As the school year quickly approached, Doug and I got a tad worried. Our plans to save over the summer did not work out at all due to things that were beyond our control. Consequently, we had no idea how were going to afford an additional $500 a month on daycare (for a grand total of $1500 per month). We contemplated getting rid of our cell phones, tv, etc. I started looking for jobs at nights and on the weekends.
After a few weeks of searching, the idea occurred to me to make a monthly meal plan. I planned out all of our meals for the entire month of September. We made one huge Costco and WinCo run on the first Saturday of the month and bought all of our groceries for September. This way we only had to run to WinCo on Saturdays for little odds and ends like milk and fresh produce.
September went fairly smoothly, and we saved a lot of money. We're doing it again for October. It is also nice because we don't really have any repeat meals, which we did with making a weekly meal plan.
I also got the opportunity to pick up a few additional jobs at work, which made it so that I didn't have to get a second job. Also due to my new job, I can tweak my maternity leave a little bit. Things will work out. We're having to make some major changes, work a little more, have longer days, but we are definitely blessed.
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I am glad that things are working out for you guys! We have been doing weekly meal planning, but I am going to have to try a monthly one now!
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