The Shopping Trip

Here is what Miss Boo and the Husband did while I ventured out into subzero weather to purchase my groceries:

(To be fair, I'm pretty sure she was more active than this part of the time. And it was only -9. But still, that is subzero.)

The grand total for my shopping trip (2 stores, 1 1/2 hours) was $220, and some cents. This comes in $20 under budget for what I shoot for every month from the grocery store (not counting beef, and I usually come in over budget so it's a bigger savings than that.) I should mention that the menu posted below isn't particularly frugal; I'm helped by having a lot of beef stored. If I had to buy all the meat to use in meals this month, I'd have less meat in the meals and more beans, pasta, and lentils (for instance I'd go half-and-half lentils and beef in my spaghetti sauce, and the cowboy beans would have less beef in them). Counting in the amortized cost of the beef, the total for this month's food would be $320. I haven't figured out how much I save by only having to use 25% of the gas I'd normally use for the month's shopping, but I'm sure that adds to savings.

OK, enough menuing. I'll report periodically this month to see if things work as well as I anticipate.

For dinner tonight, by the way, we had homemade pepperoni, spinach, and black olive pizza and green salad with homemade dressing. (Get the big pepperoni and the big shredded mozzarella from Costco and you can have homemade pizza for MONTHS for about $14.) Very yummy, and for dessert there are the chocolate chip cookies I made this afternoon. I'm just a ball o' fire on days when I can con the Husband into Child Patrol. :D

Have a great day,

Breanna