Reducing the grocery bill - week 2

I have been feeling disheartened with my grocery bill reduction progress. Last week we spent $215. It's a bit odd, because I thought with being away for the weekend we would spend less. Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, as we did cater for an improptu family picnic on Saturday. The fact it wasn't planned meant that we bought premade goodies, rather than cooking/making them from scratch.

I've been through my receipts to see where it all went. Here's what I found happened at the supermarket and what I plan to do to keep things in check in future:

• The improptu picnic cost $25
  Fix: Perhaps suggest an afternoon trip, rather than a lunchtime outing. It's nice to do this sort of thing every now and then though, so I'm not going to be hard on myself about this one.

• $6 on muffin mixes
  Fix: Muffins are soooo easy to make - why use a mix. No more cake or muffin mixes!

• $6.30 on juice
  Fix: Oranges are quite cheap at the moment. I'm going to make our own juice instead. I'm sure if I search hard enough in the back of the cupboard I'll even be able to find a juicer attachment to the food processor.

• $24 on batteries!!
  Fix: The Engineer will no longer have free access to batteries for his toys. They will be kept in a safe place and will be rationed out by The Thinker or myself.

• $1.89 on sultana snack packs
  Fix: This works out to more than twice the cost per kg of a large bag of sultanas. No more dinky sultana boxes - we'll package our own.

• $13 on yoghurt
  Fix: Have a go at making at least some of our weekly yoghurt supply myself.

So there I have at least $50 saved. Of course, I don't buy all of these things each week. Typically, though, something else would be substituted for one of the above items. I haven't had a serious look at the fruit & veg or butcher's receipts at this stage. Slow & steady!