Well I've gotten busy and have been remiss in reporting on my progress, so this post is intended to catch up and help me recommit.
March: Total was $256.88 (goal of $250). I would have been right at $250, but at the very end of the month I treated myself to a solo one-night camping trip and had to grab a couple of last minute things for that. I brought a hamburger patty, bun, condiments, eggs, bread and some fruit that I already had on hand, but indulged and bought myself a bag of chips, some trail mix, and a gallon of water (and probably something else, I forget). Close enough, I'm calling it a win.
April: This was a tougher month for me, I think it was largely because there were 5 shopping weekends in the month. I stocked up on meat too, which made the monthly total higher. I found bags of frozen salmon on sale for $7.99 so I bought two, then later found the same size bags at another store for $5 each, and bought two more. We got 3 whole chickens on sale, plus a large quantity of chicken breast, which we were pretty much out of.
The rub though is we were out of town for several days to visit hubby's family in Ohio. I got us a hotel room with a kitchenette (and free breakfast buffet) figuring we could save money on food, but it really didn't seem to work out that way. We still spent a ton eating out between trying to be sociable with family and having looooong layovers and flights at strange times. (Did you know there's a Mexican place at LAX that charges SIXTEEN DOLLARS for a fucking burrito??) And when we did go to the grocery store we went to the stupid expensive store instead of the reasonable good store. I think we were just like "Oh, we're just buying sandwich stuff, how much more expensive can it be?" Well, I assure you, it is much more expensive. We just did a bad job of shopping there, I'm totally off my game when I don't do the whole stockpiling when food is deeply discounted method. I have no idea what a "reasonable" normal price for food is, and the whole vacation mindset doesn't help. I really prefer our camping trips where I can buy and plan all of our food in advance.
Anyway, we dropped a couple hundred bucks on food easily for that stupid trip. I'm just counting it all as "Vacation" expense and moving on with my life.
Even with that cop-out, we were still over for April, I think in total it was about $270. $20 over budget isn't terrible though, and we're well stocked on meat, so I guess I won't lose any sleep over it. But I'm going to buckle down and try to be a little more focused for May. Someone please give me a stern glare if I don't check in weekly :)