The 200 Challenge

Sarah at Clay In His Hands has inspired me to cut my grocery budget with a challenge! I just can't resist a challenge! You can click on the link to read up on how Sarah is going about this challenge. To sum it up, she is going to spend $200.00 a month or less on groceries and she is looking for other frugal folks to join in! Well who can say no to that? We all want to find ways to cut our budget each month and this sounds like a great way to me! Right now I typically spend $225.00 a month on groceries. When I say "groceries" I am meaning only food products for us. Charlie and I have another category in our budget for our trash bags, dish soap, paper towels and toilet paper. Actually I have to admit that our grocery budget is only for food for Charlie and myself, not our daughter. She still is not eating what we eat so I also have another category for her groceries as well. Now that I think about it I am going to tweak my challenge.... $190.00 a month! I know it is only $10.00 difference, but that will add up to an extra $120 for the year! My biggest money saver on groceries is Aldi. I have tried shopping at every store out there with more coupons than you can imagine and Aldi is my best bet. I do shop at Bi-Lo and Food Lion from time to time when I see a specific sale or have a specific coupon. I also shop at Wal-Mart from time to time and do okay there, but just not as good as I do at Aldi. Wal-Mart has a great variety of generic items now which does make Wal-Mart my second choice. That's my first tip of advice.... try Aldi! Now, I will not have to do any grocery shopping until the 15th so that is when I will post my menu and total I spent on my groceries this month. I am very excited about this month because it is going to be very under budget because I am only technically cooking half of the month. I am hopping this will give me a good boost to this challenge! Check back on the 15th to see how the challenge is going! Good luck to all of you who give this challenge a try yourself!