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Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The Wrap Up for January's Groceries and February's Grocery Plans

I can scarcely believe that the month is nearly gone! We're doing great on groceries this month. The only food that we ran out of was whole milk for homemade yogurt. We finished off the last batch of yogurt a week ago. So, I will have to wait until after Fred Meyer's Senior Discount day on Feb. 4 for more yogurt. We have plenty of canned vegetables (green beans, corn, tomatoes, yams, pumpkin), oranges, carrots, a whole hubbard squash, lots of frozen green veggies and berries, flour, oats, canned tuna, eggs, cream cheese, and butter/oil, with some meat and some milk to get through February. As I mentioned before, February is month 2 of my coasting months, using the supplies that I stocked up on in the fall.

I spent another $2 over the weekend. For the month of January, I spent $85.10, leaving $20.94 in the budget to roll over into February's allocated budget of $105. This, with the surplus from January, will give us $125.94 for our groceries in February. 


There are only a couple of special food days in February. The first one is Superbowl Sunday. I like to have something fun and snacky that day. This past week, that $2 ($1.98 actually) was spent on a large bag of tortilla chips and a 16-oz jar of salsa -- both special sales w/coupons. I'll use those on SS.

I also like to prepare something nice on Valentine's Day, so I'll be looking for a nice meat option, such as beef or boneless/skinless chicken breasts. In addition, I bought red-wrapped truffles on clearance after Christmas for the sole purpose of using for Valentine's Day. I think they'll be a hit.

For the rest of the month, we will rely on our basic stores with the following additional purchases:


Fred Meyer Senior Discount Day, Feb. 4
Smidge n Spoon sugar, 10-lb bag, $4.47 Fred Meyer
Fred Meyer milk, gallon, $1.79 ea, get 1 whole, 2 2% ($5.37)
meat for Valentine's day (boneless chicken breast or beef) -- budget about $4.50

Walmart
bananas, 10 lbs, 42 cents/lb
tofu, $1.44
cabbage, 2 heads, 58 cents/lb
1 jar decaf instant coffee, $3.57

Cash & Carry/ Smart Foodservice

Gulf Pacific long grain brown rice, 25-lb bag, $11.95
Simply Value 32-oz vanilla extract/flavoring, $3.05
First Street shredded mozzarella cheese, 5-lb bag, $12.79
russet potatoes, 10-lb bag, $2.45
onions, 25-lb bag, $8.69

WinCo
$2 of bulk dry milk powder
$1 of bulk dry coffee creamer
$1 of bulk onion powder

The dollar amount for this list comes to $64.91. That leaves me with $60.93 for anything else I may need in February. 

I checked my sugar supply and I have about 10 pounds remaining, so no urgency on that item after all. I'll set my errands to take me to the complex where Fred Meyer is located on Tuesday, then pop in, get milk, and check for Valentine's meat and markdowns. There's enough in the budget for me to continue looking for clearance deals and special sales to stock up on.

It's a very lucky thing that my family and I have such simple tastes when it comes to food. 



8 comments:

  1. January has seemed to fly by and the Super Bowl has totally snuck up on me. We like to have some special snacks, so better start thinking about those.

    Looks like you're in good shape as far as food goes. As usual, you good planning is paying off.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lili,

    I think your family is very fortunate to have you care so much about them in all that you do from meal prep to creating an inviting home.

    I love that we both as well as lots of your other readers cook from scratch. And we know how to cook from scratch. I ended up re-organizing my pantry this past weekend. We used to have 4 bins for cereal but hubby is the only one who eats cold cereal so I purged two bins. We don't eat a lot of crackers or snacky foods anymore so I purged half of those bins. I'll keep a few for when we do have snacky's around. I had an ice cream bucket full of homemade hot cocoa mix but we don't drink so much of that so it got divided into glass mason jars. That gave me room for the other canned goods and little electrics to fit nicer.

    Alice

    ReplyDelete
  3. You did an excellent job of keeping your grocery bill low in January, Lili. I know you'll do the same thing in February.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you, Live and Learn. I'm sure you'll come up with those special snacks for Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Alice,
    Thank you.
    Wow, your pantry sounds like it's in terrific shape and really reflects how you and your family are eating now. I'm working on my pantry in small bits. It's so easy for the clutter to get out of control when it;s mostly behind doors.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our food prices have skyrocketed. Eggs and cabbage have gone back up. Fresh produce is as expensive as meats here. I think you're doing such an excellent job serving good, nutritious meals, while saving on your food budget. There is absolutely no correlation between nutrition and $$. Keep up the good work!!

    YHF

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi YHF,
    You know, I would have thought that produce would be reasonable where you are, because it can be grown year round. But maybe most of the land is bought up and can't be farmed there. That's a shame -- the price you pay for living in paradise. Is fish reasonably-priced?

    ReplyDelete

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