Yesterday I completed my Once-A-Month-Shopping Extravaganza for the month of March. It was pretty exhausting. I took a picture of the overflowing cart at the end of my trip, but I don't know how to get pictures off my phone and I'm not sure Ryan would appreciate a 2 am technical support wake up call, so we'll have to wait on that.
I think that in retrospect, $400 may have been a bit ambitious for our family of six and a half (dog)...I was more at like $650. But I do think I will be able to get that lower in the coming months when I have a better idea of how much of certain products we will use in a given month. And it is still lower than what I was spending, so that's good! I have to figure out how to balance my desire to save money with my inherent need to stockpile.
Here are my thoughts on the once a month shopping experiment so far: yes, I have saved money as of right now. It took a lot of time and planning and it was exhausting, but I think if it works it will definitely be worth it. But really buying that much food--just getting through the check out line was like a marathon, not to mention putting everything away when I got home!!!! My worry right now is that I will forget that I have something shoved into the back of my fridge or freezer and it will go bad. But because I planned, hopefully this we be avoided.
Here is what I got. I won't mention every single item I bought (because who cares, right?!) but I did lay them all out for you to see (and I won't ever be doing that again, because it pretty much took forever!)
 |
| Lots more frozen veggies, rice, mac and cheese, applesauce, some cereals (with coupons)... |
 |
| Some animal crackers, canned foods--including 16 cans of tuna (and as embarrassing as that was to purchase, I don't think it is nearly enough--I eat a lot of tuna), hamburger buns and potato chips as a BIG treat for the kids (I NEVER buy those) |
 |
| Oranges, apples bananas, kiwis, onions, celery, potatoes,mushrooms, sausage, chicken, turkey... |
 |
| Garlic, lime, baggies and various other items to add to my stockpile...(I think I'll do a whole other post on that.) |
4 comments:
What about milk? Have u planned all ur meals for the whole month. I'm curious to see how this goes. It might induce me to do the same. (;
Good luck.
We get our milk delivered from the dairy once a week. I always plan out all my meals (breakfast, lunch, afterschool snack and dinner) for like six weeks at a time. I was thinking of posting my plans if people are interested. I used to put them up on my other blog.
oh yeah...I forgot you mentioned that about your milk.
I'm sure this is doable except for the milk portion for us.
Lots of planning...ahhh!
I've been doing it twice a months fore a few years and I hate the shopping day, but love the two weeks where I don't have to shop. I have a list of all the meals I can make on the fridge and I can choose from that what we will eat. I have to go pick up more fresh produce and milk in between, but that is a quick trip without kids at night after mutual. Let me know how you like it, though, because the shopping day is getting a little hard for me with such a heavy cart and, like you said, so time consuming. I agree that it saves money. Bonus.
Post a Comment