This was a good shopping week – not too many stops.

On Tuesday, I made as small stop – $22.60 – at Wegman’s.  The crackers were on sale.  The cake mix and icing are for a cake for the youngest boy’s birthday.  It happened but we haven’t done cake yet because I’m waiting for his present to arrive, hopefully this week.

I made two stops on Wednesday.  First, I spent $36.98 at Target.  Juice was on my list.  Since it was on sale I bought a bunch.  The bars weren’t on sale, but this is the biggest bulk size I can find anywhere so its still better than buying the smaller boxes.

On the way home, I spent $62.41 at Stop & Shop.  Everything was on sale except the milk.

Altogether that came to $121.99, which will go a long way towards balancing out the beginning of the month.

As for what we ate:

Monday:
Early: Chicken nuggets, broccoli
Late: Homemade macaroni & cheese

Tuesday:
Green tea poached salmon with soba

Wednesday:
Chicken pot pie, spinach salad

Thursday:
Early: Pancakes
Late: Steak, potato pancakes, spinach salad

Friday:
Early: Macaroni & cheese, carrot sticks/cucumber
Late: Homemade pizza

Saturday:
Chinese Take-Out (planned)

Sunday:
Braised pork, carrots, mashed potatoes

This was a good week, for the grocery budget anyway.  I’m not sure I fully made up for the previous overruns, but it is substantially lower than an average week so hopefully the month will work itself out.

I made three stops.

I spent $50.74 at Stop & Shop on Thursday, mostly on cheese (on sale) and milk.  Blueberries were still buy one, get one free so I got another two of those also.  Juice, beans, and potato salad were not on sale.

On Saturday, I made two stops.  First, I spent $96.28 at Wegman’s.  Yes, more milk!

Then, that afternoon I made a quick $58.11 stop at BJ’s.  There’s a BJ’s (not my usual one) near the winter baseball site which makes it reasonable to stop in fairly often.  It is not the healthiest collection, but we’re not going to eat it all at once either.

That brought my total to $205.13, nicely under the roughly $250/week target.

And, what did we eat?

Monday:
Fish tacos, guacamole, pico de gallo

Tuesday:
Spaghetti & meatballs, spinach salad

Wednesday:
Tacos (ground turkey)

Thursday:
Early: Hot dogs, carrot sticks
Late: Homemade pizza

Friday (I was out):
Take out pizza

Saturday:
BBQ chicken wings, baked beans, potato salad, carrot sticks/cucumber slices, biscuits

Sunday:
Chicken noodle soup, harvest bread

This week did not get us off to a budget-friendly start.  But, it did include the (roughly) monthly trip to BJ’s so it was never likely to come in low.  Target is one thousand for the month, or a little under $250/week.

Let’s finish off 2017 first, though.

I started on Tuesday with a very small, $12.22 trip to Wegman’s.

Wednesday was the big day.  I had planned to go to Target and BJ’s – last day for the BJ’s coupons and Target is almost next door.  This got done.  First, I spent $36.30 at Target.  The Hershey’s bars were $0.10 on clearance while the holiday M&Ms were $1.90 each.

They I hopped over to BJ’s and spent $176.63.  That brought my total to $225.15 right there.

Then, because we were forecast for 8-12 inches of snow on Thursday (and I had a bit of extra time before the preschool pickup) I decided to make two more small stops on Wednesday.

I grabbed $22.85 of mostly produce from the farm stand.  Apparently I forgot to take a picture of this, but it comprised a bag of broccoli crowns, green beans, three pears, tomatoes, and dinner rolls.

Lastly I snuck in a very quick $35.14 at Stop & Shop.

And we settled in for the storm.  Turns out we beat the forecast with 17 inches of snow and temps in the single to negative single digits over three days.  Wind chills reached into the negative 30s; not typical for us at all.  Since we did not lose power or have any significant issues apart from staying indoors, we did a fair amount of cooking and ate much of what you see above.

On Saturday, I decided to venture out for another small – $22.55 – trip to Wegman’s.

On Sunday, I attended a GNO at the mall during which I purchased $23.97 of clearance holiday foods.  That brought my total to $329.66 for the week; $176.63 at BJ’s and $153.03 elsewhere.

The combination of the first partial week of the year and the snowstorm cancelling many things enabled many family dinners.

Monday:
Early: Leftover rib roast, mashed potatoes
Late: Take-out Chinese

Tuesday:
Meatball subs, tater tots, carrot sticks

Wednesday:
Leg of lamb, baked potato, green beans, rolls

Thursday:
Beef barley soup, beer bread

Friday:
Early: Macaroni & cheese, brocolli
Late: Homemade pizza

Saturday:
Pork carnitas, pico de gallo, corn

Sunday (I was out.):
Take-out pizza

After a moderate week last week with no grocery store visits, I made a lot of stops (for me) this week.  Thankfully, none were too huge, but there were a lot.

I spent $53.78 at Wegman’s on Monday.  The dark bag that’s hard to see is cucumbers for the preschool holiday party.

Then, on Tuesday, I spent $11.31 at Stop & Shop, mostly to grab things that were on sale that we prefer from that store.

On Thursday, I spent $13.50 at Shaw’s on nine boxes of oatmeal that I didn’t take a picture of.

On that same trip, I stopped at Wegman’s again for the big shop of $98.20.

Finally, on Saturday I spent $30.21 at the farm stand for some items for our early Christmas get-together.  I also picked up some items for dinner that night.

That brought me to exactly $207 for the week.  Not bad at all!

We had evening activities on Monday and Thursday, as well as a few quick-fix dinner requirements.  Plus the Christmas party covered Sunday lunch, so that was planned to be a lighter dinner.

Monday:
Early: Hot dogs, carrot sticks
Late: Homemade pizza

Tuesday:
Shepard’s pie, green beans

Wednesday:
Early: Macaroni & cheese, brocolli
Late: Homemade pizza

Thursday:
Early: Turkey, green beans
Late: Tuna noodle casserole

Friday:
Early: French toast
Late: Homemade pizza

Saturday:
Pork tenderloin, sauteed Brussels sprouts, pan fried potatoes

Sunday:
Meatball subs, carrot sticks, pasta salad

With Thanksgiving so early this year, we had a full week afterwards to finish off November.

I spent $92.94 at Star Market on Wednesday on pizza dough, pizza cheese, and oatmeal.  Yes, I bought the entire case of pizza dough.  And, yes, it went straight from the grocery freezer to my own.

On Thursday, I finished out the month of November by spending $98.77 at Stop & Shop.

Then, on Sunday I started December by spending $65.88 at Wegman’s.  A couple notes about that trip.  First, the loaf of bread was free with store coupon.  It’s a new flavor.  I’m not sure if we’ll like it, but at free I was willing to give it a try.  Second, this is far more produce than I usually purchase at Wegman’s as I find their produce department hit or miss both for items and quality.  I did find everything I was looking for.  Hopefully it will all cook up nicely too.  Finally, the gallon of orange juice is for the preschool holiday party this week.

That brought me to a respectable $257.59 for the week.  Note, it overlaps November and December so it won’t all be included below.

November TOTAL: $1,323.59

• Stop & Shop: $306.20
• Wegman’s: $273.73
• BJs: $376.10
• Other: $367.56
  • Local: $148.57
  • Star Market: $169.72
  • Trader Joe’s: $0
  • Target: $49.27
  • Other: $0

A high month.  Two trips to BJ’s, two trips to Shaw’s plus a food intensive holiday will do that to you.

Meals keep moving along.  Unfortunately with the winter schedule we’re back to more split dinners.  But, fewer people are out late so there’s generally less busyness.

Monday:
Salmon “Wellington”, green beans

Tuesday:
Early: Chicken nuggets, broccoli
Late: Homemade pizza

Wednesday:
Macaroni & cheese, green beans

Thursday:
Early: Eggs
Late: Steak, hash browns, spinach salad

Friday:
Early: Chicken nuggets, broccoli
Late: Homemade pizza

Saturday:
Grilled hot dogs & sausages, baked beans, chips, veggie plate

Sunday:
Tacos, corn, refried beans

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, or weekend.

As you can imagine, Thanksgiving week is usually a big grocery week what with extra eaters and fancier menus.  This was true again, though not too over the top especially since one of my stops was BJs after Thanksgiving.

On Monday, I failed to photograph the Russet potatoes and five packages of sliced/shredded cheese I got for $12.49 at Stop & Shop.

On Tuesday, I spent $141.57 at the farm stand, mostly on the perishables for Thanksgiving.  We hosted a total of 14 people.  Having done this before, we have decided two smaller turkeys (12.3 lbs each this time) is a better option than a single larger bird.  The picture on the right are items we will use for Thanksgiving.  The picture on the left are things I bought while I was there for other meals.

That trip finished my Thanksgiving shopping.  But, since I wasn’t convinced we would make it through Thanksgiving without more milk, I spent $134.84 at Wegman’s on Wednesday.  Shopping Wednesday morning was not as crazy as I feared it might be.  $33.48 of this was for a cheese plate we did eat on Thanksgiving.

Finally, we ended up at BJ’s on Saturday which saved me a trip for this upcoming week, spending an additional $144.32.

This brought my weekly total to $433.22.  For this coming week, I’ll need to get pizza dough and milk at some point.  But, otherwise the above should cover it.

Meals went reasonably well this week.  Not too many double dinners, nor a major letdown after the big feast.

Monday:
Tacos

Tuesday:
Early: Take out pizza
Late: Homemade pizza

Wednesday:
Veal Parmesan, spinach salad

Thursday (Thanksgiving):
Turkey (x2), mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, cranberry sauce, sausage stuffing, traditional stuffing, cranberry-brie bites, key lime pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, brownies

Friday:
Chili, corn bread

Saturday:
Turkey soup

Sunday:
Homemade pizza