What do we spend?

I have been doing coupons & rebates for about 11 months now. I laughed at my friends(shame faced honesty here) as they were doing coupons because I truly didn't think it made a difference($ saved/time invested). Well I am still seeing how it all comes together but I do know that we are able to purchase things for free & VERY discounted prices at times. I also have a much bigger stock pile of food & necessities now than I did a year ago. Also as for the time investment--I have recruited my daughters as my helpers and that has helped save me time in getting coupons clipped & such.

After reading multiple blogs about how much people were spending per week/month on groceries & household items, I began to get curious about how 2009 has gone for our family. I am a big believer that month to month things will fluctuate but over a longer period of time you can get a good picture of your average spending. I know that we have stayed for the most part under our budget each month on groceries & household. So here is how we've made out so far. Remember we have a family of 6 & 2 teens. :)

Grocery average is $557 our budget is $588
Household average is $362 our budget is $555(we save up for some bigger items this way)

At the beginning of the year my $ spent was MUCH higher than say last months spending--$50 more. So I think that using coupons & rebates are definitely paying off! AWESOME!

I want to start to shave those numbers even more--maybe just 10% to start. We will see how Nov & December affect things as we do more cooking & such during those months. However we will be able to use some of the stockpiled items and perhaps off set the additional purchases for the holidays!