My husband has one of those alerts that just know when a bad time to make some changes is, lol.

Off-topic, the candy I really love in Canada is that toffee in the plaid box, do you know that one?

Tracy 

Nope, I am not familiar with candy in Canada.

Yes MacIntosh toffee! it is good. Haven't had it for years! use to eat it all the time when I was a kid in the 70's. Don't remember seeing it recently, will have to check! Funny thing! on ebay you can buy all the candy you want.  Kitkats are sticks wafers layered with chocolate and covered in choc. with 4 attached to each other - one bar. They come out with diff. flavour like orange, dark choc. etc that I will try (like the original the best) but on ebay you can get a bunch of flavours that you can't here. melon, bitter orange (sounds good), apple, mango, green tea, cherry, raspberry, banana (gross), blueberry, grape, orange, blood orange, strawberry. The only ones I would try is the orange ones. Have to think about buying some for my dh for xmas. He loves orange chocolate!

Just read through the other posts, I have a budget of $100 a week for stuff- food, soap, diapers, etc for our family of ten. So $400 a month. But I also will "splurge" and stock up every now and again for food storage. We'll go and buy a couple of hundred dollars worth of staples.   If my family was allowed to drink an unending supply of milk we'd be poor and fat :)  I make up evaporated milk and that's what we use except for special treats. I buy the milk on sale at say Thanksgiving for 50cents a can and I get cases.  The weeks I blow my budget are when I have to run to the store and buy bread and haven't planned ahead or those "unexpecteds" come up.  I was getting WIC and that was helpful but I choose to stop, even though we still qualify. 

I'd check out what you're buying and the quanities.  What if you started buying just what you really needed. No chips, pop, sugar cereals, no ice cream,,,,,, save your receipts and see where the "leaks" are and figure out what you need versus wants.  You can get two weeks worth of cheap meal recipes at www.all-about-meat.com.  If you can't make bread due to time constraints, you can buy at the bread thrift stores and freeze it till needed ( my kids call it the used bread store). 

It sounds like your'e eating what you want versus what you can afford. Why not start mentally at the other end and say "I can afford x amount for groceries.  I can afford y amount for my personal spending.  Have you tried the envelope approach?  I put $100 in an envelope on payday and that's my money for the week. When I run out of money I have to stop shopping.  I do have a small cushion for emergencies like diapers and TP but basically I have to get by on what I already have on hand.  John does get me great deals on meat and I just fix whatever he's stocked the freezer with. We store wheat and can grind our own flour or cook it up any which way we'd like.  Last fall he bought cases of pork roasts at an unheard of price so I couldn't freeze corn- I had to buy it for 50cents a can. So take advantage of the deals that come up and plan around those godsends. They will happen.  When you try to reach your goal, you'll find cool things happen to help you along your way. blessings,

joan of ark 

Wow you do an awesome job feeding your family on that budget! You have great ideas. I think it depends where you live though. You can not buy evaporated milk for .50 a can here. (my mom would be in heaven since she uses it in coffee). Case lot sale maybe 1.00 per can.  Case lot sales on corn, maybe .75 per can etc Case lot sales are maybe twice a year. Diapers..the cheapest is .25 per diaper on sale. TP .25 to .50 per roll. I guess depending if you have boys or girls would be how much you go though.  We have lots of ethic stores and produce stores so that is fine to save money. Making bread is not really cheaper here then buying it except for fancy stuff. That is why most people don't use bread makers. Cheese is minimum $4-5 per lb.   I saw the show with the big family with the big family yearly birthday party. She bought turkeys on sale for  $5 for a 20lb one, wouldn't happen here.  It would be nice though!  I agreed that there is a lot in people's groceries budgets that they think is essential but is a want like ice cream.