You can find the story of the soup pictured above here. Don't forget to read about my first resolution if you missed it.

Last year, I had a goal to cut my budget simply by cutting my trips to the store. I think I did fairly well with that. If it wasn't a good sale week, I'd skip the store and eat what we had on hand. But then, that wasn't so fun if we ran out of bananas. We are eating plenty more bananas in our house since Nora found interest in them. So, I'll likely have to go back to regular trips to the store.

This means I'll have to find a better way of really monitoring our food budget. Although we have tried Mint.com in the past, I find it isn't very helpful because it doesn't separate purchases we make at box stores. Now, I'll need a bit tighter budget system.

We also want to have a budget for donating to the food pantry. We want to share the blessings God has given us. Unfortunately, I think when I don't have a budget for donating, I actually don't give as generously because I don't know how much I can give. I'm looking forward to having an amount we can give to those less fortunate than us.

Steps for Setting a Budget:

• Once a month, review receipts.
• Spreadsheet a list of total food prices and location purchased.
• List donated dollars.
• Keep receipts for reference.
• Goal=$60/wk average food budget
• List dates shopped to calculate how often I'm at the stores.
• Decide what's next.

What steps do you make to monitor your budget?