I love that I qualify for the Senior discount at a couple of places. I just wish the art museum would extend that privilege as early as AARP and a few others do.
Anyway, this morning I'll be up early to snag a couple of deals at Fred Meyer, using a $5 off any purchase of $25 coupon. I actually won't be buying many food items at FM this month. Even though Fred Meyer has the rep of being a low-cost grocery store, I have found better deals at other stores. Thanks to Lona (in the comments), I used flipp to find milk at a better price that FM with the Senior Discount. Although I check the websites for the grocery stores in my area, I don't check the drug stores. Flipp inventories the advertisements for drug stores, traditional grocery stores, and a couple of the big alternative stores, like SmartFood Service Cash & Carry and Ranch 99, a large Asian market chain.
My revised shopping list now has me spending $111.43 for July, with a budgeted amount of $128.20. I should have $16.77 leftover to use on an unexpected great deal or roll over into next month's budget. Besides buying milk at one of our local drugstores, I also rethought the couscous I had planned and opted for millet and bulgur wheat in its place. Couscous is $2.49/lb in the bulk sections of a couple of stores. That's a bit pricey for something that is just pasta. My intended use for the couscous was a couple of pilafs or grain salads this month. Millet makes a nice pilaf and is almost $1 less per pound compared to couscous, at $1.69/lb at Fred Meyer in the bulk bins. Bulgur wheat is the commonly-found grain in tabouli, a grain, bean, and fresh vegetable salad in a vinaigrette dressing, AND it's only $1.29/lb at Fred Meyer in the bulk bins. So, I thought I'd buy a half pound of each of these grains and save myself $1 to use elsewhere. (A half-pound of either bulgur wheat or millet is a little over 1 cup, dry, or enough to make just over 3 cups of reconstituted, the amount I need for either a pilaf or a main dish salad.) When I first made July's list, I had forgotten about a $5 off coupon that I had received. I mentioned this in a subsequent post that I decided to use that coupon toward 2 additional pounds of butter. So, not only will I spend less money this month, but I will be buying more.
This is the path that my monthly grocery planning takes. I think and rethink the plan, remember other savings options, look for better deals, and revise my lists two or three times during the month.
For the most part, I am using what I have on hand for the menu for the 4th. I have about 15 pounds of chicken leg quarters in the freezer. The obvious thing to make is barbecued chicken. I'll marinate a half-dozen leg quarters in a simple blend of oil, lemon juice, vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, salt, and pepper overnight before grilling the following day. A little marinade can do wonders with basic chicken pieces. I have a couple of bags of blueberries from last summer and some pie pastry in the freezer. So, it looks like a blueberry pie for us. My garden is overflowing with greens these days, which would make for a wonderful tossed, mix-green salad with a homemade Italian dressing. And my garden rhubarb continues to produce, so I'll make this creamy rhubarb gelatin salad, substituting some homemade vanilla yogurt for the cream cheese. To round out the meal, I'll bake a pan of honey-glazed dinner rolls, the kind that only need a 30 minute rise-time in the pan. That should about do it for a simple, summertime holiday meal.
