Social Experiment

I had high aspirations when I quit working that I would be able to put a significant dent in our bottom line by doing a variety of things. While I was pregnant, I failed miserably at all those things. We ate out too often, I drove too much, and basically, didn't change our lifestyle at all. Now that I'm no longer pregnant (read: not tired and cranky 90% of the time) I've been actively working at affecting our bottom line. I consider the whole thing a social experiment.

If someone thinks 'staying home' is easy, I'm guessing they're not doing it right. I've decided to look at all our expenditures and reduce them where I can, because that's how I, as a stay at home parent, can really affect our savings. My first experiment, if you remember, was the cloth diapers. Those are still going strong, and it's not hard. They save us approximately $50-$70 a month, or $600 - $840 a year.

Next is the hang drying - I haven't gotten the electric bill this month, so I don't know how much I've affected that by hanging the diapers and the kid's clothes.

And right now, it's groceries. I looked at our last three months worth, and we spent about $400 a month on groceries. Which comes to about $13.33 a day (assuming a month has 30 days) for all of us, all meals. Which I don't think is too terrible. But I'm trying to see if I can get down to at least $250 a month - or $5 less a day. Which would be $1,825 a year. My biggest challenge with groceries is keeping Esposo OUT of the bulk warehouse store. I've become more convinced that the store isn't saving us as much as we thought, and then we have giant sized boxes of food. I don't like Goldfish THAT much.