Frugal Failure: Weekly Frugal Goals

Alison mentioned in her last post about how I've never told you guys anything regarding my goals on this blog.  Which, I was surprised to note, is completely true!  So I'm going to try and outline them for you guys here today

1. Don't eat out.  To me this means: eating breakfast before I leave my apartment, packing (and eating) a lunch, preferably of leftovers, and going home for dinner.  I don't think going out for a meal with friends falls into this category, but I try to do it less than once a week (which usually isn't overly difficult).  Now, for a disclaimer:  I failed at this abysmally this semester!  Part of it was that my roommate was away, so I had no one to tell me I was bad for eating Dunkin Donuts and Wendy's five times a week, partially it was the insane amount of work that had to be done for one of my classes, and part of it was just sheer laziness.
2. Watch for sales/coupons.  This just means looking at the flyer before I go grocery shopping.  Looking at the red plum, and seeing what coupons there are, matching coupons with sales, and saving myself a ton of money easily.  I'd like it to mean stockpiling like a lot of the Mommy blogs do, but in a small apartment with just myself and my roommate, this really isn't feasible.  On top of that, my roommate seems to be morally opposed to the idea of stockpiling, for some unknown reason, which makes it hard to do as we split groceries evenly :)
3. Know whats in my fridge/cupboards.  This is a big one.  If I have 10 boxes of Kix, which only I eat, and Kix go on sale again, I shouldn't buy more, unless I can get them for an amazing price!  What's an amazing price?  See goal #5!
4. If you don't need anything, don't shop.  This is a big one for me.  I would go to the store every week, without fail, and pick up whatever meats were on sale.  It never occured to me that if I didn't buy chicken, I wouldn't eat chicken untili the next time it was on sale, I would go buy it anyway!  I also wouldn't take into account the amount of food already in my fridge/freezer.  It just wasn't a good strategy.
5. Keep a Grocery Price Book.  I haven't actually started this resolution yet, but I feel its a really important one to have!  See the article here at GRS, and here at NCN.  I'm sure there are some other great articles about Grocery Price Books... Have you written one?
6. Walk.  This is a big one for me.  Since I moved off-campus, I have been taking the bus instead of walking, even though it is a 10 minute walk to campus.  This is ridiculous, as it costs me about $1 each way, that I don't need to spend.

Those are my main goals.  I realize they mostly involve grocery shopping or eating, but I do very little else that costs money!  I infrequently go to the movies, or go out dancing or drinking.  Most of my hobbys require little maintenance cost, and the initial costs have long been spent.

So what do you think?

Katharine

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