Coincidence?

I have been blog-hopping tonight and read a couple posts that I thought were very interesting. Then I realized that they kind of went together. They were from two completely different blogs and from two completely different blog-sources. Coincidence?

The first one was How We Eat on $250. Of course, this caught my attention right away because if I could do that, I would have quite a bit left over to spend on eating out! This is for a family of 5 and even though we have a family of 6, I think it would be about the same. Tori and Rachel are just not typically big eaters. The author, Rachael, is very organized and makes out a monthly meal plan and then a shopping list for the month. The idea is great. If I can get in the habit of doing this and sticking to it. That's a big "if". And I promise I'll write about it if I do.

The second post was Why I Like Sam's Club. This caught my attention because I have not renewed our membership in a year and have been debating about going back. I found this very interesting and also exciting because at Sam's Club, you can't use coupons! I say this is exciting because I have 6 stacks of coupon inserts to go through and zero motivation to do that right now. The author, Brandy, gives a lot of information on what she considers to be good buys at Sam's Club and how she uses things that she buys there. She also recommends only going shopping a couple times a month, which would be okay if we could fit 10 gallons of milk in our fridge. Any solutions for that? I suppose I could try freezing it again, although it takes so long to thaw that you really have to think ahead. I've thought about a small fridge but how much would our energy bill go up? It doesn't really save money if it causes other costs to go up. I love the idea of shopping less though!

I was contemplating renewing our membership (after figuring it into the budget, of course) and how I could stock up on things and all of a sudden, it hit me. I could plan our meals for a month and then I'd know what to get at Sam's. I wouldn't have to worry about cutting coupons or finding time to get all these great deals every week. It's really got me thinking, which is not good late at night.

I have only used $12 out of grocery budget so far this month so I could sit down tomorrow and write out a meal plan and then make a list and then take my cash to Sam's (subtract the membership fee) and see if I can make it work. At this point, I would just get the staples and then I could go to Aldi for fresh produce and milk next week and whatever else doesn't seem to be a good deal at Sam's. Oh, I feel a plan and another post coming on. :) Stay tuned! Then again, tomorrow morning I might wake up and say, "What in the world was I thinking?" I always have way more energy at night than I should.