[This month's savings: $540]
March was our "get back up on the horse" month. After our utter failure in February—the month in which we were perpetually sick—we buckled down. Which, honestly, isn't easy. After being sick, you kind of want a reprieve.
With tax season upon us, and a freelance income (albeit a small one) to account for, we didn't really have the luxury of a reprieve. We needed to make sure there was enough in the coffers to pay taxes, so...
We tightened our belts again.
Instead of our usual $400 / month budget for groceries we tried to eat primarily what we had on hand. We ended up spending about $200 on groceries—for stuff that we run out of (like milk, coffee & eggs)—and we still had the occasional "can you pick this up on the way home" moments.
Like most months, we're already keeping our thermostat set lower (when the heat is on), washing items in cold water, turning off lights and unplugging stuff, etc. These are just the really small things we're doing to pinch pennies even further:
March
Week 1:
- Used the Cartwheel App @ Target—[$2.68 savings]
- Used the Target debit card—[$2.43 savings]
- Used the ibotta app*—we saved $3.75, but I still haven't made it to my payout amount.
- Used the MobiSave app for grocery refund—[$0.20 savings]
- Did a meal plan, in which we focus on using only what's on hand
- Took lunches to work—[$20 savings]
- Made 12 cups of chicken stock from remnants of rotisserie chicken—(math: 4 cups = 32 oz. 1 32 oz container of chicken stock at Target = $2.77. 12 cups = 3 32 oz. containers. 3 x 2.77 = 8.31)—[$8.31 savings]
- Made potato soup—made with 2 lbs. of potatoes and homemade chicken stock.
- 8 servings / 4 meals at a cost of about $4.00 total (including onion, garlic, olive oil, butter, salt & pepper) or 50¢ per serving.
- Store or restaurant bought potato soup costs about $4.99 per serving— although I'm not going to include the savings from that price comparison in the savings tally, just because we don't normally buy 8 servings of potato soup in a month. Instead, I'll use the average price of our homemade dinners, which is about $4.50 per person. By eating soup for 8 dinners, we saved a total of $32 over what we would have normally spent—[$32 savings]
Week 2
- Made tomato soup, with ingredients on hand.
- This ended up making 6 servings or 3 meals for the two of us at a cost of 3.63 total or about 61¢ per serving.
- For this comparison, instead of juxtaposing the cost of the soup to our average meal cost, I'll compare it to store-bought tomato soup (because we usually have homemade grilled cheese or some other sandwich with it). 32 oz. Pacific Tomato soup (about 4 cups) costs $4.49 at Target. Our serving size is about 1 1/2 cups or 12 oz. Using that measurement, the Pacific brand would be about $1.69 per serving whereas our homemade tomato soup was 61¢— $1.08 less per serving—[$6.48 savings]
- Switched Internet providers—[$12 savings per month]
- Bought used modem at a cost of $22 instead of leasing from Internet provider @ $10/month in perpetuity—[$10 savings per month]
- Baked 1 loaf of bread with ingredients from pantry—[$2.49 savings]
- Made pizza at home with ingredients from fridge, including dough from scratch—[$8 savings over frozen pizza or $17 savings over delivery]
- Repaired our broken espresso maker with $37 part instead of buying new/used machine for $150. (Cost $37, but saved $113)
- Turned the heat off for 2 days.
- Continued to meal plan based on what was in the pantry.
- Continued to take lunches to work—[$20 savings]
- Ate leftovers / did not eat out or buy coffee drinks.
- Drank mostly water, tea, or coffee—did not buy juice or other drinks.
Week 3
- Used the Cartwheel App @ Target—[$0.29 savings]
- Used the Target debit card—[$0.58 savings]
- Turned heat off for 1 day—it was warm enough outside that we didn't need it on.
- Wrote software reviews for $20 in Starbucks gift cards (in case we need a treat)
- Asked UPS for a refund when a package didn't arrive when it was supposed to—[$63 refund]
- Set up auto-pay for new Internet service, to avoid late fees.
- Took car in for routine maintenance
- Bought gas at the cheaper station, instead of our regular station—[$1.57 savings]
- Continued to meal plan based on what was in the pantry
- Continued to take lunches to work—[$20 savings]
- Mostly ate leftovers, although we did get 5 Guys hamburgers one night (Cost $18.61)
- Drank mostly water, tea, and coffee—still haven't bought juice or other beverages from the store (well, except for milk. We did buy milk).
Week 4
- Used gift cards for Starbucks treat—[$12 Savings]
- Used gift cards to buy books—[$21 savings]
- Baked 2 loaves of bread—[$4.98 savings]
- Made a double batch of pasta with Italian sausage using only ingredients on hand. Froze half the batch for lunches.—[$20 savings]
- Wrote 3 reviews in exchange for $30 in Amazon gift cards
- Turned off the heat for 3 days
- Made our own yogurt—[$2.43 savings] (price adjusted)
- Continued to meal plan based on what was in the pantry
- Only ate out using gift cards or coupons—we actually got a Papa Murphy's take-n-bake pizza on Friday night for $10 (using a coupon). The pizza was big enough to feed the two of us for the rest of the weekend though. (Cost $10)
- Ate leftovers & drank water, tea, or coffee.
Week 5
- Baked 2 more loaves of bread—[$4.98 savings]
- Made another batch of yogurt—[$2.43 savings]
- Drank more tea & water
- Used gift cards for Starbucks—[$8 savings]
- Signed up for auto-pay for our gas bill (wasn't available until this month). Considering we're always paying the bill 1 day late and having to pay for stamps, this will save us about $8/year—[$8 savings / year]
- Turned off heat for entire week.
- Took lunches to work—[$20 savings]
- Made a batch of homemade granola (using only ingredients on hand).
- Made about 8 dry cups / 12 (ish) servings @ about 45¢ per serving
- This basically kept us from buying cereal at the store, which saved us between $9-$12 this month—[$9.00 savings]
- Although if we were to do an oz. to oz. price comparison, we saved about 10¢ per oz. (or $1.69 / box) over our favorite cereal.
Replacing several meals with homemade soup helped to cut our spending significantly, as did trying to eat primarily from the pantry (which cut our grocery spending by almost $200). The other things that saved us this month were switching over to a cheaper Internet provider and earning/using gift cards.
Overall, we saved about $315 on small stuff plus another $200 on grocery spending. This doesn't include the electric bill savings since I won't know how much turning off the heat may've saved us until next month's bill.
UTILITIES UPDATE [4/2017]: Our March gas bill, compared to the same month last year, was $14 less and our electric bill, compared to the same month last year was $11 less. (Our average KwH per day was 22.)—additional savings of $25.
*Note: the ibotta link above is an affiliate link. If you sign up through that link, you can earn a $10-$20 welcome bonus and I will earn a $5 referral bonus.
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