First things first...

The purpose of this blog is to record some of my ideas for saving money, but mostly to try to keep a record of some of the more radical changes we are making.

I hope it helps someone else, but right now I think I just need to do something (anything!) and I know I have a propensity for starting things with a rush and a roar, but petering out before any real good has been accomplished.

My main focus just at the moment is with the grocery shopping. I have had a budget for shopping forever, but that budget means very little...it is a number on my budget that is what I am supposed to spend for that pay period (currently we are paid fortnightly). Whenever we have something extra to pay for, or something we want, the first thing I do is cut the grocery budget. This looks good on paper, but doesn't actually mean that we will spend less.

So, our family budget for groceries for the fortnight was $300 at the start of last year (2008).

Part way through the year, I realised it just wasn't enough, but instead of doing the logical thing (working how much we actually spend, and therefore how much we need to budget for), I rounded it up to $350. It seemed like a lot, and we could breathe again and stop "robbing Peter (anything and everything in the budget) to pay Paul (more groceries)".

I suspect it wasn't enough of an increase, though it is certainly true that food prices have been steadily increasing over the last 2 years, and more noticeably over the last year.

Anyway, I finally decided last pay that I will properly look at how much we spend on the groceries, and work out a plan from there. I was shocked to find that we spent $510 at the supermarket, and another $60 at the pizza shop and chinese takeaways.

Now the plan is to save money- I was hoping to decrease our budget, but I am increasing it...and planning to spend far less than $500,which is a ridiculous amount to spend anyway.

I am going to try for $400 each pay period, or $200 a week for our family of 5.