Our shopping is done for the month. The fridge, freezer and pantry are completely stocked. It feels so good to have that all accomplished and to know that all we’ll need is some produce, eggs and milk to round out our weeks.
We ended up splitting our shopping trips into two days instead of just one. Saturday morning was a busy, get-stuff-done-around-the-house kind of morning. There may have a Wii competition or two going on also. So by the time we made it out the door, it was already 2 pm. And since Sam’s Club really does become an event for us (browsing all the aisles, looking at books, enjoying samples, etc.), we didn’t get home until almost 5:30.
But it actually worked out perfectly since I got to take our 5 year old son on a date to Kroger today. It seems like he and I rarely get to do stuff together alone anymore, so we both really enjoyed our time at the store. He is becoming an awesome little helper and such a gentleman too! Makes my mama-heart proud.
Anyhow, on to the shopping. Here’s where we started from.
And here’s where we ended up.
It’s definitely a huge difference.
Some of the highlights from this months’ purchases include:
- 17 lbs. ground beef
- 3 lbs. each bacon and breakfast sausage
- 6 lbs. chicken breasts (+ the 6 lbs. already in the freezer from last month)
- A huge bottle of olive oil that will probably last a year
- Loads of snack foods for the kids at school and after school
- 6 lbs. of nectarines (If these start to good bad before they’re all eaten, I’ll slice and freeze for use in smoothies.)
- 6 lbs. of coffee
- Enough rice, barley and elbow macaroni to last 2 months, at least
Altogether, we spent a grand total of $368. That leaves $82 for two or three quick milk and fruit runs the rest of the month. Judging by what we have on hand now and my plans for putting it all to use in the freezer and such over the next few days, we probably will not need to use all of that. But, we’ll see.
Here are the post-shopping pictures:
From the Sam’s Club trip.
From Kroger. My helpers were just too anxious to start unpacking for me to get a picture with everything unloaded, but hopefully you get the idea.
Now the fun really begins! I’m formulating batch cooking plans over the next several days to put all of this to good use without any going to waste. The freezer will be stuffed, that’s for sure.
