Rising prices

My overall monthly budget for food (including take out), health and beauty, household supplies and pet food/supplies just seems so dang high. I budget $800 a month for the 2 of us. Sometimes I come in under, but mostly it seems to be $800 or more. Is it me or do food prices just seem to keep going up and up? Eggs and meat are getting so costly.

I do 2 take out dinners a week (sometimes only 1) but they are usually just for one meal for DH and usually about $8 each, so not much really. I can barely make a good dinner for that amount. On DH's take out night's I just try to eat up leftovers or make myself something cheap, like pancakes or something.

I thought I was doing great when I walked out of the grocery store last Friday for $95.40, but then I wrote down all my other little misc expenses.....

$12.17 for a new wood blind "wand". Our kitchen one got broke quite awhile ago and I can't open the blinds. Not that I've been particularly interested in opening them just to look back down into the drive up drug window, but still........Finally found one online -  that cost almost as much to ship as the part.

$38.26 - dog food (this will last a month) and 2 pigs ears. It was old dogs birthday, so I also bought 2 .99 pigs ears :)

$16.38 - saw blades for DH's reciprocal saw

$13.82 - misc food and pet supplies at Target

$7.65 - DH's take out


so, already I am up to $183.68 total - almost the $200 for the week's budget and I still have 4 days until my next week starts a new $200 budget.

The $95 I spent on groceries for this next week was pretty bare bones. For meat I only bought 2 lb of ground beef. Another meal has chicken breasts, but I already have some in the freezer. The rest are meatless. I really didn't even buy very much and it was still almost $100.  That's not a typical week - usually it's around $130 total. I use coupons, ibotta rebates, Walmart savings catcher, etc.   I try to stock up when prices are low. I just don't know what else to do and it's the only thing we really have any wiggle room in the budget.

Here's what we're eating this week for dinners:
Fri - we had hamburgers and I used up the buns bought for some the previous week
Sat - Bertolli chicken and marsala skillet meal (this is really tasty for a frozen meal and DH's current favorite dinner meal)
Sun - Hamburger Helper Stroganoff. We haven't had this in ages/years. Simple and easy - which is what I go for
Mon - chili dogs and corn bread
Tues - dh take out/me whatever I can fix with what's already in the cupboards (sometimes it's just cereal!). I might get Chinese take out tonight. It's only about $11 and feeds both of us.
Wed - chicken breasts and stovetop and mixed veggies
Thurs - DH take out


Breakfasts for me are a cup of coffee (I have a Keurig but I use an adapter so I don't have to buy the pricey k-cups) and a glass of Carnation instant breakfast. DH has an "egg mcmuffin" that I make on the days I don't have to go to the office and a mountain dew. On the other days I think he just has toast - and of course his morning "coffee" Mountain Dew. I did find that a pack of 10 english muffins was only 20 cents more than a pack of 6, so I bought the 10 and froze half.


Lunches for me are usually leftovers or Soup at Hand and a granola bar or something extra. Sometimes we have free lunches at work. On the days I work at home I just kinda snack. DH always has a lunchmeat and cheese sandwich on 9 grain bread, some chips and another Mountain Dew. The rest of the day he drinks water with the Crystal Light ice tea packets. I buy the cheapest case of Walmart brand bottled water.

I usually make some dessert for the week. This weekend I made peanut butter cookies (from scratch). Last week was a pan of brownies (from a box). Other weeks I make a cake (from box).

Nothing fancy - but still all costs a fortune.  Then I stopped at Target yesterday to take advantage of a good price on toilet paper. I bought 2 big 30 roll packs (and got a $10 Target gift card back), some otc medicine and 2 boxes of corn bread mix....another $47 spent, so I am now at $230.95 of my $400 budget and still 9 more days until the next payday/budget.

And I just found out the health insurance plan I have DH and DD on will go up another $44 a month next year. So, ya, I'm still lovin' Obamacare......it's just done wonders for my budget. $520 a month for pretty much nothing and if one of them has something major I'll still have a $6350 deductible to meet first. Woohooo! NOT.........