Grocery Haul for the Third Week of September

 

I know I said I wasn't going to shop for the third week in September but...

There were a few sales too good to pass up and some outages and I decided to make a run today (September 17).  I meant to take a photo of it all, as it was rather impressive for what I spent.  Not a huge haul but it was not a small amount of food that I carried out in a single bag, which has happened at times with a greater amount of money spent!

Anyway, I thought I'd share what I bought and the prices I paid in my area. And I am thinking I will make this a regular series for the next couple of months.  This will be mainly for comparison purposes for you all and if you'd care to share what prices you pay in your area then please come to the comments and let us know.  Please be sure to state your region/area.  Remember I am in an area near both Middle Georgia and Southwest Georgia.   Typically, we shop in Warner Robins (or Perry now and then) both of which are a 60- to 70- mile round trip for us.

But I like the idea of shopping locally to support my community.  I truly do.  

Recently, I've started receiving a weekly ad from the Piggly Wiggly in our county seat.  I've mentioned before in a past post that this store is often exorbitant in costs.  But the ads I received led me to believe that perhaps the store was now under new management in conjunction with a store further north and there were four items that were very well priced that I knew would fill a gap in my food supplies.  

So, I headed to Piggly Wiggly.  My list was short and sweet:

Yellow onions/3-pound bags 2/$5

Beef Shoulder roast $4.49/pound

Acorn/Butternut/Spaghetti Squash 99c/pound

Springer Mountain Whole Chickens $1.59/pound

I walked in full of hope and ready to spend my money.  I walked out with nothing but the chicken.  

The yellow onions were marked $5.99/bag on one side of the bin and the others were marked $4.49/bag on the other side.  The ad had not named the brand onion that was on sale and there were four different brands in the bins. The least expensive ones were bruised, mushy and mildewed.  I decided even if they proved to be the sale item (no marking to indicate they were) I'd skip them anyway.

The squashes were nowhere to be seen.  I glanced at the Brussels Sprouts.  Less than one pound at $7.50.

I priced eggs on my way to the meat cases.  For a 30-count pack $16.97.  For a dozen, $8.  I shook my head. I'd heard eggs were high just now, but I was pretty sure that was even more inflated than it might be in other areas.

I walked over to the meat counter and there wasn't a roast in sight, most certainly not the shoulder roasts supposedly on sale.  I did find the Springer Mountain whole chickens.  I picked up two and that was my sole purchase in that store.  I spent $13.68 for those two birds.  One is in the freezer, and one is now in the oven baking for our supper.

Frankly I was disappointed.  Very disappointed.  I was so hopeful that the grocery in that town was a better place to shop...sigh.  

I'll mention here that I do plan to return to something I did about 3 years ago and that is to set myself a budget and shop at one store to create budget meals and post about those shopping trips, as I did in the highlighted post I linked above.  I feel it's important to do this exercise now and then just to keep in mind what I can do if needed and also to help others see how they might plan/manage on a restrictive budget.  However, I likely won't start this exercise until October.  Today's spending has me right at my budget limit for the month and I don't wish to spend more for September if I can avoid it.

I drove over to Food Depot, because I'd received that ad via email on Monda.  They had a few items I thought were good buys and I knew there was an equally good chance I could get something from the clearance produce rack there.  I'd taken time to review the sales at Publix and Kroger in the preview ads I can access online to see if there were any of my needed items on sale in the week ahead.  I jotted down a short list for both stores of possible purchases, but truly do not think I will be making any of those this week.

I don't know about you all, but more and more lately, I find my grocery lists are shorter (LOTS shorter) as good sales are simply non-existent.  And those things that had been offered as loss leaders have decreased.  Right now, I haven't seen eggs as a loss leader (I do know why, due to the massive recalls made), nor have I seen much fruit or produce on those loss leader sales.  Instead, I am seeing more and more processed items.  The 'real food' loss leaders such as milk or cheese are being offered more frequently which I do appreciate.  But the past sales cycles, in other words, are not following the usual patterns and items are being removed from the cycles.  

But let me get back to what I bought today at the 'discount' grocery in the next town over.

Food Depot advertises that their prices are cost plus 10%.  The bulk of the produce is marked "Product of Mexico" and for the life of me I don't understand why it's less expensive to buy from Mexico than from the U.S.  However, the big draw for me is that they have a clearance produce rack at the back of that department and they have a reduced-price meat bin which sometimes has really good buys and other times simply looks sad.

At Food Depot, I found the sales items easily enough:  acorn squash 79c/pound, 3-pounds Gala apples $2.99, Del Monte spaghetti sauce 89c a can.  I got two of the squash which weighed exactly 1 pound each, and a butternut squash for 99c a pound.  I bought one bag of apples.   They are tiny apples, but they were 20c a pound cheaper than the loose ones.  I bought four cans of spaghetti sauce.  I just find this a nice convenience to have on the pantry shelf.  If I need a fast lunch or supper, heat a can of sauce, cook some pasta and call it a meal!  The price on the spaghetti sauce is only 5c more than it cost 2 years ago...and that's the best price I've seen on it in years.

I also bought: 3pounds of onions $2.79, a little over 3 pounds of sweet potatoes $3.54.  From the clearance rack in the produce department, I bought Brussel Sprouts $1, 1 pound of carrots $1, and two large pieces of fresh ginger root for 75c.

As I passed by the meat counter, I noted that Swaggerty Italian and Bratwurst sausages were on sale for $3.99 package which is a fairly common sales price for most brands (Johnsonville comes to mind) but there were coupons attached for $2 off 2 packages, making them just $2.99 a package if I bought four.  I got two of Italian and two of Bratwurst.

I priced meats, but did not pick up any: beef bones were $2.95 pound, and they were the boniest bones I've seen in ages.  Not a scrap of meat on them.  It did make me mindful that if I can possibly save beef bones these days I shall do so.  They have value these days it seems!  

Oxtail was fatty and going for $9.95/pound (!!).  I like to have a nice slow cooker of braised short ribs in fall, but the selection today was pricey ($7.95 a pound) and I had a choice of the shortest short ribs I'd ever seen or the skinniest I'd ever seen.  The price had already made them lose appeal but the appearance finished any lingering desire!  I looked at other beef prices but decided that nothing was suitable to my budget.  

In the clearance case they had the thinnest bone-in rib eye steaks I've ever seen, not much thicker than breakfast steak and it was still $6.95 a pound.  Bone-in pork chops were $2.49/pound.  It is not at all uncommon to find pork chops in the clearance bins.  I have plenty of pork on hand and don't need more.  I walked away empty-handed from those meat counters.  

In the freezer aisle, I picked up a package of name brand breaded fish fillets ($6.48), The fish fillets are strictly for me.  I like to eat fish, John doesn't.  I bought two appetizers that were on sale for $4.67 each.  I bought mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers.  I will confess at this point I was really hungry.  But I didn't buy these to have right away.  I bought them to have with drinks on the veranda when we're on vacation.   

Then I went to check egg prices, which were still high, but not as high as at Piggly Wiggly.  30-count store brand eggs were $13, and $6 something for 1 dozen...However, Eggland Eggs were considerably less.  I found this surprising given they are typically far more expensive than other brands.  However, they apparently have not increased their costs unlike other egg producers.  They were just $3.20 for a dozen, and $5.05 for an 18ct package.  I got one of each.  So, I paid just $8.25 for 30 eggs which seemed a huge savings compared to egg prices I'd been seeing overall.   

And I suppose that's how we all end up paying far more for groceries.  We get sticker shock and then see a price that while high is still considerably lower and we soon are socked into that as a 'low' price.  I shall be stingy with eggs, and I mean that sincerely.  I'm far less likely to cook more than 3 for us (two for John and one for me) rather than cooking four or five as I might when they are truly inexpensive.  And I'm less likely to choose to bake any item that requires more than two.  This is not the season I'd choose to make egg custard or Angel food cake, or poundcake.  Or a breakfast casserole that calls for a dozen eggs.

I spent a total of $64.21 at Food Depot.  So, for a total spending of $77.89 I got a decent amount of food.

I will get multiples of meat meals from what I purchased today.  The chickens are not huge, but they are a decent size.  We typically eat the leg quarters when I roast the whole chicken, and the breasts are usually divided into two more meals then I cook off the frame.  So, four meals from the roasted chicken and if I cut up the other chicken, I'll likely get five meals off that one.  

We usually eat just one sausage each of the Brats, so those two packages (five sausages to a package) will stretch to 5 meals.  The Italian sausages are more often used as meat to top a pizza or to use in sauce, so I'd think I'd get 6-7 meals from those two packages.  The fish pieces will be for meals alone for me when John is having lunch with his friend or going to men's meeting.  I expect to get three meals (I believe it's a 6-piece package) from that, but that will be for one where the previous meal counts are for two.  So, I'm pretty happy with the number of servings I will get off the meat I purchased today.  

I look forward to doing the purchase challenge at various stores next month.  Again, I'm going to focus on my local stores first.  I'll just skip Piggly Wiggly though...I simply cannot afford to feed us at that store without being very stingy with what is purchased.  It seems a waste of gas to even drive over (it's 22 miles round trip) only to be disappointed.  Being stingy is not my purpose for this experiment, anyway.  It's to remind myself that we can still eat well on a tighter budget than the one I currently have.  It's always a tremendous help to myself to do this exercise, like working to build up a muscle that has gotten weak due to lack of use.  

Let me know if this is something you'd like to see.  I don't want to bore anyone!

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