March $100 Grocery Budget 2021

 

I think I did really well this month to spend as little as possible on groceries.  Once again we headed into the month with a well stocked pantry, freezers and refrigerator so the first two weeks of March I didn't do much in the way of grocery shopping.  By the middle of the month I was ready to shop a bit and by week three the sales in the ads were better so I made a few trips to the stores.  The majority of what I purchased in March was a lot of fresh produce and just a handful of pantry items we were low on.

 

A large produce haul with a few pantry items, cheese & bacon

Since I hadn't spent all of my budget last month I used some of that extra money to stock up on Keto bread at the Franz bakery outlet as well as to pick up a couple whole roasting chickens on sale for 77¢ a pound at Fred Meyer.  I already had one in the freezer which I plan to use for our Easter dinner and now I have two more, one of which is earmarked for Thanksgiving this year.  Yes, I am already thinking that far ahead believe it or not.

 

A little Dollar Tree shopping
My daughter really loves these cookies

With my $25 non food budget I purchased a jug of laundry detergent, a jug of liquid fabric softener, shampoo and conditioner (we didn't really need it but my daughter really liked the scent), a couple cans of cat food and some Pounce treats At Dollar Tree.  Our Benedryl had expired so I tossed it out an replaced it and used a $1.50 OFF digital coupon to pick up an extra bag of dry cat food that was on already on sale.  My grand total for nonfood items came to only $15.48.  So far all of the extra money I am not spending on non food items has been going into savings.

 

I stocked up on yogurt and whole chickens on sale plus I had a coupon!

I began my $100 grocery budget this month with $147.57 because I didn't spend my total budgeted amount in February and I rolled it over and added it to my new budgeted amount.  After everything was totaled up for the month of March I came in right at $105.13.  This leaves me with $42.44 still left and I plan to roll that amount over and add it to my $100 budget for April.  That is a pretty good amount to start off with next month and I am really pleased with how well we are doing with our grocery and non food spending so far this year.

 

These markdown items made for a special lunch treat one day

So good!

I haven't felt at all that we are depriving ourselves of anything either.  We've had loads of produce to enjoy.  Lots of healthy main courses with plenty of leftovers for our lunches each day and we are pretty much eating the meals we want to eat with lots of good variety.  I call that a win!