Super Savings Saturday - CSA, $39.95 shop with $13.48 spent OOP
We had a surprise yesterday - John got paid!
We totally were not expecting to get paid - either one of us - until September 15th so that was a very nice surprise.
He gets paid very little and almost all of it goes to pay for our medical and dental insurance, we only have a little left from his paycheck for other things. So that's what I took to the stores today - a little!
I took $30 and bought hose for me to wear to work next week (I had one pair left and that had a huge run in them - I'm not someone who likes to wear dress shoes without socks of some sort), Q-tips and a package of index cards that we needed. I also took $1.50 from an envelope of cash that I'm using to buy supplies for 6 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and bought 6 notebooks, one for each envelope for $0.25 each. That leaves me with $5.67 to spend on goodies for the boxes (I started with $20 back in May).
I had $15 left after that to spend at the grocery store along with $26.45 in gift cards. We both felt it was important to buy a couple of particular things (flour, butter and shortening) that we hadn't planned on buying so that was what that money was to go towards.
We also picked up our mostly veggie CSA this week. Here is what we got:
Clockwise from top left: yellow, orange and red cherry tomatoes and yellow pear mini tomatoes (all in the basket), purple and green kohlrabi, three softball size heads of cabbage, eggplant, green onions, Swiss chard, a large zucchini, yellow bell pepper, green bell pepper, broccoli (in the bag), a tiger melon, tomatillos (in the bag) and cucumbers in the middle.
My son is so happy about the tomatoes and my daughter is delighted with the cucumbers! I'm just delighted that their eating garden-fresh veggies!
Here's what I bought today at the grocery store:
Total Spent Out of Pocket: $13.48
I'm hoping to buy only milk next week! We'll see - it hasn't been working so far this summer.
Honestly, I haven't been that happy with my grocery shopping this summer but I have learned A LOT about our shopping habits and what things we needed to buy. I'm hoping to write a post on that next week since John will have an "extra" $50 in his pay in the next week or two that we can take to Sam's Club and stock up on a couple of things. I had felt pretty confident going into this summer that we wouldn't need to buy much and I totally miscalculated on a few things. Fortunately, we did have the gift cards to get us through (we had planned that!) and going forward we're going to have to plan better since we won't have that extra to give us a boost. More on that later though.
Come back Monday to see what we're eating!
What did you do for shopping this week?
We totally were not expecting to get paid - either one of us - until September 15th so that was a very nice surprise.
He gets paid very little and almost all of it goes to pay for our medical and dental insurance, we only have a little left from his paycheck for other things. So that's what I took to the stores today - a little!
I took $30 and bought hose for me to wear to work next week (I had one pair left and that had a huge run in them - I'm not someone who likes to wear dress shoes without socks of some sort), Q-tips and a package of index cards that we needed. I also took $1.50 from an envelope of cash that I'm using to buy supplies for 6 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and bought 6 notebooks, one for each envelope for $0.25 each. That leaves me with $5.67 to spend on goodies for the boxes (I started with $20 back in May).
I had $15 left after that to spend at the grocery store along with $26.45 in gift cards. We both felt it was important to buy a couple of particular things (flour, butter and shortening) that we hadn't planned on buying so that was what that money was to go towards.
We also picked up our mostly veggie CSA this week. Here is what we got:
Clockwise from top left: yellow, orange and red cherry tomatoes and yellow pear mini tomatoes (all in the basket), purple and green kohlrabi, three softball size heads of cabbage, eggplant, green onions, Swiss chard, a large zucchini, yellow bell pepper, green bell pepper, broccoli (in the bag), a tiger melon, tomatillos (in the bag) and cucumbers in the middle.
My son is so happy about the tomatoes and my daughter is delighted with the cucumbers! I'm just delighted that their eating garden-fresh veggies!
Here's what I bought today at the grocery store:
Sorry about the picture quality - we had a cloudy day today and the lighting in our kitchen was abysmal!
Here's what we have:
Store #1:
Goldfish Crackers 3 @ 3/$5 = $5 (for the children to take to school for snacks)
Total store #1: $5
Store #2:
Dakota Bread Flour 10# $6.19
Crisco Butter Flavor Shortening Sticks $3.79
Hot Dog Buns $1.59
Oscar Meyer Turkey Franks 2 @ 2/$3 (with store coupon) = $3
Dole Celery $0.89
2.65lbs Bartlett Pears @ $0.99/lb = $2.62
1.92lbs Large Black Plums @ $0.99/lb = $1.90
6 ears of Corn @ $0.25/ear = $1.50
Gallon Kemps Skim Milk $3.99
Smart Balance Spread $2.49 (my husband's doctor asks that he use this)
2 Bags Shredded Cheese (one mozzarella and one cheddar) @ $1.99 ea = $2.98
18 count Eggs $2.99
Total Store #2: $34.93
Used $26.93 in gift cards
Paid: $8.48 out of pocket (OOP)
Total Spent Out of Pocket: $13.48
I'm hoping to buy only milk next week! We'll see - it hasn't been working so far this summer.
Honestly, I haven't been that happy with my grocery shopping this summer but I have learned A LOT about our shopping habits and what things we needed to buy. I'm hoping to write a post on that next week since John will have an "extra" $50 in his pay in the next week or two that we can take to Sam's Club and stock up on a couple of things. I had felt pretty confident going into this summer that we wouldn't need to buy much and I totally miscalculated on a few things. Fortunately, we did have the gift cards to get us through (we had planned that!) and going forward we're going to have to plan better since we won't have that extra to give us a boost. More on that later though.
Come back Monday to see what we're eating!
What did you do for shopping this week?
