A reply to VB's posts on Saving Money in the Kitchen and Checking in

I have been on hiatus for a few months from blogging.  The Advent and Christmas seasons were extremely busy for me (November - December).  Between taking care of my son while my husband fulfilled all of his commitments with the churches he is Pastor of, my parents and brother visiting over Christmas, and daily life, I didn't make the time to blog.  And life around here isn't going to slow down anytime soon.

2015 is going to be a busy year with quite a bit of transition from what life has been like the past 3+ years for me here in small town Fairfield, Montana.  I am excited and nervous about it.  I will share my adventures in future posts.

VB recently posted about saving money in the kitchen and budgeting.  Jason and I use budget methods very similar to Virginia and her husband, so I don't have much to add on that score.  We won't put a new budget together until April, once we know what our quarterly taxes for 2015 will be.

We have a flat budget for food every month of $350.  This amount includes groceries and eating out.  Occasionally we will go over our monthly budget (like this month) and will subtract the amount we overspent from the next month.  So for the month of January we will end up over our food budget, therefore, the amount we go over in January will be subtracted from our February food budget.  That means we will have less money to spend on groceries and going out to eat in February.  It will be tight, but we've figured it out before.

We haven't quite figured out a budget for toilettries, household, health and misc. yet.  We buy a lot of our paper products in bulk when they are on sale.  This includes, ziplock baggies in different sizes for freezing and storing foods, toilet paper, paper towels, the list goes on and on.  We reuse ziplock baggies so we haven't had to buy those for a while.  And don't get me started on diapers.  For a long time, Target had great specials on their Up&Up diapers in the bigger size boxes.  Not so much anymore.  I can't wait for my son to be potty-trained, but that is a blog post for another time.  Needless to say, our budget is a work in progress.

 In January we ate out a lot because Jason and I were away at the beginning of the month for a wedding in Kalispell, Montana, which is in Northwestern Montana.  But this is not the norm.  We hardly ever go out to eat.  We make yummy, healthy meals at home.  I'd like to second VB, in that most of our non-fresh food we buy is a generic and we save a lot of money that way.  We've found that it tastes the same for the most part as brand name items.  Although, I'd suggest paying the extra money for the actual Special-K cereal instead of the store generic.  You can tell the difference in taste on that one.

I will end this post with that thought.  Don't worry, I promise to share my upcoming adventures in future posts.  For now, I say, "Keep on keeping on!"