This month I will trying out a new plan for my husband and my grocery budget. I have been trying to cut our grocery bill for a while and did great for a while on coupons but have found that I am lacking success lately. Or at least the success that I need to achieve to make my time cutting and organizing coupons worth it.
I was reading an article from my LearnVest email digest that showcased a couple different peoples' real budgets and one of them stuck with me. A young couple around the ages of my husband and myself spent around 100$ a week on groceries by planning out their menus each week. Right now I can spend up to $300-$400 a month on groceries, and our budget just cannot take it any more. So I am going to give this method a try.
Seeing as my grocery budget is the same as this couple, I am going to shoot for around $50 a week. I know its an ambitious cut, but I think it's manageable. Today is going to be my first trip and I plan on making sure I have what I need in my house for the next week of meals.
I think the most challenging part will be keeping my husband and myself to the meal plan we create at the beginning of the week. We have a tendency to do the impromptu dinner out.
I plan on keeping everyone posted as to how it goes. So wish us luck!
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Monday, July 7, 2014
Monday, March 26, 2012
Invitations Done!
Thanks to our wonderful Bridal Party, we stuffed and addressed our invitations this past Saturday. They are now ready to be mailed out by this coming friday. As we were needing to save some money we went with something very simple in design, but it also matches the simplicity in our wedding.
We ordered out invitations from Michael's online design service MiDesign@MIchaels. It was very simple to use, very customizable and inexpensive. Of course you could get really creative and go with a more expensive design if you wanted. We would have liked to use a handmade artist for out invitations but the expensive was too much for our budget. If you have the room in your budget Go Handmade!
We also went inexpensive by not using a calligrapher for the addressing of our envelopes. We simply used the clear address labels available from Office Max. Very easy to use and we now have address labels we can use again in the future.
Along with printing out our own address labels, a couple months ago we ordered new return address labels from VistaPrint. Planning ahead (a very important thing to do!) we ordered them in our wedding colors, so that not only would we be able to use them on our current mail but we wouldn't have to order new ones for the wedding. It also saved us on the invitations since addressing the envelops on MiDesign cost a little bit extra.
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I also learned today that we did not need to add extra postage to our envelopes because we took out the second envelop that usually is adding into the wedding invitations. Always check the weight of your invitations because anything that you add to your envelop adds weight and you don't want them to not get mailed!
We also went inexpensive by not using a calligrapher for the addressing of our envelopes. We simply used the clear address labels available from Office Max. Very easy to use and we now have address labels we can use again in the future.
Along with printing out our own address labels, a couple months ago we ordered new return address labels from VistaPrint. Planning ahead (a very important thing to do!) we ordered them in our wedding colors, so that not only would we be able to use them on our current mail but we wouldn't have to order new ones for the wedding. It also saved us on the invitations since addressing the envelops on MiDesign cost a little bit extra.
.jpeg)
I also learned today that we did not need to add extra postage to our envelopes because we took out the second envelop that usually is adding into the wedding invitations. Always check the weight of your invitations because anything that you add to your envelop adds weight and you don't want them to not get mailed!
Monday, March 12, 2012
Up Coming Wedding
Lately I have been very busy putting together my upcoming wedding. I am getting married to my wonderful fiance' on June 2nd 2012. We have a very tight budget and I think the stress of staying within it is making me crazy.
We are having our wedding at a hotel which takes up the majority of our budget. We could have rented a hall and spent less but we had a couple reasons in mind. First of all we have been to several weddings that have been hosted at hotels and enjoyed the fact that we could go back to our room after the wedding instead of having to drive home. Not having to drive home will allow some of our guest to relax a little more and would keep them from endangering themselves and other if they plan on drinking at our event.
The other main reason is that my family lives all over the place. They would have to find a hotel anyways, this way they can stay at the hotel for a great price and not have to worry about renting a car or other transportation.
To cut costs we are also having the ceremony and reception in the same place. This means, no need for a limo. It also cuts the cost of travel for our guest. A win win for sure!
We are having our wedding at a hotel which takes up the majority of our budget. We could have rented a hall and spent less but we had a couple reasons in mind. First of all we have been to several weddings that have been hosted at hotels and enjoyed the fact that we could go back to our room after the wedding instead of having to drive home. Not having to drive home will allow some of our guest to relax a little more and would keep them from endangering themselves and other if they plan on drinking at our event.
The other main reason is that my family lives all over the place. They would have to find a hotel anyways, this way they can stay at the hotel for a great price and not have to worry about renting a car or other transportation.
To cut costs we are also having the ceremony and reception in the same place. This means, no need for a limo. It also cuts the cost of travel for our guest. A win win for sure!
Stay tuned for some more money saving ideas on planning a wedding as well as some other creative idea we are using that are upcoming trends in wedding planning.
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