High Money Days

Alot of money has been spent over the past few days, but most of it has been things that are fairly necessary, at least for where I'm at right now and what I'm doing.

1. I had to spend 23.00 on a new drivers license. There's really no way out of this people. However, I did have to pay a 1.00 late fee since my last license was expired. Be aware of your drivers license expiration date and renew before it completely expires. I only had to pay 1.00 but different states have different rules and you can save a good chunk of change by not accruing those late fees.

2. I finally had to get gas for my car. I only had $20.00 to spend, which doesn't get very much these days. It took me just over half a tank of gas. Make sure to find the cheapest gas in your area. I've also heard that the best times to get gas are in the morning. As far as gas mileage goes, keep your tires inflated and your car free of extra weight that's not needed. And be conscience of how much you drive. Walk or bike whenever possible.

3. Food over the past few days has cost a little more than usual, mostly due to our own failure to plan. At Wal-Mart, we spent a whole $10.00. Unfortunately, we only got 1.5 meals out of it, sloppy joes one night and then we had some bakery cheddar buns for tonight's meal. It wasn't a total washout though. We scored some more sugar free drink and cheese, as well as some bananas and cookies for snack purposes. Tonight, we splurged on dinner and ate out, though if you want to go cheap and like pizza, Little Caesar's Hot and Ready deal is great. For 7.50 we got a large pizza and a thing of breadsticks and made it last two meals.

Bratwurst Dinner and Grocery Shopping

We decided to do something different for dinner tonight and cook something a little more wild than just tuna helper or hot dogs. So we decided to go for a bratwurst dinner with french fries.

This dinner was actually a little more expensive than our last few. The bratwurst were on sale for $2.50 for a five sausage package and the fries were $1.79. Our original idea had been to make the bratwurst last for two meals, but after a traumatic over-broiling experience (my bad), we ended up having a larger dinner than we'd planned for. If you add in the bread and condiments we used, this meal for two people came to a little less than $5.00. I thought it felt extravagant, but when we compared it to a typical Taco Bell meal, we came out alright, considering that's less than what most people pay for an individual TB value meal.

SHOPPING TIPS: On today's shopping trip, we visited Dillons. Like many regular grocery stores, I find that their stuff is a little high priced compared to Aldi and even WalMart. But we decided to check it out and by looking at their ad prices, we were able to get some great things on sale.

Oscar Mayer Bologna was on sale for $1.00 each for the larger packs (regular price $3.29). Like hot dogs, not everyone can stomach bologna, but I have no problem with it and actually kind of like it. We bought two packages to stock up for lunches and the occasional dinner.

Kroeger's Bread was also on sale for $0.88 per loaf, which is about 60 cents lower than it's original price and almost 10 cents cheaper than Wal-Mart bread. Again, we couldn't beat the sale, so we got two loaves, which we can use for hotdogs, hamburgers, toast, and sandwiches. If you can get a sale like this and have freezer space, stock up.

We also scored some ketchup and mustard for under a dollar each and a dollar pack of cookies. Dillons is one of the chains that requires a savings card to get the deals. When all was said and done, we went from a grocery bill of $21.00 to one of $14.00 by using the card.

Making Extra Money

Besides picking up more job applications today, the BF and I managed to make about $50 by selling some things we didn't need anymore, namely books, CDs, and videogames.

In this town, there are several avenues for selling used media. CD Tradepost was our first stop and offered us $7.50 for about 5 used CDs. Sure it doesn't sound like alot, but when money is an issue (as in you don't have any) every little bit helps. All of these CDs had been purchased by me, and since I had since loaded them onto my iTunes, I could get rid of them without feeling too much regret.

We also have a Hastings, which buys back books, DVDs, CDs, and video games. By rounding things up in the same way, we were able to sell back enough to make $40. Because of how tight things are right now, this was a small fortune. The first thing we did was talk about how we were going to spend it. Spending as a couple is a lot different than spending as an individual, and I wanted to make sure we kept the lines of communication completely open. After discussing it, we socked away $20 for gas (which won't get us much but it'll get us something). We decided to do some more grocery shopping and then just hold the rest to buy us groceries over the next couple of weeks until we have jobs.

I have to admit though...we did splurge a little. We treated ourselves to Sonic Happy Hour, where all Sonic drinks are half priced. For a whole $1.88, we got a large sour apple slushie and a large apple limeade. Okay, so yeah, we splurged. But I think it was definitely a couple of dollars well spent.

Wal-Mart Shopping

Wal-Mart is a little pricier than stores like Aldi and Sav-A-Lot, but they have a good selection and you can still find some pretty cheap finds if you hunt for it. On our latest WM shopping trip, the BF and I did everything we could to spend the least amount of money and get the most meals out of it.

Bar-S Hot Dogs are only 67 cents for a package of 8. Many people don't like hot dogs at all, and if they do eat them, they have to be beef. If you're like me and don't care, you can make these last for a couple of meals. We paired a pack of them with a loaf of GV bread ($0.96) and some mustard which we already had. Pringles are a dollar per can, so we bought two. This gave us a dinner and a lunch. We also picked up two cans of GV tuna fish (0.56 each) and two GV Cheesy Pasta dinners (like Tuna Helper but semi-generic) for 96 cents each. That's two more meals, four if we halve each one.

We splurged a little on a pack of 98 cent GV cookies. The most we spent was $1.88 for a canister of GV sugar free drink mix. Though we spent over a dollar on it, it's actually the best deal. You get 6 tubs of mix in a canister, and each makes 2 quarts of drink. Since it's sugar free, it's already flavored, so we saved by not having to buy sugar. Once we figured it out, we found it was the healthier and cheaper option.

The total cost for four meals for two people, including dessert and drink: $10.23.

Not too shabby.