The goal?  Spend $150/month or less to feed our family of 6, plus pets, plus health, beauty and cleaning supplies.  I’m chronicling everything I spend on these items in a photo “documentary” under the category “groceries“.

edited 10.03.09: we’ve added a 7th family member for the next couple of months so I may have to increase the budget of $150 to $175.  However, I’m working like a fiend to keep it at $150 for 7 of us.

Beginning date October 1st. Yes there are days prior, but the $150 resets on the 1st so here goes…

Tracking

September 27th 25c + 80c tax = $1.05
September 29th $7.99 + $3.72 tax = $11.71
September 29th $6.76 + 92c tax = $7.68
September 29th $3.12 + 80c tax = $3.92
September 30th $8.73 + 58c tax = $9.31

October 1st $6.48 + $3.84 tax = $10.32
October 2nd $12.90 + $1.11 tax = $14.01
October 3rd $62.10 + $5.86 tax = $67.96
October 6th $48.62 + $3.53 tax = $52.15

October running total = $144.44

Uh oh, it’s getting close! There have been some phenomenal deals this month on stockpile items so I’m continuing to stock up.  Just as an FYI, I still haven’t started spending this month’s $150 budgeted.  I’ve been using the remainder from last month’s budget . . . I know, not fair.  With that said, after discussing this with hubby, we’ve decided to bring the total up to $300 for the month of October.  This is more than 1/2 what we typically budget so it’s still a phenomenal goal.

We do not want to compromise future savings just to get our grocery budget down to $150 for this month (future savings means getting items at phenomenal prices and buying larger quantities of them).