Marvie's Crochet Corner

I promise I'll talk about fiber stuff one of these days folks...

but there will be very little of it today. I have so much on my mind these days, and though I am working on hubby's blanket, there's not a whole lot to tell about it. Maybe I need to change the name of this place lol. I just suck at coming up with good names and such.

This morning I got to knit with other women! My neighbor S and I went over to another lady's house where we sat and talked and knitted and crocheted. It was very nice to sit around with other yarn addicts =) We talked about projects and yarn and stashes and husbands and kids and lots of other stuff in the couple of hours we sat there. I did have to get up early though. The other lady has three little ones, well she has 5 kids, but three are not in school yet. So we went during the time that one of those litle ones was in preschool, which is the only "free" time she has, such as it is lol. That meant I had to get up and be caffinated earlier than usual lol. It was nice though, in spite of the early hour.

I did a little more financial figuring today, in between other stuff, and I think I am going to have issues with my grocery budget. I haven't really paid attention to prices of things since we've been here. So today I made a general list of the things we buy on a regular basis, found several receipts from recent shopping trips and began writing prices down. I didn't get everything on the list priced, but so far it's looking a bit scary. I did some number crunching and I just don't see us sticking to the $75 a week I have alloted. I can cut back on one or two things, give up my good coffee (WAH) but in general, I don't see many ways to trim those expenses much. I might be able to swing it, since I don't buy everything every week, but the things that we *do* buy every week run about $50 all by themselves and that's without taking fresh fruits and veggies into the mix.

The dry cat food alone is $20+ every two and a half to three weeks, and then there's the litter. I can't trim those expenses at all. The cats absolutely can't eat cheap food with Tigger's health issues. Can't really cut back on the amount of litter used either and buying cheaper stuff isn't an option. 1) we don't have much of a selection and 2) not much holds up to four cats. And *no* giving up any of my babies is not an option lol.

Milk, bread, cereal, are absolutes. I already buy the store brand cereal, milk isn't something we can use less of or buy cheaper. Bread, we could save a few pennies buying a different brand but it's not much of a savings. I haven't done the math to see if making all of our bread would be a huge savings, currently we spend about $5 a week on bread. I'll have to figure that out. I can give up half and half and use milk, the half n half is nearly as expensive as a half gallon of milk. That'd save maybe $5 a week. Toilet paper is another high ticket item. We use a lot of it and I just can't use cheaper stuff than we already buy. I can buy cheaper paper towels probably and cut back on how much we use of them in general, but that's not even a monthly expense as we buy the 6 pack and it lasts a while.

General food items, well I stopped buying convienience foods a while back. So I'm not shelling out big bucks for boxed stuff. The only frozen stuff we buy is veggies, bagged boneless chicken breasts (I insist on those) and occasional juices for hubby.

We stocked up on kiddo's capri sun a while ago when they were on sale so with our trip home those should last all summer if he's careful. Same with soda, hubby stocked up big time when they were on sale. When those are gone I can drink tea and water (which I should do anyway I know)

We only have the commisary to shop at so I can't do like I did at home and haunt sales ads to save $. It wouldn't be cost effective to shop on the economy once you convert $ to Euros. Even if I could get good deals on sale, we don't have freezer space for meats in excess of a week or two worth.

Gah. I'm frustrated! Well, hubby and I both want to loose weight... I guess we're gonna have to! Crap, that reminds me, I still forgot to thaw something out for dinner. Well, the kid is out for the night, so we'll have fend for yourself again. There's a serving of chili left in there one of us can have and I'm sure if I poke around there's bound to be something else lol.

I'm gonna go see if I can figure out how to trim our grocery bill. I have to find a way....

posted by Marvie at 10:36 AM