Weekly Grocery Shopping

After brunch today we came to the next item on the list of things to do .... grocery shopping for the week. I have been blessed to get some pretty amazing deals at Dillons in the last few months, but today was one of the best. It was a lot of fun to have my wonderful husband join me on the trip...not only was it more fun for me, he was able to learn more about some of the deal strategies.

I'll admit some weeks I just go with what is on sale and just wing it for meals for the week, but today I even have the menu planned for the meals of the week. It made it much easier and gave me a lot more confidence that I was getting everything we need to eat for the week and a few staples we were low on.

Last week Crystal, at Money Saving Mom, did a post on guessing how much her husband spent on a trip to the grocery store. As always, I was amazed at how much they were able to purchase on a limited grocery budget.

Although Crystal recommends shopping with a calculator and knowing what your total should be before you get up to the register, I have not yet mastered that task. So, as we approached the cash register I looked at our cart FULL of groceries, and simply said, "I might have blown it this week". Our cart contained, milk, 2 frozen entres, 7 generic "lunchables", 13 bottles of Propel water, 1 bag of all purpose flour, 1 bag of whole wheat, 1 bag of sugar, 1 head of lettuce, 2 banana bundles, an onion, 1 2L of Diet Coke, mustard, peanut butter, 10 cans of vegetables, 6 cans of tomatoes, 2 cans of beans, 3 boxes of popcorn, 1-5lb bag of potatoes, 2 bags of shredded cheese, and 1 box of Saltines.

Before sales and coupons our total was nearly $87.00!! But when we left the store we had spent less than $33.00!! I was excited to say the least. And we only walked out of the store with 2 things that weren't on our list. A closeout bottle of mustard (which we are almost in need of anyway) for 33 cents! And some nearly rotten bananas.

These "red tape" bananas have seen better days. They sell for a third of normal bananas. We were accidentally overcharged for them today, but when the error was caught, they just gave them to us!! When I came home and peeled a few to add to my stockpile for banana bread, I realized they were just a bit beat up and not even overly ripe! Again, who could have thought grocery shopping could be so much fun!