Since we have been focusing on food, I will begin our challenge to budget and lower costs with the food category.

Knowing what we spend and sticking to budgeted amounts is an important part of being in control of our money. Let's start with what we think we spend or what we expect to spend in July. At the end of July, we will see if we came close to what we thought we would.  

So what is your expected expense for food in July? Next week we'll check back in and start tracking our expenses to compare to our expectations. 

 I am setting my food and household expense for July at $310.

A break down of where I expect to spend money-

$130- August's Angel Food purchase

$100- Staples,  personal items and other foods

$80- Perishables, weekly sales 

 I receive a standard $500 per month so I will start there:

Pets ~ $100

Crash 'n Dent ~ $75

Farmer's Market ~ $150(we buy and can, dehydrate, etc.)

Other ~ $100

Emergency Savings ~ $75

I would like to try to get us down to about $40 - $45 a week again, but that wont happen until we get our pantry and food stocks back up to a living level.  That we are doing now with canning, dehydrating, crash 'n dent stockpiling, etc.  We will soon be down to 3 pets, feeding one cat and provding a small amount of kitty litter a month will be quite a cost savings over taking care of an elderly sickly cat also.  So I will be able to start an emergency fund with those savings for the pets medical care.  We are almost at a level of no paper products at all and I am replacing all our plastic bags with canvas I make myself.  I will go over my inventory lists to start replacing my herbs and spices for winter use, then I can start using up and refilling my mixes for winter.

Dear All, In my July spending (starting 7/2, with no shopping until that day), I plan to spend just the $155 allocated to that month by the Food Stamps/USDA authorities.  I do not plan to spend the approximately $25 I am carrying over from June, unless I have an emergency.

This amounts to a slash of the approximately $25 overage.

 Good luck, Deb!

Thank you, Brandy, & best of luck to both you & Brienschef in maintaining your budgets!

I'll give it a try by setting my maximum at $300.00 including pet supplies.  My mother will be here the first two weeks of July but she cannot eat much due to being diabetic and I am going to try to follow her diet as well.  I also need to use up what is in the freezer since it's time for the simi-annual defrost!

Are you stocked up on the kinds of food your mother can eat, Bev?

My maximum July food expenditure is $155, the amount of my Food Stamps (not counting hte roll-over of $25.32).  I will post that series of expenditures to this "Track & Slashin July" thread. 

Please note that my 6/10-7/2 adventure is located at Food Challenge & at Food Stamps.

I'm planning on $350- $10 for a food pack that I buy once a month, $70 twice for the two paycheck grocery stops- when I get a paycheck, I go buy some of the list, $10 each for 15 stops for milk and the essentials- toilet paper or butter or eggs.  And I have $50 for fun food- Farmer's Market or a take and bake pizza day or an ice cream stop. We are also getting some free food for the school age kids in a program that is offered here in summer. This is supposed to help with free/reduced lunch for the kids for breakfast and lunch food- it is a very good program.

I'm hoping to find a diaper deal- it seems I usually do, I try to stay stocked so I don't have to pay full price- did find out that you can wash swim diapers so that you can use them four or five times, in the laundry, that will be a good budget booster.  

It would be great to have money left over, but I'm not counting on it! 

Tracy