August 2. Fred Meyer for the senior discount shopping day. I bought the large box of powdered milk for $13.04. This might last the whole year. I'm not needing to fortify my daughter's smoothies quite so much, these days, and never have to add the powdered milk to her drinking milk any more. So, that's good news on two fronts -- saves money, and a sign she's getting better. I found cottage cheese on markdown for 99 cents/16 oz container. Bought two. One container is earmarked for lasagna, and the other is for lunches, with fruit, this week. I also bought 4 packages of cheapo hotdogs for cookouts, at 80 cents/12 oz package, 1/10th lb unsweetend coconut at $2.69/lb, small jar blackstrap molasses for $3.41, 3 jars of natural-style peanut butter (15 oz for $1.61), 16 oz bag of marshmallows (for s'mores), at $1.35, 2 lbs of butter, at $2.25/lb, 12 oz milk chocolate chips and 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips, at $1.80 each, plus 1 lb of whole wheat spaghetti for 90 cents. Spent $34.94
August 5. A change in plans for evening entertainment brought both daughters and I to the beach to have a small picnic dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches. Near to the beach is a frozen yogurt shop. So, for dessert, we headed over there. Even with my pleads of "let's keep these small, okay?", we still spent $14.20 for 3 fro-yo sundaes. Ouch! That comes out of the grocery budget. It was fun, but expensive fun.
Spent so far this month, $49.14
August 10. Dollar Tree. Among other things, I bought a box of graham crackers. Spent $1
August 12. Fred Meyer for the milk on sale at $1/half-gallon. I bought 5 half-gallons of whole milk, and 1 half-gallon of orange juice. I also picked up 2 weeks of Friday Freebies - 1 5-oz package of gummy worms (to go into a stocking at Christmas), and a 10-oz Hormel dinner (will probably also go as a gift to someone in family at Christmas). Spent $6. (While I was at Fred Meyer, they had a promotion on gift cards, at 4 x fuel rewards -- I picked up a Starbucks card to use as a gift sometime in the future.)
August 12. Trader Joes for bananas. I bought 17 bananas, at 19 cents each. Spent $3.23
August 14. Dollar Tree, again, this month (daughters needed student planners for classes). I also bought 1 box of 6 individual packages of animal crackers, and 1 box of 6 individual packages of fish crackers. These are a treat/snack for the 2 weeks my daughters are home at the end of summer, and we do a bunch of summer-y road trips. Spent $2
So far this month, I've spent $61.37
August 19. Country Farms produce stand. I was very near to this stand this morning, and was feeling like I needed a pick me up, so I stopped in. I bought 6 ears of corn on the cob (25 cents each), 3 small avocados (3/$1), 4 nectarines (99 cents/lb), a pint of blueberries ($2.49), and a cantaloupe (39 cents/lb) I spent $7.02. Although our garden is producing well, these days, this splurge was well worth it. Kris's blueberry and peach fruit cups (mentioned in the comments this morning) sounded so wonderful. I made fruit salads in similar fashion using the nectarines and blueberries.
Month to date spending, $68.39
August 25 Fred Meyer for 5 half-gallons whole milk (99 cents each), and 1 half-gallon orange juice (99 cents), about 8 lbs total of peaches and nectarines for 88 cents/lb, 1 PowerBar (freebie). Total spent -- $12.83
Month to date spending, $81.22
August 26. Went by Cash & Carry and picked up a 10-lb package of 80/20 ground beef for $18.80 ($1.88/lb), a 5-lb bag of white cheddar cheese ($6.95, $1.39/lb, last one, I would have bought more, no rainchecks), 25-lb bag of steel cut oats ($14.47, or 58 cents/lb), 3 bananas at 46 cents/lb, 3 64-oz jars of chunky peanut butter ($5.37). Spent $56.79
Total spent so far, $138.01
Coming in to the month of August, I had a surplus of $299.23. Add that to my budget of $190, and I had $489.23 available to spend for the month. I underspent by $351.22. That is my new surplus!! Add that to my monthly budget of $190, and for the month of September, I now have $541.22 available to spend on groceries. Good grief! Are we not eating?! I don't think I bought that much this month. Here's the list:
What I bought
Dairy
large box of powdered milk
32 oz cottage cheese
2 lbs butter
10 half-gallons whole milk
5 lbs shredded white cheddar cheese
Meat
4 packages hot dogs
10 lbs 80/20 ground beef
Pantry
1/10th lb unsweetened coconut
small jar blackstrap molasses
3 15 oz jars natural-style peanut butter
16 oz marshmallows
2 12 oz bags chocolate chips
1 lb whole wheat spaghetti
9 oz graham crackers
5 oz package gummy worms (Freebie)
Hormel pantry-stable dinner (Freebie)
6-pack fish crackers
25 lbs steel cut oats
6-pack animal crackers
1 PowerBar (Freebie)
12 pints of Jif-type peanut butter
Produce
2 half-gallons orange juice
20 bananas
6 ears of corn
3 small avocados
4 nectarines
pint of blueberries
1 cantaloupe
8 lbs of nectarines and peaches, mixed
Treats out
frozen yogurt
I'm still holding below our budget, to spare as much money as possible for fall sale stock-ups. I've benefitted by some spectacular deals, like the ground beef for $1.88/lb, and the cheddar cheese for $1.39/lb. Not to mention the eggs that I bought in June and July for rock-bottom low prices (I don't know if eggs will ever be that low again, 49 cents/dozen is pretty spectacular). I'm still using eggs from those 2 cases, that I froze.
I continue to look for better ways to buy items. Like the 25-lb sack of steel cut oats. I had been buying steel cut oats at WinCo for 62 cents per pound. I paid 58 cents/lb by buying the 25-lb sack. that's only a savings of 4 cents/lb, but multiplied by 25 lbs and I saved $1. And steel cut oats are not something that I have to worry about us eating, indiscriminately. This amount will last us about 15 months, and keep just fine. Mmmm, now I'm getting hungry for a bowl of steel cut oats, topped with fresh peaches. Yum!
One of my pantry goals this summer has been to work our way down on both pantry and freezer surpluses. I want to make sure nothing sits for so long that it's no longer edible, get both pantry and freezers cleaned out, and save some money for stocking up when prices are rock-bottom for many items. I had no idea just how much we have in stock, here. It's a lot of food, and could probably last us for several months, with no shopping at all, if need be.
