It's the little things that excite me. Like the fact that I found a giant can of dill pickles for $.99. Look at the size of that thing in my pictures. I felt like I was taking a chance by buying it. I was afraid they wouldn't be good quality, maybe mushy or not a good dill flavor so it was the first thing I opened when I got home. They were great and I was tempted to go back and buy the other four cans I found on the shelf. We like pickles for snacks and the elk ruined my pickle patch this year so I didn't get to can my own. I also found chocolate soymilk as a treat for my lactose intolerant-chocolate luvin husband at $.49 a carton.
Those were the two bargains that made my day.
I had to buy easy to fix, convenient type food for the weekend since I won't be here to prepare meals for anybody and I'm just not feeling organized enough to put together meals and directions and lists for everyone.
Bad mommy.
So here's how it went...
5 loaves of bread $4.70
Giant can of dill pickles $.99
2 cans pineapple $1.58
2 cans pears $1.38
2 cans mandarin oranges $1.38
Large can of spaghetti sauce $.69
Starbucks whole bean coffee $3.49
2 cans chili $1.18
2 cartons of chocolate soy milk $.98
4 boxes mac & cheese $1.00
Penne pasta $.99
3 lbs apples $2.99
Smoked Sausage $3.99
Pepporoni $1.79
Cottage Cheese $1.69
Tater Tots $1.29
Toilet Paper $2.99
Solid Chunk of Parmesan $2.15
Gallon milk $2.48
2 cartons of Vanilla Soy Milk $2.16
5 dozen eggs $7.68
1.3 lbs Bulk Crispy Rice Cereal $1.97
4 lbs bananas $2.08
3/4 lb powdered milk $2.25
2 onions $.53
Shredded Mozzarella $1.86
1 lb cheddar $3.43
5 lbs sugar $1.95
2 lbs carrotts $.98
5 lb potatoes $1.68
Roma Tomatoes $.79
3 zuchinni $1.75
Grand Total $66.84
To see what I'll be cooking with this stuff go Here. How did your shopping trip go?
Please remember to link directly with your post (not your homepage) and provide a link in the body of your post back to the Grocery Cart Challenge. Otherwise your link may be deleted.
31 comments:
Great job! My daughters love pickles, they want me to buy that big can too. Here is my link for the week
http://mjcaffey6.blogspot.com/2009/01/weekly-grocery-shopping-jan-wk3.html
enjoy your getaway!
I am so in love with your site that my husband no longer has to ask, "Who?" When I refer to something "Gayle" said on her blog. Lol. We are stuck in the Middle East right now where everything is way over-priced, but I have bookmarked so many of your pages for future reference when we get back to Idaho and my WINCO!!! Thank you so much for all that you have on here, it is saving so many of us lots of money! :)
My shopping went great this week - I was so proud! I've been unsuccessful in finding the discount stores in my area so I've resorted to coupons and the stockpiling method. There is one liquidator I may need to check out but it's a bit of a drive compared to the 5 stores I have within a 2 mile radius now. I now shop two stores to get the best prices - I'm amazed at the markup on produce at the large national chain! This week I had a 47% reduction in my weekly trip.
I would go back and get those pickles, too!
I love to see how you can keep your grocery totals under 70.00 a week for a family of 6. I wish I could do that. I have diabetes so my diet requires more protein and less carbs, which of course is more expensive. Anybody else have special diet needs?
Anne
I've never heard of the stores you shop! :)
Let me just say, I would have been more excited over the 3.00 Starbuck's coffee than the pickles. A pound of Starbucks whole beans costs about 7.00 here. Then again, I prefer coffee to pickles LOL.
Hmmm, I don't think I've ever seen pickles in a can before. . . only in jars. Learn something new each and every day now don't we?
Blessings,
Sher
OH WOW! $0.49 SOY MILK!!!
I would have bought them out! :)
Good job on the pickles, too! I wish we had a scratch-n-dent discount place, but we don't... such sadness.
My goodness Gayle toilet paper two weeks in a roll. I now know you are human! With four girls in the house it is a staple here. I can't believe the price you get for powdered milk. I have to pay about $8.99/lb of the stuff and that is the cheapest I have found at the bulk store. Using cow milk and doing a half/half ration of water to milk is how I use it in recipes. You are still super human to me! Have a great trip.
Marlyn
Great job and great find on the pickles! I hope you enjoy your weekend away!
impressed by the pickles. I too love pickles. Have a good weekend.
I am sure your family will love your lack of organization while they are eating their cereal...so pat yourself on the back you made them happy!
Latte
I really enjoy reading your blog, but recently you switched to not having a full feed. I read all my blogs on Google Reader - and it makes it difficult to follow them all if they're all short feeds. Can you please switch back??
The soymilk and pickles and Starbucks are amazing deals!
wow! with that starbucks coffee :-)
You did great! Especially good deals on the pickles and soy milk. I agree with the other ladies about going back for those pickles.:-)
Good Afternoon Gayle:
Again I am impressed with how well you do with feeding 6 people. I don't have the outlets that you have there but we do most of our shopping at Costco a wholesaler; Family Dollar and I found this discount store in New Hampshire; My mom and I call it the pink store cause there is no name on the building. I also don't have 4 kids at home anymore so our food bill is much lower.
The hubster and I where snuggling and watching a moive last night..(took us 20 years to do the snuggle thing by the way) and we watched the movie "Chocolat" with Johnny Dep and Juliette Binoche...and I thought of you and your hubby since you two are chocolcate lovers.....very cute movie ....I would save it for date night.......you and hubby a little chocholat and kids tucked in bed.....!!!
Made Ribollita this weekend....healthy and can be inexpensive to make with your shopping skills. Even hubby can make it......you put it all one pan.
This is my first week to do this. It wasn't perfect and there is MUCH room for improvement, but I'm sticking my big toe in your money-saving waters.
Wish me luck as I attempt to do this as a new habit. (Hard to do as a mom that works 40 - 50 hours a week, but I'm going to give it a try!)
Anne, YES! I have diet restrictions (gluten and dairy allergies, which = a high protein diet) that make it hard for me to budget as tightly as Gayle. But I'm going to TRY to find my own way and method that works for me. It'll take some practice, but I'm no longer allowing my restrictions from preventing me from at least TRYING. This is a new week for me! :-)
Ann,
I'm diabetic and my son is on Feingold (no artificial colors, sweeteners, MSG, or certain lard substitutes). I've challenged myself to spend $2 per person per day ($140 a week for us).
I posted my receipts on my blog this week.
where do you live that you have so many discount type grocery stores?
Thanks for hosting! Again, I am amazed at what you score for your $60! I NEED to be better about buying JUST WHAT I NEED FOR THE WEEK! I tend to stockpile and it blows my budget! It all evens out at the end of a month though. Anyway, thanks again for the inspiration!!
Aimee
that is amazing!!! I really need to start going to grocery outlet. It is just out of the way and not very nice but oh well.
My daughter can't have dairy or gluten, which makes it hard to keep down our grocery budget. Gayle, I can't believe you found soymilk for $.49! Wow. Any advice for others with a restrictive diet?
Advice for those on a restrictive diet?
Don't beat yourself up over the higher cost of your groceries. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Check into couponing. Erin at 5dollardinners.com has a pretty restrictive diet and she's doing a great job at keeping her budget low.
Know that my way isn't the only or even best way. Try and save in other areas of your groceries that are more flexible and then make a plan that fits YOUR family.
There is a site called "Mambo Sprouts" that if you join you can print coupons for health foods.
Also Promised Land and other organic websites have coupons!
My advice for restricted diet is to not try to substitute "fake" food.
Another close family member cannot eat wheat of any kind - but she doesn't buy special rice bread, instead she buys food that naturally have no wheat (like corn tortillas for wraps, etc.)
OMG! I just found the coolest site ever! Have you seen this? Idk maybe you had already mentioned it in the past but I missed it. http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/ It is the USDA site and there are tons of recipes on there! The coolest part though is that you can search recipes by putting in the $$$ amount per serving. I typed in a dollar and some great stuff came up. I am so excited how cool is that?! lol!
Anne, yes, we are a low-carb family, though by choice and weight loss/health reasons. The only way I can continue this way of eating is to price match meat sale ads at Walmart. Otherwise, we would have given it up long ago.
You did a lovely job on those bargains this week!
Allie
Learningtobefrugal.com
I love your blog.
Ingles had triple coupons in my neck of the woods.
And it really saved me some dimes,
I live in Australia... and when I read through the lists of prices, I just about fell off my chair!
I save my receipts (I'm a family daycare provider and food is a tax deduction) so I had nothing better to do than match prices. (yeah right - I have 5 children here today and I had to do something to save my sanity!)
My total for the same basic items, came to $137.92
And people wonder why I want to move back to California?
My son, his wife, 3 boys and my partner and myself did a massive shop at Costco and Winco and spent less than $200 - with enough food and toiletries to last for 3 weeks.
I want to go home... :-(
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