this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

So the good news is in January we managed to earn $394.12 more than we spent. The bad news, I'll save that for the next paragraph. $100 of that has been automatically deposited into our auto maintenance/insurance account, and $25 has been deposited into our Christmas gifts account. The rest will go into our emergency savings, which I'm trying to get up to $3000. It's almost there and when our tax refund arrives, it will be.

And the bad news, I spent $302.30 in groceries this month. $53.30 over budget. Oops. Based on all the non-food items I bought early in the month (laundry detergent, trash bags, and batteries to name a few), I knew I'd go over in this category. I've got a plan that will hopefully prevent that in the future, though.

I also have some great deals to report from this month. I intended to do a post after each grocery trip, but didn't (thinking I'd just combine it with the next one) and they've been piling up.

• Peanut Butter was on sale for $1 and I had a $1 off coupon!


• Crescent rolls were in the reduced for quick sale section an awful lot recently. I paired them with coupons a few times to get them for under $1.


• Chicken breasts were on sale for $1.57/lb. When I went, there was only a few pounds left. The girl at the meat counter suggested I ask for a rain check since had there been more, I probably would have bought more. So I got a great deal on chicken and have a rain check to get some more later.


• At Costco, I found a large package of yeast for a little under $4. It's about the same price as the jars at the grocery store, but for at least three times the amount. I use yeast probably about once a week to make pizza dough or french bread, so this is a good deal for me.


• Monkey has finally graduated to size 3 diapers. This means I can buy a big box of diapers for him. I really like the Albertson's store brand diapers, and size one and two aren't available in the large boxes. I'm saving a few cents per diaper now that I can buy in a larger quantity (even accounting for the fact that larger size diapers are more expensive)

And my favorite deal:

• Cereal! Some General Mills cereals were on sale 8/$10 (when you bought 8). I bought 16. I used some coupons which brought the cost per box to under $1 each. Good thing, since I'm almost out of the cereal I bought last time there was a great sale.

My goal for January was to sit down with The Tall One and discuss our next goal after our emergency savings is at $3000. We decided that all the extra money will go towards our mortgage so we can eliminate our PMI payments. We also have a little bit of student loan debt left, but the interest on that is so small that it makes very little sense for us to aggresively pay that off. Our money can work harder for us elsewhere. So how will we determine what is "extra money"? Stay tuned to find out.

My goal for February? Don't know yet. I will come up with one soon and let everyone know though!