The Challenge Begins

Food: $92.05

Tomorrow we begin our challenge!

 We made a run today to purchase the bulk of our food.  For meat we bought mostly chicken (4.5lb!) some pork and a bit of tuna.  For dairy we got a gallon of milk, American cheese singles and cheddar. A bit of a hat tip to Casey here who put us on to the idea that grocery stores usually have one of their cheese brands on a two-for-one sale.  For grains we got two loaves of bread, cereal (Life was on sale) and oatmeal for the morning.  Finally for Veggies, a head of lettuce, tomatoes, bananas, apples and we got some frozen veggies. The mathematically inclined will notice that $92 is greater than the $83 a week we are allotted, but we are budgeting two weeks at a time, leaving us $74 over the next two weeks.

Some observations about these initial purchase and changes in our mindset while on the challenge.  One, we are much more price conscious than usual, if there was a sale on some brand, we bought that.  Price even determined whether we bought some things at all. Two, we went a lot farther to go to get food at a lower price. The Kings is just around the block, but A&P has generics and better sales.

Update on Casey:
She says she 'has fallen off the wagon'  a couple of times this week. Little bits of bad luck have conspired to push her and her husband over on the challenge.  Some hiccups did not break the budget, a forgotten lunch meant a meager meal of Top Ramen. Some were more serious, like a missed train that lead to a relatively expensive train station sandwich.

These are the kind of problems that you can into on a budget, we'll let you know how it goes for us in the coming weeks!