The numbers are low this month largely because we were traveling for a large chunk.  But, we’re also getting into stock up sale season so we’ll have to see how that affects things through the end of the year.

I wanted to take some extra space to talk about my crazy Stop & Shop shopping the last week in October.  Because of that, and because with the hectic schedule this week its not very interesting, I’m going to skip the menu for this week.

• October TOTAL: $608.28
  • Stop & Shop: $208.52
  • Wegman’s: $98.88
  • BJs: $219.70
  • Other: $81.18
    • Local: $23.22
    • Star Market: $42.83
    • Trader Joe’s: $15.13
    • Target: $0
    • Other: $0

I only went to one grocery store this week – Stop & Shop.  But, because of transaction limitations I went through 7 times!

I went twice on Tuesday.  It wasn’t super efficient because I actually went morning and afternoon because I had very small time windows, but I was only two blocks away to start each time.  Here’s purchase #1:

Here’s purchase #2:

Notice their shocking similarity!  Yes, the only change is cheese instead of grape tomatoes.  Ever other item is transaction limited and I only had one coupon for free grape tomatoes.  Frankly, I probably wouldn’t have gone back in the afternoon except that I realized that I needed the cheese Thursday morning for the boys’ preschool Halloween parties (that’s why its orange), and I wasn’t going to shop again until after I dropped them off.

Sale prices for the transaction limited items:
– granola bars @ $1.88/box, limit 5
– soda @ $3.00/sleeve, limit 3
Limit 1 with a total purchase over $25 after all coupons:
– bread @ $1.98
– OJ @ $1.88
– chips @ $4.99
– chocolate chips @ $1.99
– potatoes @ $0.97 (since this is for a 5lb bag, its just under 20¢/lb, which even the Prudent Homemaker would approve of)

Thursday I was more efficient, going through 5 times and stopping at the car to drop off items each time.  (Note: I bought the perishables last.)  This is where their self scanner option is very handy, because I had to make $25 after coupons on each transaction to get the single item per transactions as described above.  Since I haven’t been to Stop & Shop in a while, and there are a few items I can’t get anywhere else, it took a number of transactions to get this all done.  If I’d priced it all out I probably could have gotten away with one fewer transaction, but I’m really not complaining.

Here’s the total of my five rounds on Thursday:

I got chocolate chips and potatoes all five times through.  I got one more OJ.  I got one more set of 5 granola bars (subbing in two boxes of cereal at $1.88 each since I’d bought out the shelf of granola bars and cereal was part of the sale too).  Most items were on sale plus I had coupons for the fruit cups and sugar on top of their sale prices.

Items that weren’t on sale:
bananas – Regularly 39¢/lb. I really can’t ask much more.
hot dogs – The store recently lowered the every day price to what used to be the standard sale price.
hot dog buns
egg noodles
salsa – yes, it does sometimes go on sale
store brand yogurt
parmesan cheese
bacon – Bummer that it went on sale this week.  I’ll buy a few more.
baby carrots – The smaller bags were on sale, but the larger bags were better per pound.

The total for seven rounds came to $179.57, which is pretty good given that I had to spend $175 after coupons to use all of them.  And, the machine didn’t balk at my many consecutive transactions, though the sales folks did find it funny.