At the end of January, I made two grocery shopping trips. Those counted towards February and consisted mainly of meats to help restock the freezer and a bit of produce to see us through these past two weeks. I have not shopped since then.
Tuesday, I went out grocery shopping with Katie. I'd looked over sales and found nothing much to consider buying but I knew I had some outages that I wanted to fill. I also wanted to restock our produce. We were down to a single head of lettuce, carrots, celery and two mandarins.
I always start with produce when I go into the grocery. Today I bought mandarins, lemons, apples, snow peas, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, Russet Potatoes (great price) and 2 onions. Why two onions? Katie had some coupons she gave me and one of those was for 50c off a pound of onions. I had onions at home, but I can always use more onions.
I kept my purchase of meats very light: a pound of bacon, 2 pounds of Italian Sausage, a package of chicken/pork hot dogs (Josh's preferred flavor) and the family pack of Nathan's Beef Franks.
I bought 3-quart sized bottles of half & half, 2 half gallons of milk, a pint of sour cream, 2 pounds of butter, 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese (good sale), 1 dozen eggs.
I bought a package each of frozen diced hash browns and hash brown patties.
Other items I picked up were 2 packages of Oyster crackers, 32-ounces of Maple Syrup, a jar of sweet pickle relish, a jar of medium salsa, a jar of peanut butter.
I had many coupons on me today, not just the ones that Katie shared. I got my eggs for free. Butter was on sale for $3.99/pound for a name brand which was $1 cheaper than store brand. I have finally run my supply of butter down to a point where I need to restock once again.
All of that ran about $150.
At Target, I bought a 30-roll package of Up toilet paper and a bottle of Up dish detergent. I spent about $22 on those two items.
I have a short list for Sam's Club this month. I try to stock bulk items like flour, meats and frozen items that we like to keep on hand.
In my Amazon cart, I have a bag of craisins which is the best price I've seen on that size package, our stock-up on coffee (my goal is to be below 30c a K-cup which makes Amazon my go to for that item). I think I have one other grocery item in the subscribe and save order.
I do plan to pick up a few items before the end of this sales week at the groceries as they go on sale. Currently for instance, Kroger's newest sale has half gallons of milk for $1.39. I prefer to have two or three gallons in the freezer rather than just one gallon, so I'll plan to pick up four more of those. Another store has the best price on a cracker that John especially enjoys, beating out the Amazon price. Another has a gallon sized jug of name brand orange juice for $5, which is cheaper than two cans of frozen concentrate. Sales allow us to work with the budget we have to work with.
I'm finding that just picking up loss leaders right now is keeping us going and adding a bit extra to our supplies overall, even if the loss leaders are no longer coming frequently on basic foods. I have slightly decreased my budget since those sales I used to enjoy are no longer there. These days it's mostly a matter of looking for the best price, which is not necessarily a sale, but at the moment I think I've found my rhythm in this new mode of shopping at many stores and carefully picking and choosing what items we buy. It means I'm going into many stores for one to three items and only shopping heavily once a month.
Amazon Associates Affiliate Link: If you use my link to enter the site, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment