Walmart Shopping With My Husband

Happy birthday to Kris, and happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone else!

Five full bags of groceries
I bring my own bags, ones from when they were free.
Bags are now 8 cents each.
I keep reusing the old ones,
patching with duct tape when they get holes.

This is what $66.64 will buy at our local Walmart. The other day we were seriously short on produce and a few other things. 

My husband came with me to Walmart, and we had several discussions while shopping. As you might guess, one topic was the high cost of some types of groceries. My husband asked about crackers and chips. I told him that I can bake a loaf of bread for half the price of the least expensive crackers. My loaf of bread would likely last twice as long as a box of crackers in our house, perhaps providing twice as much food value as the crackers. So for half the price, I can make double the amount of baked grain food. Now bread and crackers aren't the same thing. But we both decided that we get a similar experience eating crisply toasted slices of bread as compared to saltine crackers.

As for the chips, my husband's preferred chips are tortilla chips. The large bag of corn tortillas weighs just over 4 pounds and costs $3.98, a little under $1 per pound, or about 6 cents per ounce. The least expensive tortilla chips are about $2.56 per pound, or about 16 cents per ounce. I can make baked tortilla chips for my husband, brushing a small amount of oil on the tortillas then oven-baking for a few minutes, still keeping my cost per pound well, well, well under $2. We discussed how we prefer freshly-made tortilla chips over the bagged ones. We control the salt, and warm homemade tortilla chips are like the baskets of warm tortilla chips served in restaurants.

I also pointed out to my husband that by sticking to basic foods, for the most part, allows us to eat a wider variety of (and I think healthier) food on a budget.

So, my $66.64 bought us a lot of fruits and vegetables, a few "treat" foods, like the strawberries, uncured all-beef hot dogs, and the turkey snack sticks my family enjoys. I also bought an 80-ct bag of corn tortillas, so my husband can have some of his favorite home-baked tortilla chips. And I bought a can of frozen orange juice concentrate to have this coming Sunday for Mother's Day brunch. Orange juice has become a "luxury food" in our house, at $2.86 a 12-oz can. I stuck to Walmart's house brands for most of the packaged products.

Here's what $66.64 bought:

80-ct corn tortillas

1 can frozen orange juice concentrate

1 shaker onion powder

1 shaker garlic powder

1 lb sharp cheddar cheese

small bag frozen corn (12-oz)

large bag frozen broccoli cuts (32-oz)

large bag frozen peas (32-oz)

2 packages turkey snack sticks

1 lb all-beef uncured hot dogs (8 hot dogs)

two 3-lb bags apples

1 lb strawberries

5-lb bag red potatoes

5-lb bag carrots

3-lb bag mandarin oranges

1 bundle celery

1 green pepper

4 large Roma tomatoes

almost 3 lbs of bananas

1 head of cabbage

16-oz jar organic natural peanut butter'

Of course, there's no milk, butter, eggs, sugar, or other high priced foods, and very little meat. But still, my thinking is if you stick to basic foods, you can have a lot of variety for the money.  And my produce-hungry family members have a lot of fruits and veggies to choose from everyday to add to their lunches and snacks.