Money Saving Mama

It's officially been a month since I've been doing the whole coupons thing and I wanted to give an update on how I came out. I decided to keep all receipts from the month in an envelope so I can keep track of how much I'm spending, and saving. I started out the month with a certain budget in mind. I actually took that cash out at the beginning of the month and put it in an envelope. Although the concept is understandable, I do not think I will do that again this month. I had to try to remember to take the envelope with me when I would go shopping, and when I did have it I was nervous that I may lose my purse, or the envelope would fall out, or even worse, that someone would steal my purse. Then poof - there goes all that money to waste. I decided it just works better for me to keep track of it with my receipts in the envelope instead. Just so you know the scope of what I am spending our money on, I've set our household/grocery items budget at $500. That seems to work well for us, but after I start building up a good supply of stocked items, I would LOVE to get the budget down to $400, or even $350, but I know that is probably unrealistic given that I have a child and a dog to feed, let alone Chris and I. And I don't want to live off Ramen noodles either! Anyways, I added up all my savings and I was shocked! It came to $564.00!! Now, of course that includes a combination of coupons, BOGO sales, Walgreen's RR's and just items on sale at the grocery store. But man - that's not too shabby! And that doesn't include all the FREE items I've gotten either! I must say - I think I did pretty darn good! I hope this month I can come out with spending less and saving just as much. I think it's funny when people (my sister and some friends - I won't call you out :) ) laugh at me when I tell them about the deals I've gotten because I'm so excited about them. All I can say is , "Look who's laughing when I'm saving $564 a month!" :)