Jan is Here. Time to Get Serious with the Food Budget

A few months ago I started a series of posts with the intent of curbing my grocery spending habits. Since then I had gotten sidetracked with other things and didn’t follow through as intended. For my family living frugal is a necessity and we are really good about that most of the time. For example, I did really well shopping around the sales at Christmas time and for what I think is the third year in a row we did not use credit cards at all. When it came to groceries however it seems that I really let our grocery budget get out of hand.

I think we did more entertaining this year than we ever have. My husband was lucky to get 11 days off over the holidays but each day it seemed was filled with a holiday get together somewhere and even a few meals at restaurants. In fact, I think we ate out more these past two weeks than we have in the past 6 months! Not only was that a big waste of money but I also managed to put on a few pounds.

I know that many of us make New Years resolutions but this year I need to make them work. I need to get myself organized because organization really does go hand in hand with saving money. After all, a lot of my food purchases were made when I was stressed out and too disorganized for frugal meal planning.

My goals for 2010 really are to be more organized and plan ahead. Organization means spending less money foolishly and being less stressed. I think it is the boy scout’s motto to “always be prepared”. I really think that it’s time to make that my own motto as well! After all, planning ahead and planning a monthly food budget means saving money. And saving money means being able to reach our financial goals much more quickly.