Grocery Update: Week 26, 2018

02 Monday Jul 2018

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I only did a small amount of shopping this week. Mostly we ate things we bought previous weeks, including leftovers from the BBQ.

On Tuesday, I spent $23.62 on strawberries and chicken salad at the farm stand, as well as $67.07 at Stop & Shop.

Then, on Saturday I spent $51.47 at Wegman’s. There are two gallons of milk missing from the picture; it was so hot I moved them straight to the refrigerator.

That brings the grand total for the week to a very light $142.16.

Hope everyone has a relaxing holiday week.

Fall 2017 Pantry Challenge – June 2018 Update

29 Friday Jun 2018

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And this will be it. I’ve used up enough that I’m declaring an end to both the freezer and pantry challenges. Remember, my real goal was not to live exclusively from what I had, but to use up things that had been in our house for a LONG time before we switched over to the summer menu. Hopefully that won’t happen again, but you never know.

I started last fall, with updates in January and March. I wasn’t even sure I’d do a final pantry update as things were quite eaten down in March, but in the spirit of completeness here it is.

Recipes:

1 jar of pesto, 1 package of sea salt, 1 package of sugar in the raw – No update here.
~~1.5 boxes of graham crackers~~
3 2 pecan pumpkin quick bread mixes – Would have preferred to remember these before it got unbearably hot. So, definitely not this week. I’ll have to try to remember these on cooler summer days as I don’t really want them sitting until NEXT fall.

I’ll eat them eventually:

~~2 single serve packages of plain oatmeal~~
Dates, whole & chopped – Progress has been made, but some are still there.
~~2 single serve brownie mixes~~

Kids snacks:

~~6 pk chicken ramen~~
Whole almonds, whole cashews – Probably going to take these as pool snacks.
Coconut oil, dried apple rings – I had planned to make granola with these, but haven’t. Maybe I will actually get around to that.

That’s it! I almost made it (except for the pumpkin bread). Really though, it is a short list.

Fall 2017 Freezer Challenge – June 2018 Update

28 Thursday Jun 2018

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Now that the school year has come to an end, it’s time for a final update.

A couple of quick reminders on the principal first:

I kicked it off in November and updated the status in January and March.
The goal was not to stop shopping, but to use up things that had been in the freezer for a while. I’m allowed to make new purchases and buy things to complement what I’m using up.

There’s not much meat left from the March update:

~~6 packages (3-4 per pk) of chicken thighs with bones & skin~~
~~5 packages (2-3 per pk) of boneless, skinless chicken thighs~~
9 4 packages (4-5 per pk) of thin-sliced chicken breasts
3 lbs chicken wings (These are ~~probably~~ waiting for summer smoking.)
~~1 3-lb chuck roasts~~
~~1 lb of ground turkey~~
~~5 salmon fillets~~
4 lbs pork loin chunks cut for stew
1 pork tenderloin
1 bag of beef bones for stock
~~1 package of chicken nuggets~~

Ingredients left after the March update:

Partial BJ’s bag of sliced almonds
Partial BJ’s bag of walnuts (I have continued to use these, but there’s still a few left.)
7 4 1-cup packages of blueberries (these are ones we picked and I froze in vacuum bags)
9 basil-in-chicken-broth cubes
12 2 bags of egg whites, mix of 4-ct and 8-ct
3 8-oz blocks of cream cheese

Miscellaneous items left after the March update:

½ box of popsicles (these waited for summer)
7 loaves of banana bread
17 14 servings of butternut squash ravioli (Seems like I should be eating these for lunch this summer.)
2 loaves of gingerbread

Apart from the gingerbread, all items across all categories are now ok. Either they are ingredients for dishes that will keep for a long while, or their churn is enough that they will be used up.

Grocery Update: Week 25, 2018

26 Tuesday Jun 2018

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I would have hoped to be back to having menus available, but baseball marches on. We had baseball everyday last week, and six of seven evenings!

But, I did go to the stores. (Given how late I finished putting this together yesterday, it made more sense just to post it on Tuesday.)

On Monday, I made a relatively small trip to Stop & Shop. I spent $34.21 on sale items, milk, and a few things I can only get there.

On Tuesday, I spent $15 on three quarts of strawberries at the farmer’s market. Not cheap, but much tastier than the grocery store variety.

On Thursday, I made my first of two trips to Wegman’s. This was the first of a spendy burst as we hosted roughly 35 people for a BBQ Sunday night. I thought about separating my more regular groceries from those for the BBQ, but decided against it. Inevitably we won’t eat everything (the bulk pack of cheese slices, for example) and we’ll pick up pot luck items people leave us so it didn’t seem worth it. Anyway, this trip was $84.12. Only the cheese is for the BBQ, though I did order our burgers for pickup on Sunday while I was there.

Friday was the kids’ last day of school. Between that (ie, trying to avoid going with them for as long as possible) and the BBQ it was a big trip to BJ’s: $244.83. As you can see, there was so much stuff that I gave up sorting it nicely for the pictures and even got a few toys (not new) in there.

I also picked up $61.24 of homemade pizza supplies (plus a watermelon and shallot) at Shaw’s on Friday.

Finally, on Sunday I picked up the most last minute, and priciest part of the BBQ – the burger patties – for a total of $142.18. (Which, as it turns were more than necessary so we have lots of leftovers.)

So, it was a big week: $581.58. But, not too crazy with the party and summer stock up. Hopefully all this extra food will play out to lower bills over the next few weeks.

The Month in Review: Weeks 20-24, 2018

21 Thursday Jun 2018

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It’s almost officially summer.

This should have posted on Tuesday so clearly I am not yet back on track from the spring. Summer, with everyone home, won’t help so be prepared for things to be a little less organized until they’re back to school in September.

I never did get a post up this season about our typical week, but I’m not sure there was such a thing. The kids were in school until about 3:00 everyday. Then our oldest had middle school baseball (practice or game) most days until about 5:00. The real kicker is the evening timeslot.

Between 5:30 and 8:00 pm in a typical week we had all of the following on weekdays:

Four soccer practices. Two each for kids A & C.
Three baseball games. One for kid D and two for kid A.
Three baseball practices for kid A.

Plus a few one time random items that fell in that same weekday timeslot:

Soccer ratings for kids A & C.
A makeup soccer game for kid A. These are usually on Saturdays.
A chorus concert for kid A. A twice annual event for every grade at school.
A school committee meeting for me. I never go to these, but this was one where they were soliciting feedback on a new proposal of great significance to us. Of course it fell in May!
I spoke at the Kindergarten panel for incoming students. Again, a one-off that happened to fall in May.

It was quite the juggling act to determine which thing kid A was going to. And, we had to sort drivers because we almost always had two – three on Mondays – different fields to get to.

Then last week when the playoffs hit it bumped to five baseball games in one week!

So, now we take a deep breathe. Soccer, and most baseball, is done until next fall/spring. One baseball team will continue, though in a much less time consuming fashion. Other kids are participating in swimming lessons, tech camp, and track camp over the summer. I’m sure we’ll go someplace.

But other things did manage to happen in the past month:

We finished up gymnastics class, bike club, and math mornings.
Our youngest boy went to Kindergarten screening and graduated from preschool.
The kids attended four birthday parties – oddly including each boy exactly once!
We had three dentist appointments.

I did get some things done around the house also. I’ll write about those in another post. And, talk about what I hope to get done over the summer.

Grocery Update: Weeks 23-24, 2018

18 Monday Jun 2018

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Grocery Spending

Apologies for the hiatus; May just got the better of me! Hopefully I’ll get back on track this week and you can find out just ridiculously many baseball games we’ve been going to over the past few weeks, along with soccer, school, and everything else.

I did get to the grocery store (and take pictures). Meals were fairly boring – lots of chicken nuggets, eggs, hot dogs, homemade pizza, etc. This is always a month to just get through, not a month of gourmet eating.

I made a lot of stops the first week, though that included some very small dollar ones.

The biggest stop of the week was at BJ’s on Wednesday. I spent $92.32 on mostly churn items – milk, bread, and chicken nuggets – plus a few items that were on sale.

I spent $84.24 at Wegman’s on Friday.

I also stopped by the farm stand on Friday, spending $14.92.

I then spent $52.95 at Stop & Shop on Saturday. And, feeling somewhat disjointed, I ran into Stop & Shop again on Sunday for fish (which I failed to take a picture of) for another $5.99.

That brought Week 23 to $250.42, which is well within goal considering that it included a BJ’s stop.

Week 24 brought fewer stops. On Wednesday, I spent $28.78 at Target on juice. I didn’t take a picture.

On Thursday, I made the first of two larger trips to Wegman’s, spending $107.43.

On Sunday, I had to go to Wegman’s again. Our oldest has decided he really likes smoothies and since it had been a trial I hadn’t gotten that much quantity. Notice I have now stocked up (though I’m not sure it will last the week)! This round was $90.89.

That brought the total for Week 24 to $227.10. This is a little higher than I would like, but hopefully the month will balance out.

May 2018 Grocery Review

05 Tuesday Jun 2018

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Grocery Spending

As I warned before the month started, May is busy around here. I’m trying my best to stay in touch here, but obviously less than usual. Things really start to wind down after this week so soon I should be more or less back!

May TOTAL: $1,196.75

Stop & Shop: $57.30
Wegman’s: $503.01
BJs: $286.79
Other: $349.65
- Local: $155.53
- Star Market/Shaw’s: $124.69
- Trader Joe’s: $0
- Target: $69.43
- Other: $0

This was definitely not a low month. Two trips to BJ’s and a Wegman’s total that almost equaled everything from April pushed it significantly higher. But, its not horribly out of line and was bound to happen with such low months so far this year.

I made three grocery stops this past week, only the first of which is included in the May numbers above.

On Thursday, I spent $71.83 at Shaw’s for oatmeal and pizza supplies. Not the nicest picture, I know!

Then on Friday I spent $23.91 at Stop & Shop. Somehow I failed to get a picture, but there were ONLY two milks, some cheese, hot dog supplies, mushrooms, and spinach.

Finally, on Monday I spent $106.89 on a big produce and dairy restock at Wegman’s.

Food continues to be quick and not very interesting – chicken nuggets, hot dogs, homemade pizza, etc. I didn’t note every day.

Grocery Update: Week 21, 2018

29 Tuesday May 2018

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Grocery Spending

I failed to write down what we ate last week. I’m sure there were chicken nuggets and pancakes and pizza. I know we had chili on Sunday night. Beyond that its a bit of a blur, which is also part of why this is the first post in eight days!

But, I did go to the grocery store. I largely took pictures. And I have the receipts to remind me of where I went when.

I had a small gift card to a local craft/gift store so on Monday I spent $10.80 (out of pocket, after gift card) there on some fancy cocoa and jam. I would have been happy to buy earrings or pottery or any number of other things, but nothing really jumped out and fancy food is always nice.

I then spent $176.80 at BJ’s on Wednesday. There is obviously some restocking here, but I also had a reasonable number of coupons.

On Friday I spent $115.62 at Wegman’s. My primary purpose was to buy ground beef and a jalapeno for the chili, but I hoped to get enough shopping done to not have to go there again soon. (You’ll see Stop & Shop in a moment because I needed a few things Wegman’s does not carry.) We ate a lot of eggs over the holiday weekend.

Finally, on Sunday I made a small trip to Stop & Shop. The boys wanted sausages with their eggs Monday morning. I would normally get these at BJ’s, but that’s rather far away. So, I made a short trip and also picked up the hot dogs they had requested and a couple of other items I can only get at Stop & Shop. This total was $23.43.

That brought my total for the week to $326.65, not bad for a week with a BJ’s trip.

Grocery Update & What We Ate: Week 20, 2018

21 Monday May 2018

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I was able to keep to limited stops again this week, which contributes to keeping the dollars spent down.

I spent $32.90 at Shaw’s and $149.31 at Wegman’s on Thursday. Shaw’s is the two bags on the right. Wegman’s is the rest, though apparently I failed to take a picture of the rest! There was cereal, granola bars, applesauce, diced pears, orange juice, bananas, and tomatoes among other things.

That meant the total for the week was $182.21.

Soccer and baseball continue to keep our meals simple and quick, as well as increase the number of take-out nights.

Monday:
We had two baseball games and one child at soccer ratings between the hours of 5:30 & 7:30, so take-out pizza was it.

Tuesday:
Early: Hot dogs, applesauce
Late: Leftover take out pizza

Wednesday:
Early: Chicken nuggets, green beans
Late: Tuna noodle casserole

Thursday:
Early: Pancakes
Late: Take-out Chinese

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

Saturday:
All baseball was rained out so we had a rare dinner together: chili with cornbread.

Sunday:
Spaghetti & meatballs, tossed/spinach salad

The Week in Review – Week 19, 2018

16 Wednesday May 2018

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It was the usually busy week last week:

9 baseball games
2 baseball practices
3 soccer games
2 soccer practices
1 soccer ratings (for next Fall)
1 gymnastics class
2 bike clubs
2 math mornings
1 playdate

That’s just the kids. And even this was light as the first grader’s Saturday afternoon was rained out.

We also had two adult medical appointments.

But, we roll on having officially passed the midway point of the baseball/soccer season!