay off!)

   $853.60       Store Savings (pays to watch the sales, or at least the blogs that do it for you!)

$1,916.19       Total SAVINGS (how much I’ve SAVED my family in 5 months!!)

$2,530.02       SPENDING + SAVINGS (what it would have cost me right off the shelf, no sale or coupon)

    71%            TOTAL % SAVED

Granted I probably should add the disclaimer that I don't include my Costco runs or Summit Trading Co.  to my tracking sheet simply because I don't necessarily get good deals there, I just get what I need. So I supposed I'd have to add Pull-Ups, some TP & Paper towels, and random bags of produce here and there. But all in all, I still think my numbers are pretty good!!