Feb 2008 Update

Saved money on gas. I buy my groceries at King Soopers. I make sure to use my member card every time I go in. When you get $100 worth of grocery points (which I always end up getting) you get ten cents off per gallon! Our car requires the middle grade (uck!), so I this month I ended up getting middle grade for low grade price! :) We also stayed home a lot. So I only had to fill up twice this month. :) I was able to fill up each time for under $50. And because we have been driving less, I only had to fill up once! :)

Got $301 check from our bank for our 1% cash back on our credit card. That means we spend over $30,100 last year. :( And we have nothing to show for it. Double :( :(

BUT, that means an extra $301 to go towards our VISA payment, which we have now, PRAISE THE LORD, completely paid off!!! :) This is including the finance charges.

Also, it turns out that I have credit at two of the doctors we see. Since I do not visit the doctor often, that is money that could be gaining interest! Sadly, on one account at my doctor, the money has been in there for over 3 years! So, we have $80 coming back to us. Which funny enough will be just enough to cover co-pays for all the children's physical's this year. LOL!!!

With all that I have been learning about groceries and couponing and manager's specials, I was finally able to stay at $600 for the month!! Next month I am going to try for $400! :)

Because I am addicted to thrift shopping, I have limited the amount of time I go into one. I went in only twice. Once was when the entire store was 50% off (happens once a month), and once because I was going through withdrawl and needed to be out of the house anyway. I was really good and did not buy things I did not need (even though there were a lot of WANTS).

And we cut our electric bill by $80 dollars!!! All in all since the beginning of the year we have cut $110!! :) Even with the gas prices HIGHER, our bill is over $100 LOWER than it was this last year!!!



SUMMARY:
We paid off our VISA!!!!! We still however are paying off our second mortgage.

We cut our grocery bill by $400 a month from what it used to be. We are hoping to get it down even more (see below).

By calling around and finding out where we had extra unclaimed money we will be getting $80 back in the next few weeks. :)

Goals for next month:
Spend $400 or LESS on groceries TOTAL ($200 less a month than what I have spent the last two months). Whatever the difference is between $400 and what I spend will go into a GARDENING and STOCKPILING fund. This fund will be used to buy gardening supplies (setting up our garden, heriloom seeds, worm farm, etc.) to grow our own food as well as canning supplies and a deep freeze for stockpiling the food we make. POSSIBLY hook up with other gardeners to barter what I grow with what they grow.
Great read.
2008 grocery prices rising.

I also want to have less trash. I was reading about a guy being sued by his city because he does not have trash pick up. He does most cooking from scratch, and everything else is either recycled (which he drive to his local recycle center) or composted. He was burning his excess of leaves (which is what caused a neighbor to let the city know he was not having trash removal service). But it made me think. The more trash I have, the more money I am spending (not just on trash service, but the more trash a product leaves behind, the more I prolly spent on it than I should of). :)

Sell more stuff on Craigslist/ebay.