I mulled over what we're spending on our grocery, etc. bill weekly, and came up with a plan to help reduce it.

Lunches and snacks:

- Look for a cheaper source of hot cocoa/coffee - I was buying the cheapest of this at the grocery store we go to, but have looked up some homemade mixes that might give us a little savings

- Talk to my two oldest girls about bringing lunches to school

- Talk to my youngest girl about some charges on her lunch account - she brings lunch each day, but it turns out that she was still thirsty after drinking what I was sending, so we will make sure there is an extra container with water packed (she came up with the idea!)

- Determine the costs of the individual items packed into the lunches & figure out a max price I'm willing to pay to have an item in the lunch - started to do this and found that some of what I was thinking was cheap wasn't as cheap as it could be (mostly I plan to eliminate the really expensive few items, but still offer a variety of cheaper alternatives over the course of the week.)

- Make a concerted effort to bake and freeze more of the treat and snack items (so often it's cheaper to make than buy, plus having control of what's put in)

- Relating to the above is to prebag portions of snacks and homemade treats so as to easily pull together for snacks and lunches (do this already, but could improve - between my husband and the girls, they could eat whole packages and everything I bake fresh in one session - not good for the budget or waistline) - maybe what I need to do is find better hiding places

Take care!