Mid-Month Grocery Shopping -- My Pumpkin Obsession

The first batch of apple and crabapple sauce fruit leather turned out great. I have 6 dehydrator trays. 

I cut each round into 4 portions, then rolled each up in waved paper. I'll keep these in the freezer until later this fall, when the fresh fruit from our trees is gone.

I made 24 fruit leather portions in this batch. Each one is the equivalent of a small dish of fruit sauce. My family and I sampled one of the trays, and we all thought it was good. I have a second batch of fruit leather now in the dehydrator, and I plan to do 2 more tomorrow and Thursday. I harvested all of the crabapples that I want this afternoon and turned them all into sauce for more fruit leather. And now I'm done with the food mill for the season. Yay! I can put one thing away.

On to the mid-month grocery shopping.

Do I really need two more pumpkins?

I made time last Friday to go down to WinCo. I could have waited longer, but I wanted to pick up a couple of large Jack o'lantern pumpkins before the rain rolled in. The bins of pumpkins sit partially out in the rain at WinCo, and I don't want to risk a mildew problem with the ones I buy. Our garden produced 8 smallish pumpkins, which we've been enjoying roasted. I wanted a couple of large pumpkins to turn into pumpkin puree for the freezer. Two should do it and get us through the year on pumpkin puree. I love pumpkin. And I love having a lot of pumpkin in the freezer. I eat pumpkin puree, as is, with butter and salt. I like a spoonful of pumpkin puree in a cup of apple cider tea. I love pumpkin-sausage-sage pasta. And I love, love, love pumpkin pie. Some years I can find canned pumpkin on clearance after Thanksgiving. But I can't count on that. So I'll ensure my pumpkin fix can be met with these two large ones to cook up in November.

It had been two weeks since my last grocery shopping, the one where I spent way more than I had expected and didn't have enough cash with me. I made sure to grab extra cash before I left this past Friday. I spent $120.80, and that includes some trick or treat goodies and a special treat for my husband.

Here's what I bought:

meat

pork breakfast sausage (my husband's favorite)
turkey breakfast sausage (my favorite)

1 pound sliced pepperoni (for pizzas)

pepperoni snack sticks (These are a treat for my husband. He enjoys them.)

dairy

block cheddar cheese

block mozzarella cheese

1 gallon milk

1 dozen eggs

fruits and vegetables

2 large carving pumpkins, a total of ~35 pounds

1 can frozen apple juice concentrate (for making spiced cider, blended with crabapple juice and spices)

4 avocados

6 bananas

6 cans corn

6 cans green beans

pantry

5 lb bag organic all-purpose flour (does not contain any barley or malt, so I can have foods made with this flour)

5 lb bag whole wheat flour 

10 lb bag unbleached all-purpose flour (for many of the treats I bake, especially if I may only have a tiny amount)

25 lbs sugar

bulk chili powder, about 1/2 lb

trick or treats

3 packages individual pouches cookies for trick or treaters, a total of 36 treats

Halloween is on a Friday this year, which ordinarily would mean we would get more trick or treaters. However, the weather forecast is for lots of rain that day. When it rains on halloween here, the trick or treaters give up earlier and go to fewer houses. I think we'll be safe with 36 treats. The houses in our neighborhood are far apart and set back from the street a ways. Most of the older kids prefer to go to the neighborhood next to ours, where houses are close to each other and to the sidewalk. 

I really didn't buy a whole lot on this shopping trip.  As usual, apart from my husband's meat snack sticks, I didn't buy any commercial snack foods. I bought basic foods from which we make many interesting (and some boring but tasty) things to eat.

I'm stocking up bit by bit on holiday baking supplies and some winter veggies that we like in canned form. The avocados were my impulse purchase. I allow myself a few dollars every other week for an unplanned buy. Everything else comes from my list. The unplanned buy can be a treat for me or someone else, or it can be something healthful like the avocados. Why the avocados this time? They looked good, were grown in the US, and were just 68 cents each. We've used 2 so far, and they've been perfect. 

I won't need to buy much of anything this next week, except perhaps a few bananas and coffee. I'll stop by Walmart when I'm out and about later this week or early next to pick those up. But I don't anticipate needing to do a major shopping until November. Now that sounds so strange to me. October is going by in a blur. I can hardly believe November is so close.

Grocery tip for tight budgets -- have a dollar amount in mind (and stick to it) for any impulse or unplanned purchases. If I'm too strict with sticking to my shopping list, I begin to feel deprived. $3 won't break the bank for us, and it gave our whole family a nice and unplanned healthy treat to add to meals. And because this is how I chose to spend our "unplanned" money, I was able to walk right past the very tempting boxes of Junior Mints (my favorite candy) at the checkout. BTW, I do often buy avocados, just not usually until later in the fall. It was a surprise to find them for 68 cents each so early.

So that was my mid-month grocery stop. I could have saved $13 if I'd skipped the pumpkins. But then again, I use the pumpkins as food. And at 38 cents per pound, that's a great price for a veggie.

I hope your budget is stretching as far as you need it to this October.