October 2019 Grocery Review

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The big news this month was that Walden Local launched a new service whereby one could order a la carte and they would deliver once a week.  It’s great!  It’s advertised as a pilot program, but I hope it continues.  My major feedback would be that since everything arrives frozen, they don’t need to deliver every week.  I’d be fine with placing a monthly order so long as I could order exactly what I wanted.

It’s a short week, with a tremendous amount of groceries to be purchased.  So, let’s get right to the October totals.

October TOTAL: $1,707.84

  • Stop & Shop: $252.86
  • Wegman’s: $533.48
  • BJs: $501.13
  • Local: $376.45
    • Farmers to You: $231.56
    • Other Local: $144.89
  • Other:  $43.92
    • Star Market/Shaw’s: $43.92
    • Target: $0
    • Other: $0

Wow!  That was a biggie.  I guess we weren’t done restocking for winter.  I can’t imagine November or December being small either with all the holiday meals, but I guess we shall see.

September 2019 Grocery Review

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Well, clearly things have been busy.  Sorry for the gap.  I fell behind and then the catch up project just got bigger so I waited for a chance to do it justice.  That said, I’m going to zoom through October and November over the next two weeks rather than going week by week to just catch us all up to real time.  I generally prefer to write posts in real time, but if things gt busy gaps happen.

Since there was only one week left of September, we’ll go ahead with that in detail.

On Monday, I stopped at both Shaw’s ($36.12) and Wegman’s ($56.07).  Yes, it feels a bit silly to visit two grocery stores on the same day, but they’re in somewhat the same direction and Shaw’s is an infrequent visit for specific items: pizza dough and oatmeal.

Wednesday was the nursery school apple picking field trip.  While there I bought strawberries (hands down best in our area) for $6.99 from their farm stand.

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On Thursday, I returned to Wegman’s where I spent $171.89.

I also spent $44.10 on our Farmer’s to You box.

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That brought the monthly totals to:

September TOTAL: $1,429.85

  • Stop & Shop: $236.94
  • Wegman’s: $579.47
  • BJs: $330.03
  • Local: $247.29
    • Farmers to You: $176.10
    • Other Local: $71.19
  • Other:  $36.12
    • Star Market/Shaw’s: $36.12
    • Target: $0
    • Other: $0

August was artificially low with vacations and it just being easier to shop after the kids headed back to school.  And, September was high, but not so high that it wiped out the deficit from August.

 

Grocery Update – Week 36, 2019

We finally have a small week, both for number of stops and dollars.

On Monday, I picked up a dozen bagels and two tubs of cream cheese for $14.69.

Wednesday was the big shop of the week.  I spent $96.70 at Stop & Shop.

Finally, I picked up our Farmer’s to You box for $50.95 on Thursday.

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That brought the total for the week to $162.34.  That should balance out this month a bit.

 

Grocery Update – Week 35, 2019

This was a big week, though mostly because I went to BJ’s for the first time since July.

My first stop was Stop & Shop on Tuesday where I spent $59.69.  Apologies for the dark picture.  The M&M item in the bottom center was my free item of the week, a single serve cake mix.  We’ll see how that is.

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I picked up our Farmer’s to You box on Thursday for $41.95.

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Friday was the big trip to BJ’s – $330.03!  Actually, after so much time off that’s not terrible, just a bit higher than it would usually be.

 

Lastly, I made two stops I Saturday.  I went to the farm stand for a few local items (if I’d realized I’d be at the grocery store later I would have purchased the lemons there).  They cost $33.77.

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Finally, we had a request for sausages with our hot dogs so I went to Wegman’s.  That came to $82.45 but should carry us through the first half of the week.

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That brought the weekly total to a very large $547.89.

 

August 2019 Grocery Review

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I’m not sure how the numbers for the month will bear out since we spent a chunk of time on vacation (during which food goes in the vacation numbers).

First, the spending and eating from last week.  I had two trips to Wegman’s and our Farmer’s to You box.

The first trip to Wegman’s was a bit of a whopper at $201.88!  There were a lot of proteins, and not particularly inexpensive ones.

On Thursday, I picked up our Farmer’s to You box for $39.10.

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Finally, on Sunday I made a more typical trip of $67.18 at Wegman’s.

That brought the weekly total to $308.16.

Bonus: this week I remembered to write down what we ate!

Monday:
Meatball subs, tater tots, veggies

Tuesday:
Shepard’s pie, green & wax beans

Wednesday:
Early (3): Macaroni & cheese, spinach salad
Late (3): Tuna noodle casserole

Thursday:
In (6): Chicken nuggets, veggies
Out (2): Ballpark food

Friday:
Early (3): Take out pizza at an event
Late (5): Homemade pizza

Saturday:
Salmon in puff pastry, green beans, oatmeal bread

Sunday:
Pulled pork, veggies, deviled eggs

And now a look back at August.

August TOTAL: $493.37

  • Stop & Shop: $66.62
  • Wegman’s: $163.71
  • BJs: $0
  • Local: $89.24
    • Farmers to You: $82.65
    • Other Local: $6.59
  • Other:  $173.80
    • Star Market/Shaw’s: $56.32
    • Target: $30.90
    • Other: $86.58

Even with the understanding that it accounted for only half the month, that’s a nice low total.

Garden: When Things Don’t go to Plan

As you saw last time, the pumpkin vines were starting to grow over the wall.

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Well, the cucumber did too.  This resulted in a cucumber trying to grow into the wall.  I pried it out gently and it tasted fine; it just didn’t look quite right.

Then the bunnies found us.  They liked the carrot tops (though I don’t think this affected how many carrots we got).  Something ate many strawberries and tomatoes; I’ll need to protect those better next year.  They also liked the green bean plants, but we got plenty of green beans still so that wasn’t a problem.  The picture shows the damage to the parsley.

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I had thought it was chipmunks, but obviously bunnies were contributing. I’m not sure how we’re going to protect the garden better next year.  Chipmunks can get pretty much anywhere.  I may put a wire fence and the end of the ledge to stave off the bunnies.  I don’t think they’ll jump down.

Another option would be to move the cucumbers to the end.  Their spines seemed to make them rather un-passable once they grew in.  That said, I’d prefer to grown them up the trellis next year; that didn’t quite work out this year because the trellises weren’t strong enough.  Stronger trellises would also help keep the tomatoes farther from the ground.  Lessons learned and improvements to come.

Grocery Update – Week 33, 2019

The restocking continued.  On the other hand, we were gone for some of Labor Day weekend and went to a BBQ for yet another meal.

Monday I bought peaches and an Athena melon at the farm stand.  I’m not usually a huge fan of cantaloupe, but this variety is quite good so I seek it out for the few weeks its available.  Same for local peaches.  Apparently I forgot to take a picture.  But, I spent $6.59.

On Tuesday, I went to Shaw’s primarily for pizza dough.  I spent a total of $56.32.

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I spent $30.90 at Target on Wednesday for juice and craisins.  Again, I failed to take a picture of this.

I picked up our Farmer’s to You box on Thursday at $40.80.

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Then I took a few days off from shopping before making two stops on Sunday.  I spent $15.74 at the farm stand and $80.55 at Stop & Shop.  (There were actually four boxes of lemonade, but one didn’t make it to the picture.)

That brought my total for the week to $230.90.  This will get split between August and September when those numbers get calculated.

 

Grocery Update – Week 32, 2019

Only one significant stop this week.  We were mostly on vacation and I count all groceries purchased on vacation towards the vacation budget.

Because we had been on vacation and because its turnover season to winter/school groceries, there was a fair amount of restocking to do.  This is only the start.

First thing when we got back, we purchased two gallons of milk for $11.96.  That is clearly not cost effective, but quick and close were the priority.

My one and only trip was to Wegman’s where I spent $163.71.

I also harvest the garden first thing.  I had done this right before we left, but of course it was still going to grow.  I had put the water on a timer so I didn’t have to worry about rain.

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That’s 25 cucumbers!  And, three of them are three pounds – whoppers!  I had made as many pickles as I could before we left.  I also thought the green beans were done when we left, but they revived in our absence.  I’m still picking a couple of pounds per week.  I’ll get back to the garden updates the end of this week.

July 2019 Grocery Review

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Things finished on a bit of a whimper, but I doubt that meant a small month.

That starts to change in August.  Last week was smaller than normal.  This week is tiny.

On Tuesday, I spent $29.11 at Stop & Shop.

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On Thursday, I spent $37.51 at Stop & Shop.

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Inefficient yes.  Expensive no.  I had thought I’d make that second stop elsewhere, but this ended up being the best choice.  No Farmer’s to You this week because we have a bit of a fruit backlog.  So, the grand total was 66.62.

July TOTAL: $1,832.79

  • Stop & Shop: $160.95
  • Wegman’s: $779.45
  • BJs: $484.98
  • Local: $263.41
    • Farmers to You: $220.85
    • Other Local: $42.56
  • Other:  $144.00
    • Star Market/Shaw’s: $109.93
    • Target: $0
    • Other: $34.07

Not small.