Here Comes 2011!

I can't believe all the changes that have overtaken my life this year! I have learned so much from my venture into couponing. I know that I will never go back to my old way of shopping: paying full price for everything all the time and thinking I was doing the best I could by shopping almost exclusively at Wal-Mart. Who would have thought that, as I did a random google search while researching Disney World for a vacation, I would have stumbled upon the website that started my shopping revolution, www.couponingtodisney.com. I clearly remember spending most of last Christmas vacation scouring the net for more info. I came across www.hip2save.com. These two blogs were my original inspiration and I owe Kristin and Collin a ton of thanks, and probably a couple thousand dollars! I am so looking forward to a new year of being a wannabe cheapskate.

I have been putting off posting a budget goal for 2011. I posted a goal for the school year toward the end of the summer. And that's been a total failure. I hesitate to make my failure so public again! Then, I read this post by the Passionate Penny Pincher and realized that I needed to just buck up and go for it.

So, here it is. I plan to keep our family to a grocery and household needs budget of $60 per week. I think $60 is just the right amount to get what we need and what's on sale. Hopefully, I'll be able to come in under budget most weeks so that I have a little room to groove if I come across a great deal that would put me over on another week.

I am working on a way for me to (easily and quickly) track my spending at each store I frequent (Publix, CVS, Walgreens, Target, and Walmart). I don't know how I'll do on that, though. I want to be able to post here about my success/failure without it taking an age. Time will tell.

I will start posting and tracking tomorrow, January 1, 2011!