September Savings Challenge Update Week 1

I joined Carla this month on doing a September Savings Challenge. My Goal was to save $100 a week. I set my limit at $200 a week for Food and Gas. Here is my earlier post on it. September Challenge- My Goals

I am happy to report that I did it!! I was able to stay within my spending budget!
One of the rules is to track everything you spend.  This was very helpful so I knew exactly where my money was going.  Here are my totals for the week.
Food  -   $85.50
Gas -    $104.00
 Total  - $189.50

I made it with $10.50 to spare.  I was doing really well until Friday. My biggest expense is always gas. I drive 30 miles one way to work. So 60 miles a day adds up pretty quick on gas. I did go ahead and fill up on Friday even though I was just under half a tank. I live in a small town and gas is always 10 - 15 cents higher than in the town where I work. I also had to stop at Sam's Club yesterday to get a few things. I was good though I only ended up getting one item that wasn't on my list. I usually go overboard when I stop there. I stopped mainly for Milk , Lemonade mix and Fruit snacks. Milk is $1.09 cheaper a gallon at Sam's instead of my local grocery store so I bought two gallons. 

I didn't have anything but food and gas expenses this week which is really unusual for our house. I took my lunch everyday. Taking my lunch also helped with me not going anywhere on my lunch hour so I wasn't spending gas leaving my office.

This week I have already done my menu planning and figured out what I don't have on hand. I made sure to plan out the side dishes this week. That is something  I don't always do and this week I had to run up to our local iga store to get a few things. Our local store is very nice and I like their sale prices but if it is not on sale then some things get very high.  We do buy most of our meat from there since it is usually good quality but only buy when it is on sale.

Today will be spent taking my daughter for a sports physical for cheerleading.   While I am in town I will be doing the grocery shopping for the week.

Have a good weekend!