A Month of Savings: Part 2

If you're new here, this is part 2 of my series "A Month of Savings".  Last week I shared a story about my friend Michelle, a full time working mom of 4 with a giant grocery bill and a shortage of time.  We've talked at length about ways to free up her time and money by shaving her grocery bill in half and I outlined a plan for her last week.  If you'd like to catch up to speed, visit the original post here.

Well, it's time for our first weekly update and it isn't so good.  Michelle did a great job setting aside half her budget and writing a meal plan by building a menu around sales.  She sent me a list of all the items needed for the week and we set about finding ways to make it work.  I typed out a complete shopping list and narrowed down the best sales to two stores in the interest of time.

While the whole plan was in the works she made a quick trip to the store to pick up a few essentials, and then headed home to dig in and get the ball rolling!  She worked feverishly to really look at her needs and habits to come up with a plan to make it all flow better.  Here's where it all started to head south.

First hiccup: no newspaper.  While working through the weekend she forgot to grab a newspaper, but figured her neighbor would share her coupons.  Not too worried.  Until the next day when she found out that her neighbor doesn't get the paper anymore.  Oops.  Oh well, I figured we could work around that because I was able to find lots of sales with a printable coupon to match.

Second hiccup: no printer.  Excited to see such a workable plan with every item addressed and plenty of coupons to print, she set about firing up her 6-year-old printer.  Dead.  Not just making noises or printing- streaks dead, but not-even-powering up dead.  If you've never experienced bad luck, call Michelle.  She'll tell you all about it!  LOL Handling a printer on the fritz is one thing, but not finding a working printer within 10 miles of friends and relatives is another.  Some may say head to the library or drive to mom's house 25 miles away, but issue number two was a shortage of time.  How could she spend a precious hour driving around town to print some coupons?   She couldn't, and that's when we had to just roll with the punches.

When it was all said and done and the week had come to a close, we ended up sending her to Kroger for the instant rebate deal and Super Target for the rest.  With careful menu planning around sale items she was still able to save money, even without coupons!   I haven't gotten the final tally yet, but by my basic calculations I fugure she was able to save at least $75.00 this week, which is a savings of 30%!

This is certainly not my way of advocating shopping without coupons (never that!), but when life throws a few curveballs your way you have to stand up, hold your head high, and buy a newspaper and a printer!  :o)

Tune in next week for part 3...