updated: Just when I thought I’d rounded them all up, I found another stack of receipts. Most were for the home repairs but there were a few more for groceries- and a large return receipt too!
You may have noticed that I did not post a Savings Review the entire month of January. We were just overwhelmed with moving and I hadn’t found a good place to stash all of my receipts. Thanks to this lack or organization I’ve spent way too much time finding, sorting, comparing to statements, and tallying receipts this weekend. Not a good use of my time- so I’ve designated a drawer for receipts so I won’t get behind again.
Our monthly budget is $500 and includes all groceries, clothing, gifts, newspapers, medicines, cleaning supplies and home decor. I was afraid that we’d be way over budget with the decorations I’ve bought for the new house, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that we were only a little bit over. so with the last of the receipts, we’re just plain over. Oh well, I’ll strive to average with February.
Shopping
Cut Turkey’s and Hubby’s hair myself: spent $0.00, saved $24.00
Online Shopping: spent $14.35, saved $10.65
Albertson’s: spent $10.36, saved 11.89
Brookshires: spent $32.74, saved $8.34
CVS: spent $4.61, saved 109.60
Target: spent $252.34, saved $338.39 (I could do worse for home decorating)
Walgreens: spent $22.38, saved $155.92
Walmart: spent $223.10, saved $82.70
Total Spent $559.88, Total Saved: $741.49
As you can see, I didn’t have much time for online rewards this month. About the only thing that I kept up with was searching- and that was because I had so many questions about how to fix things on the house 
Money Made
Craigslist: $25.00
Half.Com $17.60
Target Returns: $69.02
Lowe’s Returns: $14.42
Inbox Dollars: $1.50
Swagbucks: $8.31
RewardPort:$.43
Rebates Received: $30.00
Zoombucks: $1.49
Total Money Made $169.92
$741.49+$169.92= $911.41 This means $1302.01 of DH’s salary saved (click here to see how I get this amount)
How do you get money from MyPoints? I usually just get points to redeem.
I don’t get physical money. I usually redeem my points for the $25 GC to Pizza Hut (worth 3600 pts) so I took the $25 and divided by 3600 pts. For me, each point I get from MyPoints is equal to .006944 cents. So each e-mail I click through is worth about 3 and a half cents. It’s helpful to be able to compare the pay to shop through Mypoints to shopping through Ebates.
Glad to see that you have found all receipts that were hiding in all manner of nether regions.
I think you did a fantastic job staying very close to budget. A move is not cheap by any means (more gas, more take out, etc.) and leaves little time to plan for major coupon hauls or even meal plans so pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
Thanks for your encouragement Pary Moppins. I did have a couple of receipts to Walmart that showed up on my statements but that I didn’t find. I put them in at a very small savings in keeping with my regular Walmart trips. Thankfully we were able to use gift cards for most of our extra eating out. I really should check into getting a rewards debit card that I can put my budget $ onto each month….