The Once A Month Grocery Shopping Experiment Update 3: I Failed.

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Sooooo . . .

I kinda failed yesterday.

Yup, yes I did.

I made my shopping list, then took a peek at the Kroger ad (added a ton of Kroger digital coupons to my card), and headed to the store with my cute 8 year old in tow.

Um, we didn't fair too well on the Once a Month Grocery Shopping Experiment when we shopped.

Ahem.

Here's why.

There were a ton of things on sale at pretty incredible prices using just Kroger ecoupons, and while I did pass over quite a few deals, there were several that seemed to jump right on into my cart. Y'all remember that we moved to Ohio a year ago, and being a girl who's lived mostly in the South her entire life the thought of shopping in the wintertime just makes my stomach turn. So, I stocked up on a few things that were just too good to pass up (because really, winter's coming soon?), and went over budget.

But.

(See how I'm about to justify this trip?)

We are way under budget for the month on food so far. By purchasing most of our groceries at the beginning of the month, I can easily make dinner without an extra trip to the store, so we've eaten more meals at home than we normally would have and saved by not making extra trips to the store.

Success?

Here's what I bought for $48.71 . . . 

And here's what we're donating to our local food pantry . . .

I just couldn't pass by the All Detergent for $1.99 (with just an e coupon ~ yay!), and my kids love having muffins for breakfast in the winter. Because I still don't have a printer connected at home (so hoping that will be done in the next week), I really wanted to take advantage of the great ecoupon offers while they were available.

Here's what our totals look like so far this month: 

• Week 1: big monthly shopping trip $223
• Week 2: produce, milk, bread and a few sale items $40.72
• Week 3: produce, milk, bread and a bunch of sale items $48.71
• Total = $312.43

Honestly we are still a little low on produce, but I'd really like to wait until Wednesday when the new Fresh Thyme ad pops up. (Don't forget Sprouts & Fresh Thyme offer double ad Wednesdays which makes for a ton of great produce savings.) And our kitchen is still packed with plenty of meals to cook, so I'm really thinking produce and milk will be all we'll need next week (and possibly the rest of the month if we plan things right!)

If I can keep our grocery expenses under $400 for the month of August (which seems very doable to me right now), that comes out to $100 per week for 5 people including a teen and tweenager. So, it may not be perfect but I'm still pleased with it!

Like I shared last week, even if your grocery budget doesn't look exactly the way you'd hoped, even small steps are progress. While I didn't stick perfectly to my goal this week, we did much better than we normally do and have definitely shaved some moo-lah off of our grocery bill for the month. If you've been working to lower your grocery budget, try determining the number you want to spend and then working to shave off a few dollars each month to reach your goal!

Our pantry, fridge and freezer are still well stocked with plenty of food, and I really think I may be able to lower our bill even further next weekend. So far I really do love the idea of shopping this way, and can't wait to see where our totals end up at the end of this month!  If you've tried grocery shopping like this before, I'd love for you to leave a comment and share how it's worked for you.