Marie — cutting your grocery bill from $700 to $500 in three months is awesome! How many are in your family?
I have managed to cut my grocery bill down to $100 a week, including cleaning supplies and toiletries, but not pet food and supplies. I make my own laundry detergent out of Fels Naphtha soap, Arm and Hammer Washing Soda, and 20 Mule Team Borax. It costs 1 to 2 cents a load, depending on whether you have a front loader or a top loader. It works better than Tide. (There are many websites where you can get the exact recipe, so I won’t post the details here.) As far as the Dawn, do you have a CVS in your area? Check out the website www.moneysavingmom.com (sorry I don’t know how to do the linky thing) and learn how to use the CVS discount system to your advantage. I have 18 bottles of Dawn under my kitchen sink that I got either free or for pennies at CVS. Also, if you have an Aldi in your area, check it out! I paid $1.99 a gallon for milk this week!
If you have a Walgreen’s in the area, they have great in-store specials with their coupons (on lots of BASIC needs) and at http://www.walgreens.com you can get additional coupons. They also have a Super Saver magazine each month and lots of times you can get stuff for free after rebates, and you can combine a lot of national-brand coupons with their in-store coupons so sometimes they pay YOU to cart stuff out the door.
Also, request the FREE samples of this and that every few weeks from http://www.walmart.com (Click on “In Stores Now” and the drop-down menu will show you “Free Samples.”) I do that all year long and use them as Christmas Stocking Stuffers for Husband and our (20-something) sons. Walgreen’s is good for that too; lots of Buy One Get One Free deals on stocking-stuffer items; gum, chocolate bars, snacks, toothbrushes, floss, nail clippers, garden seeds, shampoo, etc. (Our kids get a stocking and then something useful like a gift card for food or gasoline. It works for us.)
My Mom gives me Walgreen’s gift cards at various times throughout the year (Christmas, Birthday, etc.) because she loves my stories about how I used the card, stocked up on TP or laundry soap and they gave me money back, LOL!
When we were at our poorest, I fed Husband, three teen boys and a (worthless, at best) brother in law for under $200 a month. And no one ever left the table hungry. It can be done with a little planning and common sense. We hunted, fished, had a huge garden and never turned down an offer of “free anything.” :)
“Marie — cutting your grocery bill from $700 to $500 in three months is awesome! How many are in your family?
I have managed to cut my grocery bill down to $100 a week, including cleaning supplies and toiletries, but not pet food and supplies. I make my own laundry detergent out of Fels Naphtha soap, Arm and Hammer Washing Soda, and 20 Mule Team Borax. It costs 1 to 2 cents a load, depending on whether you have a front loader or a top loader. It works better than Tide. (There are many websites where you can get the exact recipe, so I won’t post the details here.) As far as the Dawn, do you have a CVS in your area? Check out the website www.moneysavingmom.com (sorry I don’t know how to do the linky thing) and learn how to use the CVS discount system to your advantage. I have 18 bottles of Dawn under my kitchen sink that I got either free or for pennies at CVS. Also, if you have an Aldi in your area, check it out! I paid $1.99 a gallon for milk this week!”
There are four of us and one of them is a teenage boy! ;-)
I don’t know if there’s a CVS, but I haven’t looked.
I *love* the link! I’ll be playing with that all weekend. Have you heard of the Tightwad Gazette? Those three books are like bibles to me. TONS of inspiration.
What has me mad is that I was really being good and had it down to $350 a year ago and that included everything.
I know. Part of the problem is that it’s summer and the kids are home all the time. I forgot how much of an effect that has. I’ll see how low I can get it next month.
And would you mind posting the recipe for the laundry soap here? A link like the one you sent before would be fine.