Grocery Shopping This Week

What a morning... I woke to find the boys did not have school. They were going to have a half day. And then for some some reason, the school decided they were going to delay because of fog. THERE WAS NO FOG. I saw NO FOG! SO instead of making the kids come to school for 2 hours, they canceled.




I took them with me shopping, and they have too much energy for shopping and I have very high expectations of them while we shop. So, to the lay person, they looked like good boys. To me, I had to growl at them every other minute. OH, like when I had to growl at Austin to stop messing around and walking backwards through the store, just as he knocked into a cardboard display of cereal bars, knocking about 15 boxes down, and nearly taking out the display. I also had to smile, because THAT'S my Aussie... He's a cluts and he's super cute.





Anyways, back to the shopping trip. My husband told me I had $40 to spend on groceries, because of our Anniversary weekend... So, I had to widdle my list down and get the really good sales and the necessities...





So here's what I got:

I went to Meijer and to Kroger. I HAD to get Valentines. Have the prices of these went up??? And they don't even come in envelopes, the have a small page of stickers... Anyways! I also HAD to get milk. I still had 2 from last week (great sale at Meijer on Milk and soy milk) so all I had to get was a couple. I have been able to save on milk a little bit while the boys are away at school, plus limiting them to 2 glasses at dinner has helped! I did not do the racing sale or what ever that is at Kroger. There weren't 10 items that I wanted to spend my money on this week. But I did get some more Wacky Mac, because we had this last night in the pasta salad form, and loved it (yes Megan, it's true!). And since it's only like $.16 at Kroger with a $.50 coupon (tripled), we got more! Plus on my limited budget, I scoured the discount items and found some rice on sale for $1.27, plus I got some discounted meat. This is meat that is about 2-3 days from it's "sell by" date. All I do, is divide it up and throw it in the freezer any how! So, these are a great way for us to be able to afford meat, to feed 6 on a budget of $70!

I also "splurged" a little bit and got organic lettuce. That was $2.29 a head! But it is worth it to me.

OH, I almost forgot, we have always had the Schwan man stop by our house. They have very good ice cream and other things for dinners... Well, I am ashamed to say I have been mostly hiding from the Schwan man because I am getting great deals and don't "need" his services. Last time I saw him, I was going to get some Quik Taters, basically a round tater tot. But they didn't have it so I got shredded hash browns. It cost me over $5 for a bag of hash browns. I told my husband that I didn't want to get anything from them any more! Well, guess who caught me this morning trying to go grocery shopping... the Schwan man. So he pops through my door and says, "we have the Quik Taters today" and proceeds to put them in his little machine. I said OK... and he said' Anything else?" I told him no, and he said the total was "$5.69". I about passed out. But went and wrote the check... There went that much of my budget! Note to self: Never order from the Schwan man until you become independently wealthy.

So, I forgot to add the small bag of Quik(ly draining your budget) Taters to the picture...

So, $5.69 to the Schwan man, $17.29 to Meijer, and $16.39 to Kroger, equaling = $39.34!!! And saved $27.57. That is 59% saving. Not too bad, but I didn' t have many coupons this week and I got quite a bit of meat. So we are happy!

I was just breaking down our food budget too and $70 feeds, cleans(soaps, shampoos, deodorants, toothpaste, etc) & cares for (household cleaning products, laundry soap, toilet paper, etc) each member of this family. And breaking that down, we only spend $11.66 per person, per week. That is amazing when you break it down. We used to do $35. per person, per week. And that was skimping, getting almost all generic, and not eating much meat.

I think this is the most I have rambled on here about groceries, so I encourage you to learn how to shop smarter! And feed your family for less! To learn how to do that, go HERE or HERE.

How did YOU do this week???