Pantry Challenge

I've been spending WAY WAY WAY too much money on food so I'm doing a pantry challenge. Remember my pantry is any "stored food" that I have. Could be in the freezer, fridge or cupboards. We have plenty of fresh and frozen veggies to eat. Some dried fruit and frozen fruit as well.

Monday I made steaks...well technically my husband grilled them
Tuesday we had leftover steaks
Wednesday we had shredded beef taco salads and healthy ice cream
Tonight we are having beer butt chicken on the BBQ and sauteed green beans

The rest of the week will be interesting....we have 4 dozen eggs, canned tomatoes, garlic, onions, frozen cauliflower, broccoli, peas, green beans,  blueberries, strawberries, bananas as well as an assortment of meat.

Grocery Shopping

Here's the link for grocery items that I purchased on Thursday. You can see what we bought at the end of this post, but the formatting doesn't copy over!

I've tried every way of grocery shopping...often, weekly, semi monthly, monthly. Weekly trips to the local grocery stores, monthly order to Azure and monthly trip to Sam's Club seems to work best for my family.

I realized that while I love to have a set schedule, it is best to be F-L-E-X-I-B-L-E. Seriously? Flexible? Okay, I can't figure out how to spell that word so help me out! If I can't spell it, how in the world am I going to do it? I don't want to be flexible! Whew - deep breath in, deep breath out. Okay...

I can choose to shop whatever day works for my schedule that week and do all of my shopping in one day. This week Thursday was the best day. Next week I'm going to try not to shop if at all possible because we're leaving on Friday to go on vacation. Or is it to go on holiday? My friend from Canada always said holiday instead of vacation. She's so cute. That had absolutely NOTHING to do with my grocery purchase...just thought I'd share.

You'll see many many stops on my trip. It was SO.NOT.FUN. I do not recommend it. There's another stop that I made that's not on there. It's a store called the Farmer's Market that had just opened for the season. They aren't quite ready yet. Maybe next time I go there I'll be able to eliminate some of my other stops.

This post is linked to:
Money Saving Mom
Grocery Cart Challenge
29-Jun Breadroot Food Co-Op


Sucanat $0.24

1 vanilla bean $1.50

Tax $0.10



29-Jun Sam's Club

6 Peppers $6.98

Tomatoes $5.98

Frozen Green Beans $5.48

Frozen Green Peas $4.88

Frozen Broccoli $4.98

Peanuts $5.76

Fish Oil Pills $12.87

Tax $2.82





1-Jul Walmart

Bananas $0.70

Avocado $0.78

Hot Dog Buns for Brats $1.00

Miracle Whip $1.97

Mayo $1.97

Whipping Cream $2.13

1% gallon milk $2.48



1-Jul Butcher Shop

1 dozen eggs - YIKES! $3.90

** my egg source for $2.00 won't have eggs for two months UGGGG!



1-Jul Lueders

**I realized (again) today just how much I love love love shopping here!!!

** They sell SD items too!



4 corn on the cob - yes, it's a grain $1.60

watermelon - YUMMY for the 4th $3.84

Bing Cherries from Washington $3.26

Asparagus $1.20

** enough for myself and DH - kids don't care for it

1 onion $0.92

Raisin Bran $2.99

Parmesean Cheese $1.89

**for my daughter who wants to make alfredo tonight

** this has gone up in price a LOT! Rock bottom price used to be $1.00 now it's $1.50



BBQ Sauce $0.99

** sometimes I'm lazy :-)

Smart Chicken breasts $5.44

** Still undecided about this. Better than regular chicken breasts, but not as good as pastured chickens

** Question: Can I afford to buy pastured chickens? Can I afford the time to prepare all of the time?

Tax $1.33





1-Jul Valley Corner Gas Station

1 package brat $4.74

** My friend sells/creates labels for a local SD person who sells brats & sausages at this little gas station





Total for week of June 28, 2010



$94.72

Grocery Shopping

My Trip to WalMart and Leuders:

You can read what I spent $40 on when you click over to my google spreadsheet. We had a huge salad last night using the leftover steak we had from Father's Day. I am LOVING the 1/4 of a beef in my freezer!

In order to get more vegetables and fruits into our diet, I am trying to get everything washed  right when I get home from the store. I pour a blob of vinegar in a bowl, fill it with water and then add the veggie/fruit. After they have soaked for a bit, I scrub them and then rinse a few times. Here's the mess I made yesterday...which sat out all day long until we got home at 8:00 last night from the baseball game. Making the salad was easy though!

Frugal Tip: Don't buy veggies already cut up for you...save yourself the money and do it yourself. 

Find more frugal tips over at Life as Mom!

Check out Money Saving Mom for grocery deals.

Pantry Principle Shopping

This is all of the shopping I'm going to do this week. Well, I guess I am going to Walmart tomorrow and will pick up some ice cream for the apple pie I'm going to make my husband for his birthday. Wish me luck - the last time I made a pie it was....well....weird. It was soup. My sister thinks it's because I didn't use the top crust because I was trying to save calories. She made one with me when she was here and it turned out so I'm hoping for the best!

I went to Sam's last week for my OAMC trial so I have quite a bit of food in my house. Here's the break down of the items I bought:

1. Toilet Paper - wanted to test it out the store brand to compare it to Scott's brand. 
2. onions - need
3. 1 bag green apples for the pie
4. apples and an avocado were okay prices, not amazing, but low enough to buy
5. The mushrooms were 2/$1.00. This is a stock up price for me. They often go down to $.50 so I buy enough to last us until the next sale. I'm sure that for a lot of people this wouldn't be a pantry staple. I swear my husband could eat mushrooms in his cold cereal. Okay not really, but he LOVES mushrooms so they go in most of our meals.
6. The mac & cheese. Disgusting food! My kids love it so I usually buy a few boxes when they go to $.50 per box. I only like this store brand - not crazy about Kraft. They were down to $.33 so I bought a LOT. Now I have to hide them somewhere so the kids can't find them.
7. The sausage was a great price (well, for sausage) $2.25/lb. My husband likes to make brats on Sundays sometimes and I love Kielbasa in our red beans and rice. I was planning on stocking up on these at this price. However, considering my husband and I have both gained a few pounds over the winter I think I need to cut back on sausage. In my red beans I'm going to cut back on the amount of sausage I use and add chicken as well. The other issue is the nitrates and other gunk in them. Not the healthiest food around. I think I'd be better off in the long run serving more fish. But goodness fish sure does stink up the house! Next time I make it I need to use the BBQ!

Total for the month of March $215. My goal usually is $260. This month I gave myself an extra $100 so I could stock up on some meat when I find it at a low price.

Notice how weird pantry principle shopping is....what on Earth will I make? With few exceptions, I buy everything that is on sale. By the way, I just remembered I bought 1 pack of oriental ramen because I had a recipe that called for it and I haven't seen them on sale for a year.

There is another recipe that I'm dying to make, but cream cheese is not on sale. I know it will go on sale soon so why waste the $.50. Big deal you say...it's only $.50. If I can save $.50 on 10 items every week that saves me $5.00 for that week. Over the year, that will save me $260.00. For doing NOTHING other than being patient. It doesn't take me more time to be patient and it doesn't make me feel deprived! It makes me grateful that I can save money at the store because I took the time to read the grocery ad and write down a few prices.

The pantry principle works for me!!!

This post is linked to the Grocery Cart Challenge and WFMW.

Pantry Principle to the Rescue!

I've posted about the pantry principle before, where you buy items on sale and then eat those things. I don't usually cook things that I feel like cooking, I cook what I have in my pantry. This is one of the many ways I can keep my grocery budget for our family of four at $260. When I bought what I wanted to eat we easily spent three times this amount.

I'm finding myself in a busy season of life - Mom taxi life that is. Even though I find it's very beneficial to have a menu plan so we have more variety in our diet, sometimes in life it's just not going to happen! Apparently this is one of those times!


Today I went to the store and spent about $21.00 for groceries. For the month of February I've spent $105 so far. I have no idea what our menu plan is, but I'm confident that we have enough food to make it until next week when I will shop again. The reason I can be confident in this is because I shop ahead for our food. For example:

•  A few weeks ago at Sam's Club I bought pork chops. I used half for one meal and I have the other half in my freezer.
• I have the fixins' to make pizza.
• I have beans and rice.
• I have some hamburger.
• I have soup stuff.
• I have spaghetti making stuff
• I have....a lot of food!

It has taken months to build up my pantry to the point where it's at now. I don't want months and months of food in there; my goal is to save money and time! Everyone has to feed their family...if you want to save money while doing this then try the PANTRY PRINCIPLE!!!

Grocery Planning...a new plan AGAIN

Menu planning, grocery store planning, feeding my family, annoying me to no end, constantly needing to cook....what do these things have in common??? I don't know either. I'm babbling. I think everyone should babble once a day just to get it out of their system. Don't babble to your husband, it's annoying to listen to.

So my grocery store plan last year at this time was to go to the grocery store on the same day each week and spend $75. Once a month I'd go to the neighboring town and pick up some dented canned goods and spend about $20. In August I decided to join Sam's Club and I've been changing the way I grocery shop since then.

Over the past year I was able to whittle my grocery bill down to about $60 per week. This number does not include any supplies, school lunches, meals out (about once a month if that) and it doesn't include what we spend for Christmas meals (that is in our Christmas budget). I decided in December that I'd save even more money if I went to the store every other week. Having tried that now for the past few months, I've decided it probably saves me money, but causes too much stress. I'm going back to once a week shopping. The trick for me is figuring out how Sam's is going to fit into this plan. My husband is changing jobs so starting in March I'm taking $260 per month. I'll divide out the money and try to keep some separate for my Sam's trip. Who knows, maybe I'll decide that Sam's isn't worth the hassle.

This week I'm shopping at the dented can food store on Thursday and then on Friday I'll hit Safeway and Leuders. I've been spending about $20 for items that we need for that week and the other $40 is either saved or spent on "pantry" food. This is food that I don't need for the week, but is at my stock up sale price and something we will want in the future (ie. chicken, sausages, BBQ sauce, ketchup, mayo, etc).

In summary, I'm glad I tried something new and learned from it. If I continued doing the same thing over and over again I never would have found out how little I can spend to feed my family!

Back to weekly shopping, until I try something new again!

Pantry Principle to the Rescue!

You know how I say plan, plan, plan?

You know what happens when you don't plan? Well, when you have cash to spend, you don't go over budget! I know for a fact if I would have used my credit card or debit card at the grocery stores today I would have spent too much money. I had a "kinda, sorta, plan". Years ago, back in the day, (insert a sigh as only a 10 year old can do) I would have walked up and down each isle to see what we "needed". Since I was out busy playing around yesterday I didn't have time to come up with a good plan. So I found the best deals on meat, fruits and veggies, grabbed milk and eggs and I'll wing it!

It is only because of the pantry principle that I can do this. I know I have butter, frozen veggies, flour, oats, a variety of meats and canned goods in my pantry. We might have some unique meals, but we will easily be able to eat at home.

If you want to start trying the pantry principle, the easiest thing to do is make a list of five things that you always run to the store for because you run out.  Next time you are at the store buy one extra of those items. If it is on sale buy a few! The idea is that you always shop from your pantry. If you run out of flour you don't run to the store, you go to your pantry and add that item to your grocery list.

I love my stockpile of food!

To date I've spent $197. I get money again on Jan. 31st which is when I usually do a bigger shopping trip so my numbers might look funky this month!

Pantry

1/4/2010
Lueders trip - 1 bag oranges, 2 boxes saltines, 8 cans mushrooms and 12 medium eggs $10.90
Using the pantry principle:
My definition of our pantry is "anything that contains stockpiled items." I don't stockpile things for the fun of it or because I believe I need to have a years supply of anything. I stockpile things simply to save time and money.
For example, today when I bought saltines I put one in my cupboard and one in my "pantry." When we eat all of the saltines that are in my cupboard then I'll grab this box of saltines from the pantry instead of paying full price.
Saltines are one of a few things that I stockpile. I know that we don't use that many, but they are really convenient for me to have on hand. I know that about every 6 weeks they go on sale for $1.00. This saves me $.35.
Who cares about $.35? Why sweat the small stuff, it's not a big deal. Let's say that I "only" save $.35 on 10 items that I buy every week. That's $3.50 per week, over the course of a year $182. I've earned TAX-FREE $182 in my job as a homemaker. In order to save that $182 I have spent a bit of time. I couldn't even guess how much time, maybe 5 minutes to look at the ad?
The pantry principle can work for anyone!

Find more frugal ideas over at Frugal Fridays at Life as a Mom!

Pantry Principle - buying too many items

I try to plan my menu around what is in my pantry. This is also known as the pantry principle. FYI - my "pantry" includes items in my freezer, fridge and cupboards.

A good way to be completely overwhelmed when stocking your pantry is to wander through the isles buying prepackaged things. IE. crackers, cookies, mixes, cereal, etc. Ask me how I know!!!

A much better method is this: limit the number of items you buy from the store and keep those stocked in your pantry. For example, instead of stocking up on cake mixes, pancake & waffle mixes, cookie mixes, cookies, crackers, bread, tortillas, etc., stock up on basic ingredients and learn how to cook and bake! It's really not hard. It is a bit time consuming in the beginning, but once you find a tried and true recipe, you'll find cooking/baking goes very quickly.

It's a lot easier to grocery shop when you limit the number of items you buy at the grocery store . It's also a lot easier to keep track of the sale prices when you have fewer items to track.

Money saving tip: the pantry principle will save you money if you spend the time to learn how the system works.