Super Savings Saturday - Restocking and Today's $35 Shopping Trip
Well, hello there!
Sorry for the time off! We've had strep and various other illnesses running around our house and I've decided sleep, rather than things like blogging and grading papers, was the more important thing! Thanks for your patience!
In spite of all the sickness, we're firmly settled into the "new" routine, at least for the most part. John takes the children to school in the morning and I pick them up most days. This is a complete switch from our previous years and it still feels just plain weird. We're making it work and the children are enjoying the change! Missy is now playing the trumpet and Buddy is playing the clarinet through their school. Yes, our house gets loud but they are enjoying it and I firmly believe you can never have too many books or too much music in a house! Between the trumpet, clarinet and piano it seems like there's always someone practicing something. I have to say I absolutely love it!
Shopping is an adventure right now. After a bit of a bummer for the summer when it came to shopping, we're going to be trying to keep our shopping budget low to make up for where we overspent. So far I've used some of the money we got from John's first paycheck and my first paycheck to "stock up" a bit on some things. John assisted at a funeral last week and we got an extra $50 that we coupled with some other grocery money and went to Sam's club to stock up on a few things we were either totally out of or running low on. Here's the rundown from last week at Sam's Club last week (total was somewhere around $75 - I misplaced the receipt!):
*Toilet Paper (We were down to two rolls in the house - not good! We decided to try a new brand with more sheets per roll. So far so good!)
* 2 25lb bags of white bread flour (Totally out of this!)
* Ground Beef (we were down to turkey, a bit of chicken and little bit of fish that my parents had bought us)
* Lemonade Mix
* Salt (4lbs for $1.17 - this should last us a few years)
* Oregano (We were out and something ate my plant this year)
* Children's Motrin (We were out of this too.)
* One Whole Pineapple ($2.79, which is really cheap around here!)
* One Gallon Skim Milk $2.79 also
On Saturday last week we saw my cousin, Diane, and her husband, Bo, and they brought us about 10lbs of venison steaks and chops. I was so excited! We haven't had red meet in our freezer most of the summer so that was a blessing. Bo hunts quite a bit and they were cleaning out their freezer getting ready for the arrival of hunting season. We got blessed and so did their oldest son and his family. No money out of pocket for us!
On Monday, John swung by the local grocery store on his way home and bought 6lbs of apples for 41-cents/lb and 10lbs of potatoes for 50-cents/lb. Total Spent: $7.49.
On Thursday we picked up our fruit box. This was already paid for so no money out of pocket.
We received a combination of apples, peaches, pears, plum and grapes this time. We have two more of these boxes left. Our mostly vegetable CSA is all done for the year. We have bee picking tomatoes from our garden but that's all we have left at this point. It's been cool at night so I may have to pick the rest of the tomatoes green one of these days.
Today John ran to the store again and bought the following:
* 1 box Rice Krispies Cereal $2.99 (my daughter volunteered to bring Rice Krispie treats for a bake sale at school on Monday - I have marshmallows and butter, so we just bought these)
* Store Brand Vegetable Oil 48oz $2.50
* 4lb Brown Sugar $1.69
* Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast 6.21lbs @ $1.88/lb = $11.68
* 2lb Yellow Onions $1.69 (we were totally out of onions, including green onions)
* 250ct Coffee filters $1.79 (I usually wait for a $1 or B1G1 sale, but I was totally out!)
* 20 Yoplait Yogurts @ 20/$10 = $10 (these make for easy lunches)
* Smart Balance $2.49
Total Spent today (including $0.13 tax on the coffee filters): $34.96
The receipt has stopped counting how much we've "saved" with the sale prices and I don't want to waste my time trying to figure it out.
Over the summer I learned that we use a lot more canned diced tomatoes, bread flour and vegetable oil than I thought we did. I also learned that I really like to have something crunchy to snack on in the house (crackers, pretzels, cereal). We also use quite a bit more honey and maple syrup (the real stuff) than I thought we did. We bought a case each of corn and green beans before summer started and we have most of those left due to the fresh veggies from the garden. We didn't get quite as much produce as we usually due this year so I know they will get used this fall. We also really don't like canned fruit other than mandarin oranges and applesauce. I think that's a texture thing.
We go through about 5lbs of flour per week - two or more loaves of bread or two loaves and a batch of biscuits; muffins or quick bread; waffles or pancakes; and the crust for two pizzas plus breadsticks each week. That's a lot of baking I realized! Anyway, at 5lbs a week the two 25lb bags of flour should last me until the holiday sales on flour start. I've been trying to bake bread on either Saturday or Sunday, but sometimes that doesn't work out.
I'm hoping at this point I can just start stocking up on things when they truly go on sale. That's my plan so we'll see how that goes!
Come back Monday to see what we're eating!
Sorry for the time off! We've had strep and various other illnesses running around our house and I've decided sleep, rather than things like blogging and grading papers, was the more important thing! Thanks for your patience!
In spite of all the sickness, we're firmly settled into the "new" routine, at least for the most part. John takes the children to school in the morning and I pick them up most days. This is a complete switch from our previous years and it still feels just plain weird. We're making it work and the children are enjoying the change! Missy is now playing the trumpet and Buddy is playing the clarinet through their school. Yes, our house gets loud but they are enjoying it and I firmly believe you can never have too many books or too much music in a house! Between the trumpet, clarinet and piano it seems like there's always someone practicing something. I have to say I absolutely love it!
Shopping is an adventure right now. After a bit of a bummer for the summer when it came to shopping, we're going to be trying to keep our shopping budget low to make up for where we overspent. So far I've used some of the money we got from John's first paycheck and my first paycheck to "stock up" a bit on some things. John assisted at a funeral last week and we got an extra $50 that we coupled with some other grocery money and went to Sam's club to stock up on a few things we were either totally out of or running low on. Here's the rundown from last week at Sam's Club last week (total was somewhere around $75 - I misplaced the receipt!):
*Toilet Paper (We were down to two rolls in the house - not good! We decided to try a new brand with more sheets per roll. So far so good!)
* 2 25lb bags of white bread flour (Totally out of this!)
* Ground Beef (we were down to turkey, a bit of chicken and little bit of fish that my parents had bought us)
* Lemonade Mix
* Salt (4lbs for $1.17 - this should last us a few years)
* Oregano (We were out and something ate my plant this year)
* Children's Motrin (We were out of this too.)
* One Whole Pineapple ($2.79, which is really cheap around here!)
* One Gallon Skim Milk $2.79 also
On Saturday last week we saw my cousin, Diane, and her husband, Bo, and they brought us about 10lbs of venison steaks and chops. I was so excited! We haven't had red meet in our freezer most of the summer so that was a blessing. Bo hunts quite a bit and they were cleaning out their freezer getting ready for the arrival of hunting season. We got blessed and so did their oldest son and his family. No money out of pocket for us!
On Monday, John swung by the local grocery store on his way home and bought 6lbs of apples for 41-cents/lb and 10lbs of potatoes for 50-cents/lb. Total Spent: $7.49.
On Thursday we picked up our fruit box. This was already paid for so no money out of pocket.
We received a combination of apples, peaches, pears, plum and grapes this time. We have two more of these boxes left. Our mostly vegetable CSA is all done for the year. We have bee picking tomatoes from our garden but that's all we have left at this point. It's been cool at night so I may have to pick the rest of the tomatoes green one of these days.
 |
| My only photo this week - our fruit box - the plums are hiding on the other side of the grapes! Yum! |
Today John ran to the store again and bought the following:
* 1 box Rice Krispies Cereal $2.99 (my daughter volunteered to bring Rice Krispie treats for a bake sale at school on Monday - I have marshmallows and butter, so we just bought these)
* Store Brand Vegetable Oil 48oz $2.50
* 4lb Brown Sugar $1.69
* Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast 6.21lbs @ $1.88/lb = $11.68
* 2lb Yellow Onions $1.69 (we were totally out of onions, including green onions)
* 250ct Coffee filters $1.79 (I usually wait for a $1 or B1G1 sale, but I was totally out!)
* 20 Yoplait Yogurts @ 20/$10 = $10 (these make for easy lunches)
* Smart Balance $2.49
Total Spent today (including $0.13 tax on the coffee filters): $34.96
The receipt has stopped counting how much we've "saved" with the sale prices and I don't want to waste my time trying to figure it out.
Over the summer I learned that we use a lot more canned diced tomatoes, bread flour and vegetable oil than I thought we did. I also learned that I really like to have something crunchy to snack on in the house (crackers, pretzels, cereal). We also use quite a bit more honey and maple syrup (the real stuff) than I thought we did. We bought a case each of corn and green beans before summer started and we have most of those left due to the fresh veggies from the garden. We didn't get quite as much produce as we usually due this year so I know they will get used this fall. We also really don't like canned fruit other than mandarin oranges and applesauce. I think that's a texture thing.
We go through about 5lbs of flour per week - two or more loaves of bread or two loaves and a batch of biscuits; muffins or quick bread; waffles or pancakes; and the crust for two pizzas plus breadsticks each week. That's a lot of baking I realized! Anyway, at 5lbs a week the two 25lb bags of flour should last me until the holiday sales on flour start. I've been trying to bake bread on either Saturday or Sunday, but sometimes that doesn't work out.
I'm hoping at this point I can just start stocking up on things when they truly go on sale. That's my plan so we'll see how that goes!
Come back Monday to see what we're eating!
