If you wonder how a family of 5 can spend so little on groceries, for several months in a row, I believe I have an answer. We have a very productive veggie garden and orchard. The past few months have been peak harvest months for us. I do anticipate needing to spend more than our budgeted amount, later in winter when we have to buy produce.
We harvested somewhere around 50 pounds each of plums and apples, 30 pounds of pears, 25 pounds each of tomatoes and potatoes, around 25 quarts of blackberries, and I haven't even begun to harvest the fall greens of kale, chard, turnip and beet greens and mustard greens.
Oct. 2. It's Tuesday, which is one of my busiest days of the week. A wise friend made a suggestion to me last week, for dinner prep on these busy days. It's obvious advice, but sometimes, we can't see the forest through the trees, or I'm too busy to find the obvious solution to my own problems.
Last Tuesday I wore myself out, with all my running around, chauffeuring, appointments, babysitting, making soup stock, and putting a lovely (and time intensive) dinner on the table. I made chicken in marinara sauce, with rosemary polenta triangles. It was fabulous, but I was frazzled.
This week, I pulled a lasagna from the freezer on Monday, baked it up for Monday's dinner, but only served half. I also made a large batch of garlic bread on Monday. So tonight's dinner is heat and eat. It won't matter that I'm hustling daughter to and from ballet, right when I should be preparing dinner for the family (who thinks up these dance class schedules, anyways?).
Also I baked 3 dozen muffins, my three-way muffins, for the freezer. We'll have these for breakfasts, with soup at lunch and dinner, and for snacks. They'll go quickly!
Oct. 3. I cooked up two large pots of soup, 1 beef-barley-vegetable, the other split pea. I made enough for 3 family dinners each, plus some extra individual containers for a few lunches. This is part of my big batch cooking for the month. It's all soups, stews, chili and chowder. Next week I'll make 2 more large pots of soup for the freezer (Chicken Noodle and Black Bean-Tomato). I've needed to make room in the freezer for this all to fit, so am doing the soups a couple at a time, instead of all in one day. But that's good too. I keeps me from becoming too worn out. I also made a large pot of applesauce, while the soups simmered. I froze 8 pints for future meals.
Oct. 4. My other busy day of the week -- Thursday. Dinner planned -- Soup from yesterday (beef-barley-vegetable, muffins, garlic toast and a large fruit salad. I'll need to grocery shop tomorrow.
Oct. 5. I'm seeing a pattern in my grocery shopping. One month we spend very little, the next month I spend quite a bit in the first week alone. The latter was this week's shopping. I shop a couple of places on my way to my daughters' school. Trader Joe's for soymilk (1/2 gal, $2.99), almonds ($4.99/lb), tofu ($1.29/14 oz. firm), eggs (3 dozen - $1.69/doz.). Egg prices have risen quite a bit this month. I have to remind myself that it's the high feed prices for the hens at fault. I sometimes catch myself feeling like I should've done better on something. This week, I had the opportunity to get eggs for 19c less per dozen, but I thought Trader Joe's would be cheaper, so I waited for my TJ stop. So, I paid 57c more for my eggs than I could have. I'm doing the best I can, with the information that I have at the moment. Shame and guilt go away!
Stopped at Albertson's for sugar and apple juice (total $5.65). Albertson's is in the same strip as Trader Joe's, so I don't use extra gas for that stop, just walk over. Produce stand next. Everything in the markdown bin was overpriced, IMO. So just got my jalapenos for last batch of salsa (better be the last, I'll be using the very last of the jars, until we can empty a few).
Last stop, the Cash and Carry, restaurant supply. My big disappointment was they didn't have any black eye peas. Stock can be hit or miss there. I guess this was a miss. I chose a large sack of black beans instead. (25 lb. sack for $16.47). A lot of the bean prices seemed awfully high to me -- 25 lbs for upwards of $20. Black beans will be a nice change in chili, refritos, rice and beans, and soup. I may even try them in baked casseroles. Also picked up a 25 lb sack of oats for $14.98, a gallon of soy sauce, gallon of molasses, some powdered sugar, frozen mixed veggies (for making soup), a 110 oz can tomato paste, and two 110 oz cans whole tomatoes. The tomato paste will be for another big batch of pasta sauce, and the canned tomatoes, one for salsa and the other for chili. Spent $65.91 at Cash and Carry, bringing my total so far for the month to $86.51. I'll need to do another shopping later in the month, and will pick up great deals as I see them, probably bringing me right to or just above our budgeted amount.
While at Cash and Carry, I priced butter, $2.40 a pound. That's a pretty good regular price. Trader Joe's was selling their butter for $2.99 a pound. I'll stock up on as much as they'll let me during the holiday sales, switching back to butter is one of my priorities for this next year. The price difference between butter and margarine is not as great as it was a couple of years ago.
Groceries in general seem to be priced higher than just a month or two ago. But I still feel we're fortunate in our time and place to have reasonably priced (and readily available) food, in comparison to salaries. There was a time when the cost of food ate up a much larger percentage of one's budget.
Oct. 6. We went to the pumpkin patches and u-pick corn farm today. Bought 16 ears of corn for $4 and a small winter squash for 75c. Having corn with dinner tonight. I can hardly wait!
While visiting one of the farms, I got it into my head that I wanted to try making onion rings again. I made them many years ago. I'd like to try them again this week, to go with the chili cheese dogs that I can't get off my mind. Remember those tofu hot dogs that I thought were a bit rubbery? I think that was due to baking them on top of a bean casserole. I microwaved a couple of them this week, and they weren't bad at all! I'll be making some whole wheat buns, a batch of black bean chili, and we'll have chili cheese dogs this next week. With a side of onion rings!
Also stopped in at OFC to get 1 gallon of milk. It's a Saturday and I didn't expect there to be any mark down milk left. But we hit the jack-pot. We bought 11 gallons of milk for $21.28. Once home, I froze most of it. The sell-by dates are Oct. 10, 15 and 16. We'll drink a few gallons in the next 10 days, and I'll make a large batch of yogurt tomorrow or Monday. I think yogurt will be featuring heavily in the menus this next month. And it's rather fortunate that all this yogurt will coincide with all our fruit harvested, for fruit-y yogurt.
The frozen milk will last us well into November. It's nice to not have to think about buying milk for a while. And we could've bought even more, but this was the max our freezers could hold. As it was, I had to shift stuff around to make it all fit.
Once again, our freezers, fridges and pantry are stuffed to the gills. We need to start eating in a big way! Total spent so far this month -- $112.54.
Oct. 8. Had to take daughters to the orthodontist. The bakery thrift is near to the office. Stopped in and bought 7 loaves of bread (and got 5 small treats as a bonus!). Spent $10.23. This bread will last about 3 weeks, if I continue to cook up other grains on a regular basis, to keep in the fridge for meals.
Yesterday afternoon I made a large pot of hot rice cereal (long-cooking variety, so made in the afternoon, so we could just heat and eat in the AM). I added maple extract, cinnamon and a touch of vanilla. Quite yummy! There's enough for tomorrow's breakfast, too.
Dinner tonight was really fresh and delicious. I made a black bean, rice and tomato salad. I cooked the black beans according to the directions given on a site about maximizing mineral absorption from dried beans. Also, had corn-on-the-cob (from the pumpkin patch), apple slices (from picking today) and Plum Kuchen for dessert. Never a shortage of good food at our place!
Total spent for the month -- $122.77. I don't think I could go grocery shopping again, if I wanted, as the freezers, fridges and pantry are loaded. As I tried to get the bread into the freezer, other things kept falling out! LOL! I had to have my daughters finish off the ice cream (it was on their required things to do list), just to get the bread in.
Oct. 12. Stopped in at the grocery store to pick up sale items. It was baking items mostly, powdered sugar, chocolate chips, eggs. Spent $7.46. Total so far this month $130.23.
Our freezer, pantry and fridge are quite full, due in part to a good harvest in the orchard and veggie garden. But also, I have a significant amount of milk, meat and bread in the freezer, plus cooked entrees and soups. I may not need to buy much else this month. We'll see.
