Grocery Challenge Finale

For the month of March, we followed two families to see if they were able to lower their grocery bill to their goal. Let's see how they finished up:

Contestant #1 They hoped to cut their bill down to $200 for the month. Unfortunately, they had some extra expenses that popped up during the month:

Hey Liz, 

I did horrible and am very ashamed of myself :(
Our end result was: $423.12.  Some of that was not a normal month, as it was Baby's 1st birthday on the 20th and we had two parties worth of food/snacks.
What worked for us:  Stocking up on flyer sales - we have enough of some things that we'll save money this coming month at least.
                               Coupons - I went through all my coupons that had been adding up and made sure to bring them with me, lol
                               Gas coupons - tried when possible to get gas at Superstore to get money off coupons at the grocery store.
                               Walmart price match- I brought flyers with me to walmart and got them to give me the sale price at other stores...that way I didn't have to drive from store to store for a sale.
                               Packed lunches - we've always done this.  we did cheat some times this month though and bought some frozen dinners for lunches

Sorry I sucked, lol  After seeing this though, it at least has given me more of a push to do better this month.
                             

Contestant #2 They hoped to cut their bill down from $774 to $575 for the month. They didn't make it all the way to their goal, but they made a good head start:

Hi Liz, 

Well I would say that the month of March was a success for me. I didn't drop my bill by the $200 I hoped, however, that might not be realistic for us. 

In February we spent $774.45 on groceries and in March we spent $686.88 (however, this did include a couple of events we had to pick up a fruit tray or food for, so it wasn't all "our" groceries, but I wanted to include it as it was food). That is a savings of $87.57. Which to me is enough to pay another bill so that's successful. 

I'm working on bringing that down even lower for April! I found that buying for one week, instead of two that we were doing before was a great help. We didn't have near as much waste. Simplifying the menu made a big difference in our time spent prepping meals on the busy nights and on the bill.  

I will keep in touch, but I hope that April will be an even bigger success! I'll be continuing to work on bringing this down to at least $600. 

Thanks  


Contestant #2 is the winner! Congratulations on doing so well! I'll contact you about arrangements for your prize.


It sounds as though you both had wonderful life lessons out of this experience and I'm glad to hear that it has inspired you to do better for this month. Keep it up and keep us up to date on how you are achieving your goals.


To the rest of the frugal community, how are you bringing your grocery bill down?  Do you have tips you would like to share with us?

Enjoy!