My First Steps To Saving Money

Since just before the beginning of the New Year, I have been doing all I can to save money. It has become almost a game for me. I can be very competitive, and so this has become almost an obsession. I have made some major mistakes like last week. But I have also learned a lot. I thought that maybe I would take the next couple of weeks to share what I've found that works. I'll also let you know what hasn't worked for me.

The first thing I found in my journey to being a frugalite was that I needed to spend a bit of time on it. Since I am a stay at home mom, I just started looking at this like it was my job. Whatever I could save each week, was like my pay. I started with groceries. I have been know to easily spend $150 on groceries in a week. Of course a lot of that was junk food. But it also included all of my cleaners, paper products, pet supplies, and beauty items.

So I started making a plan each week before I went to the grocery store. This way I wouldn't get in there and buy whatever I saw, including another bottle of ketchup to go with the 20 bottles I already had because I couldn't remember if we needed any or not. If I had a list then I wasn't as quick to grab things that weren't on the list. Of course with the kids with me I always ened up buying something that's not on the list. But it's still good to have something to guide me down the aisles.

Now I know that if I go into a store without a plan or a list I'll end up buying stuff I don't need and spending way too much money. The grocery store is the one place I knew I could try to save money at first. So I set out with a goal of $100 dollars a week! That seemed very doable to me at the time. Now I am down to a $50 a week goal. I have gone over it some weeks (like last week). And I've come under quite a few times. The point is that I am trying to save money each and every time I walk into a grocery store. And so far it is working great!

I'll end it here for now as this post is getting pretty long. Check back for more money saving tips! Next time.... my favorite tools!

*Kristie*