After some consideration, I decided to add a few "theme days" to the blog and this is the first one. 95% of the time, I do my major grocery shopping on Thursday, since we drop Beautiful G off at school a little earlier than usual and pick her up a little earlier than usual, which makes Wednesday the day I make my grocery shopping lists.
So what makes it Wacky? Well, I buy according to what's on sale/the coupons I have. To some this may seem normal (it now does to me) for for others, this is completely wacky. If you would have told me a year ago that I would go to three different grocery stores and one drug store just to get my grocery shopping done, I would have laughed. A year ago, I shopped at one grocery store and one health food/produce store (which was located directly across the street). Despite the fact that another grocery store was literally down the plaza from my health food store, I would only shop there in the middle of the night if I needed something in an emergency, since they were the only grocery store opened past 10 pm (this was also true of our Walmart and Target. If it was past midnight, I had to drive a good 15 to 20 minutes to find an open store).
Tonight, I went to one store and tomorrow I'm going to 2 more, plus CVS. And I'll probably pay the same amount of money as I would have a year ago and bring home more food. And I'll still save more than the gas I spent to get to my various stores.
Ok, so my lists! Here's how this is going to work. I'll list the stores and what I'm buying. If something is an exceptional deal you can't pass up, I'll post the price information and coupon (if an online coupon is available, otherwise I'll tell you it came from the paper). Otherwise, I probably won't bother with prices. After all that, I'll tell you our dinner plans for the week, so you can see how my shopping played into my meals (or, if a meal is from my stockpile, I'll mention that). The stuff I plan to use in recipes, I'll write in RED, so watch for them!
Normally I do all the shopping on Thursday, but Beautiful G had basketball practice tonight and it was literally around the corner from the store and they had stuff I needed before tomorrow, if we wanted to eat lunch that is! So tonight, we went to Stater Brothers and bought:
13 Stater Bros yogurts (PRICE: FREE! There is a coupon for $0.55 off any Real California Dairy Product and yogurt was $0.50 each. Stater Bros doesn't give overage, so they rang up as $0.50 off instead. The really nice part about this is that the coupon is a PDF that you can print many, many times validly and is good until 2012. I saved a copy of the PDF and will keep buying yogurt that way! Also, this works on any dairy product with the "Real California Milk" label, so even if you don't have a Stater Bros nearby, check your local store and see if any of the dairy products are labeled that way!)
15 Jose Ole Chimichangas/Burritos
2 boxes of Cheez-It White Cheddar Crackers
1 jar Skippy Peanut Butter (no coupon)
5 Stater Bros flavored waters (no coupon)
1 small can Stater Bros mushrooms (no coupon)
1 small jar Stater Bros relish (no coupon)
1 small can Stater Bros olives (no coupon)
1 42 oz bottle Stater Bros Ketchup (no coupon)
1 Twix Peanut Butter (no coupon)
1 box Slim Fast mint-chocolate bars (no coupon)
1 Haas Avocado
Tomorrow, I plan to hit up the following stores:
Ralph's
2 California Pizza Kitchen pizzas
6 Fuji Apples (approx. 3-4 lbs) (no coupon)
2 Haas Avocados (no coupon)
3 Roma Tomatoes (no coupon)
3 Dole Salad mixes (no coupon)
2 lbs Baby Carrots (no coupon)
2 lbs Brown Onions (no coupon)
1 2-liter Diet Coke
1 2-liter Sprite
3 10 count Mission Flour Tortillas (no coupon)
3 cans Rosarita Refried Beans (no coupon)
Vons:
3 lbs Navel Oranges (no coupon)
3 6-oz containers of Blueberries (no coupon)
5 lbs ground beef (no coupon)
2 64-oz Minute Maid Orange Juice
1 Zone Bar
13 Anthony's Pasta (Price: FREE! They are running for $1 this week and there is a coupon for $1 off one that is also allowing more than 2 copies to be printed. It's here. You do have to sign up, but you have the option not to receive email from them and once you sign up, the coupons are available to print right away.)
So what are we eating this week?
Thursday: Fried Diablo (from the stockpile, except the mushrooms and olives. Sorry, no sharing the recipe, from a friend and I promised)
Friday: Mac & Cheese (except the macaroni noodles, from the stockpile)
Saturday: Taco Pizza (not on the grocery list. Dave knows the ingredients and requested it. He hasn't shared with me what to buy for it yet!)
Sunday: No cooking day (we usually eat out)
Monday: Salsa Chicken (From the stockpile, except for the tortillas)
Tuesday: Pizza
Wednesday: Burgers (except the fresh toppings like tomatoes, from the stockpile)
Not much in the way of baking stuff up there. Means I'll have to get creative with what I have!
What's on the menu at your house this week?
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