Pantry Update

You can check out my original post here about this pantry challenge.

I know I just posted an update about how much I have saved with the cash envelope system (50%) but that includes only $62 dollars out of my $300 grocery budget.  Yeah, I did not do so well in this area.  I have no idea what happened - those twenty's just disappeared without warning.  One here, one there - and soon they were all gone.

Plus we must drink a ton of milk around here.... every time I turned around we were out of milk.  We were also very generous with our fruits and veggies purchases.  The local grocery store had fresh breakfast sausage on sale - my hubby's weakness! And who would say no to that :)And for some reason we ran out of bread often too - which is crazy because we never run out of bread. We ended up spending a bit more on bread then we normally did but it saved us a 30 minute trip in the other direction to a store where we would have ended up spending a lot more than we intended.  So... in the end it was reasonable to purchase the bread at a different store.

And I will admit... I have a really hard time passing up a good deal.  It's just in my blood, I cant help it.  We are now over-run with oatmeal (which is a good thing) - it was crazy on sale at Giant Eagle last week and I just could not pass it up as it's eaten every morning here.  But these little things just added up here and there.

To recap what I've learned which I think are good things....

• It's OK if my entire monthly budget ends up gone at the end of the month - that's what it's there for, at least I didn't go over. 
• Fruits and veggies are worth the money we are spending on them.  They are so good for you and we feel better while eating them.  You must prioritize what is important to you and your family. 
• Milk is always going to be an issue as long as you have young children in the family (and my hubby).
• We are still very stocked on most of our pantry and freezer items.  Next month can also be devoted to only purchasing free stuff :) and healthier items. I am hoping to use these months to stockpile healthy items and slowly deplete all the empty calorie and fat loaded stuff from our pantries.  By time this is completed it should be fresh fruits and garden veggie time! So we'll be able to flip/flop where we are spending all our money.  Does that make sense?

I really enjoyed this challenge and it opened my eyes to some things.  I'll hopefully continue giving updates every now and then to help keep myself in check :)