Monday, February 1, 2016

Monthly Shopping Goals: February 2016

I was really hoping to be able to skip this post for the month as with having to pick up just as much as I need to to get by, the idea of having shopping goals on top of that seems daunting.  Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way (do they ever work out the way you planned?).

So, my basic plans for shopping goals for this month are to get one thing at a time and in the case of things like dry cat food picking up said items in smaller quantities if I need to to make it work. 

So, here we go.  Shopping goals for February, 2016

Regular Stores:
  • Bottle Liners
  • 2 Bags Water Softening Salt (buy one at a time if needed)
  • Dry Catfood
  • Borax
  • Washing Soda
  • Baking Soda (4 lb box)
  • Sm. container Oxy Clean
Bright side with the laundry detergent ingredients is that I do have some supplies left from making it before, so I can make laundry soap in smaller quantities as I try to buy the items one at a time.  I just have a giant thing of laundry soap that I started using every day (you can see it in the blog banner) and the recipe makes a ton.  So my plan is to split the recipe in half and that way it'll fit in my giant container on my dryer without having to worry about flow over into another container and with all of my supplies I'll have enough to make two big batches that way.  I'm also going to use Ivory to make said laundry soap instead of Fells Naptha (I have Ivory and I think it might be milder on my son's skin than the Fells Naptha is).  See, remember when I told you that I was going to stock up on soap in October?  That worked out didn't it *laugh*.

So there you are folks.  My shopping goals for the month.  Working this into my weekly grocery budget is going to be challenging, but worth it in the end, I think.

9 comments:

  1. What are bottle liners? Do you feel like the homemade detergent helps your son? Mine is slowly getting better with his eczema and we use All free and clear, but only half the amount but I'd love a better alternative if it helped.

    Hope you can squeeze in all you need into your budget. My husband is doing the taxes (I do day to day stuff, he wants to do the taxes) and as always, and for the next month or two is freaking out about his income and questioning his life and etc. I hate going through that every few months. So stressful and I think I've got a kidney infection so I'm freaking out about that and the cost and the pain, so hoping I too can strench my grocery budget a tad further this time!

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    1. The only nutritious thing my son will drink is milk, but he'll only drink it out of a baby bottle still. I've talked to his pediatrician, his developmental specialist and his dentist and they all agreed they'd rather he actually drink the milk anyway we can get it into him, so it's just something we have to deal with until we can get him to accept the milk out of a glass (one of these days).

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    2. My husband goes through those lovely phases of the mood too. He's talked of quitting since I've been married to him to the point when he says he's going to do it anymore I just kind of go, "Yes dear" and know nothing is going to come of it.

      And what is up with kidney infections that they nail you when you can't afford them? I remember the last one I had I went into the doctor and my blood pressure was through the roof and the nurse was all concerned. The doctor took my pulse, looked at the blood pressure and asked, "Are you nervous?" At which point I told them I was dead broke but in considerable pain and she nodded knowing that is what was causing it. I hope it all works out okay for you :(.

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  2. I have great faith in your ability to stretch your grocery budget to accommodate these additions, Erika. If anyone can do this, it's you!

    The good part is that most of the items you listed are items that commonly have coupons available for. Worth doing a little research on-line if you don't already have some coupons stashed away...which wouldn't surprise me one bit!

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    1. Ha! You know me well *laugh*. The Arm and Hammer website is awesome for those things ;).

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  3. Hope this will help
    How to Turn Baking Soda into Washing Soda
    http://naturesnurtureblog.com/ttt-turn-baking-soda-into-washing-soda/

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    1. I appreciate it. I thought of that but I need both baking soda and washing soda for the laundry soap and the washing soda is actually cheaper to buy then to make it out of baking soda (a 4 lb box of baking soda is about 8.00 or more while the washing soda is 4.00. Go figure).

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  4. Are you going to buy those non-food items using the $50, or do you get a little extra for them?

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    1. Yup, non-food items go into the 50.00 too. I do have a bit of cash reserves that I saved up beforehand to use for stocking up purposes or if something should go on sale cheap one week that I know I'll need in following weeks (like I took 20.00 of that today and ran to get Coke while it was still on sale cheap at Carrs for next week). I'll repay any cash that I take back into my cash till when I figure my grocery money for the week or I'll split it among several weeks to repay it (like if I spent, say 15.00 over my normal allotment but knew I wouldn't be able to pay it all back in one week I'll split it up and repay my cash till 7.50 a week over two weeks or something :). So far, though, so good on keeping it where I can repay it.

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