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| (These are the window clings that I bought last year at Dollar Tree. I saved them on their original plastic sheet, tucked in a drawer. Took me all of 5 minutes to put them up for the season. Second year using them -- if I use them for ten years, the cost will amortize to 10 cents per year. Not bad!)) |
Hi friends!
I'm back, that is, back in the best capacity that I can be for now.
One of my thoughts has been centered around how I can continue blogging when I'm down, tired, busy, or sick. I'm just going to try a few simpler things. For today, I'll catch you up on my start for October.
Okay, only the 3rd of October, and I am 3/4 done with October's grocery shopping. I have 4 stores at which I shop, and I've been to 3 so far. I hit Dollar Tree and bought all of the snacky stuff, plus a bunch of breakfast items, and bread, loads of bread. I hit the jackpot with their bread rack. They hd just put out a bunch of Oroweat -- English muffins, bread, bagels -- and I really stocked up. I think we may have enough bread in the freezer for 2 months. At $1 per loaf, it was a steal. They even had one of my all-time favorites, Honey Wheatberry.
Following Dollar Tree, I hit up WinCo for their great deals. WinCo has a fabulous bulk bin section. Some of the items in the bulk bins are as inexpensive as buying the institutional sized package at Cash and Carry. I keep a mental price book for the various staples. With this, I can quickly determine if something is a great buy or not. So, at WinCo this month I picked up various bulk bin staples, like whole wheat flour, ranch style dressing mix, chicken soup base, dried veggie soup mix (good for quick lunches or snacks for one), TVP, and some candy for Halloween treats. I also bought bagged cereal, frozen juice concentrate, breakfast sausage and turkey bacon, kielbasa, corn tortillas, produce, and a few other pantry items.
Next stop, Fred Meyer for Senior discount day. I as able to get out early for my shopping at Fred Meyer. I have found that this is key for getting the marked down deals and regular sale items, especially now that our Fred Meyer has switched their sale-cycle to Wednesday through Tuesday. FM sale-cycle used to run Sunday through Saturday. So, on Senior day, there would still be plenty of the sale items available. Now with the sale cycle completing on Tuesday, (the day for senior discount), they are often out of the sale item. They will give me a raincheck, but when I come back to buy the raincheck item, it's no longer senior day, so I don't get the senior discount. Anyway, something peeving me about FM these days. So, I did get out early -- ran a brush through my hair, no shower, no make-up, grabbed my shoes and jacket and left. I bout enough milk, eggs and butter to get through the month, as well as coffee (decaf for me), more produce, hot dogs, applesauce, apple juice, and lots of meat. I found Italian and breakfast sausage on clearance, plus got a great deal on ground beef and chicken thighs. Yesterday afternoon, I spent some time dividing up the ground beef. This afternoon, I've been diving up the chicken thighs while cooking a couple of chicken and mushroom casseroles (one for tonight and leftovers for tomorrow, and the other for the freezer).
My last shopping stop will be Cash and Carry. But that will have to wait until we have room in the fridge and freezer. We're topped out right now. In recent months, I have limited my shopping to one stop per month at each of the 4 stores. I make these stops at the very beginning of the month, and I believe that this is working out pretty well for us. I buy a wide variety of produce, and we eat the short-keepers first, like berries, leafy greens, bananas, and any marked down produce I found on the rack. By the end of the month, we're eating cabbage, celery, carrots, onions, squash, apples, and oranges, as well as frozen and dried produce.
Among my chores this afternoon, I also washed a bunch of salad greens to keep in the fridge. I break leaves off of a head of Romaine, wash, then wrap in a tea towel and keep in the fridge in a plastic bag. I was tempted to buy the bagged lettuce for quick lunch salads, but I knew that if I spent 5-10 minutes washing my own lettuce, I would save a couple of dollars on salad greens.
I did buy lots of fun foods. For example, I bought a box of frozen corndogs from WinCo and some bags of sweet potato fries from Dollar Tree. You see where I'm heading with this, right? Friday night, a night when everyone wants a restaurant dinner (fast food or other), I have corndogs and fries planned. add in some apple wedges and a salad and my total cost for the family is under $3 ( with free apples and tomatoes from our garden). And I still have an easy dinner night.
Well, dinner is in the oven and on the stove. I need to clean up the kitchen before serving, so I'll wrap this up. I hope that you are having a wonderful October. Another time, I'll post some fun things that we're doing this month. Have a lovely evening!
