Tightening the Money Belt

In effort to help save money and be able to buy our first home, I have begun to tighten the money belt! As it stands right now the hardest thing for me to give up is my Melaleuca membership. I love their products, especially Pre-Spot...Zoey's yet to have a stain it couldn't get out! The membership is only $12 a year and that's not the issue. My issue is the total cost of my product point commitment of 35 points per month! It comes to about $55 before tax and shipping...which will put it near $70! That is just too much for me to be comfortable with! Now, there products last longer and they are cheaper in price, however I don't need to buy them every month because they do last so long! In addition to that cut back, I have reduced our grocery bill by planning to have three whole chickens a week, which will give us three more nights using leftover chicken. If I am very careful, I should be able to pull off groceries right around $125 per week, which is great for a family of five! As for household items, I am already buying the 24 pack of Angel Soft tissue paper, which at our Wal*Mart costs about $6.00 (so it balances out to around $0.25 per roll), our shampoo and conditioners are usually the Suave brand so they are very inexpensive too! I wish I could say that the dollar stores are still the cheapest, but I have so far only found our local dollar stores to be the lowest price for milk and flour! But that is great because we need a lot of those items! I make homemade biscuits, and just recently pasta! I also made a homemade spaghetti sauce and though it tasted amazing, it is still cheaper to buy the $1.25 can from the store! All of my recipes have few ingredients, and are always simplified as much as possible.

I will post back with other thoughts on the subject, but for now I need to continue searching for more ways to cut back! *By the way, be looking for a 'surprise' post in about a week!*