Files to Help Track Your Savings

Finally! I now have the savings files I refer to all the time in a format you can access!!

There are two documents I use each week to work on scenarios and track my savings. If you had requested these in the past, these are the same documents just put into separate files. The files are:

MommySnacks.net Grocery Savings Chart
MommySnacks.net Grocery Savings Weekly Scenarios

Instructions on downloading these to your personal system are below. Here is an explanation on each file:

MommySnacks.net Grocery Savings Chart

This is the actual file I use to enter my weekly store totals and savings. There are several columns in this file. The entry columns on here include:

Qtr
The quarter the purchase was made (1, 2, 3 or 4). I use this as I calculate totals for my quarterly updates I share with everyone.

Week of
The week the purchase was made. If I go to the store several times in the week, having the "Week of" date is good to use since I calculate my shopping totals weekly.

Store/Shopping Date
The store and shopping date for the purchase.

Spent
This is your total you spent at the store.

Savings
This is the total savings you achieved at the store.

Columns F-K (in grey)
These are all formula driven so I would highly recommend just leaving them as is.

Store
The store you purchased from. I threw this in there since I thought it would be interesting to see what store I spent/saved the most from.

Notes
Any notes for this specific purchase. For example, last year I made a note during the Kroger P&G $5 off $25 promotion. It is currently repeating and per my entry, it was on last year at this time - no surprise. I do the same for the CVS deals that I know I want to stockpile. Also, since I no longer keep a price book, I may include a price if it's really low too so I know for future reference.

MommySnacks.net Grocery Savings Weekly Scenarios

This is the file I use to create my shopping list and scenarios. There are currently 4 tabs in this spreadsheet: Meijer, Misc Stores, Drugstore, Weekly Total Spend.

The following tabs are simply duplicates but are included since I shop them and always want different pages for each: Meijer, Misc Stores, Drugstore. The entries you make to these documents can be deleted each week since.

The "Weekly Total Spend" tab is nice because it will give you your scenario totals for all stores on one page. So, you can work each scenario and go to that tab and know exactly how much your totals are going to be. If you change the titles of each store (i.e., change Meijer to Hyvee), this tab will automatically change the title on this page too. It is all formula driven so no manual entries need to be made to it. I use this a lot to try to stick to our budget. So, if I see that my scenarios have me going over for the week, I can go back and cut something out (possibly a stockpile item). In a way, it takes your grocery "wants" to "needs" in order to achieve your budget.

On the different store tabs, it is self explanatory but I'll try to add my own color commentary. You will see the item and item price on the left (reflected as the Spend Total in the yellow box) then the coupon and coupon value on the right (reflected as the Coupon Total in the yellow box). So, the spreadsheet is calculating your totals as follows:

Spend Total - Coupon Total = Grand Total (before tax).

On the Coupon Total, I put the total the coupon will actually be redeemed at. So, since my grocery stores double, I don't enter the $.50 coupon but rather a $1 coupon since that's the redemption total. And, if there are e-coupons, you can simply enter them on a separate line. Honestly, I never include them in my coupon total.

On the "Grocery" tab, I also have a column to the right of Kroger since they often times have several promotions of buy X items get $X off. I use that to count my total items so I can maximize my savings and do multiple transactions if necessary. For the Buy $X and get $X off, you can simply do a sum of the items to ensure you have met your required total. Did I mention I love excel :-)

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I personally use Google Documents to modify these documents weekly. If you haven't used Google Docs, it is FREE and a great way to avoid buying Microsoft Office applications!! We don't have MS Office and Google Docs offers Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. All applications have limited functionality but it is good enough for what I need (for the most part).

To access these documents, please save them to your computer or personal Google Docs page by doing the following:

1. Click on above links to open each in a new window
   
2. File => Export => .XLS
   
3. Save in your personal folder on your computer
   
4. It will now be accessible in Excel on your system.

If you do not have excel (like me) and want to use Google Docs, still save as above and then:

1. Open Google Documents (it's easy to register as a new user - I love it!)
   
2. Upload (in blue menu bar)
   
3. Browse for the file you saved
   
4. Name it and Upload

Your personal files will now be available to utilize in Google Docs too!
Please do not modify the document UNTIL you have followed the steps above. Since both documents are public, any entries you make will be seen by anyone who accesses the documents. Any changes/modifications will be deleted to restore each document to the original format.

And, for the sake of sharing, to print in Google Docs is easy too! Here's how I do it:

1. File => Export => HTML Sheet
   
2. In the HTML Sheet, go to File => Print Preview to see what the page will look like printed out.
   
3. Print the pages you want, I always print just the first page.

I hope these files help you save in the year ahead! Please feel free to drop me comments if you have questions on the files.