Final Confession

I'm here for the second part of my confession; the whole fiasco that led to me being serious about couponing again. Okay, many things led to me wanting to coupon but this was the last straw.

I do online banking and every month I look over our statement, making sure bills come in, things get paid, etc... I'm always shocked to see how many card purchases are for food, fast food, Quik Trip, Walgreens, etc... Last week I decided to add up the last 2 months and see just how much we're spending on food and eating out.  Brace yourself...

April 23 - May 24

Groceries (in this I included the trips to grocery store, Walgreens and Quik Trip for snacks. I'm sure a few prescriptions are in there so there is a margin of error but not by much.) $924.76

Eating Out (times eaten out - 21): $465.94

Total:  $1285.70

May 25 - June 14 (2 weeks time only)

Groceries: $534.20

Eat out (times eaten out - 20): $421.52

Total:  $955.72

Note: Times eaten out include lunches or dinners out, DH eating lunch at work sometimes and visits to the local fast food place for hot fudge sundaes. 

I showed this to my husband and I think he was as shocked as I at the amount we eat out and how many times we much run to the store for 'incidentals'. If you knew how much we get paid (only DH works), you'd see that this is too too much on our small budget. And that's just the problem. No budget. Sure, the bills are getting paid but really! No wonder we have no savings and no regular vacations. Amazing. I'm still shocked just looking at it.

That's $306.14 per WEEK

$614.28 per PAYCHECK

I decided this can't continue. Not sure how I'm going to convince everyone in the house of this fact other than just cutting off the money flow! lol I would love to cut this amount in half. Yes, HALF I SAY!

Next post: How I organized it all...