Well, we were pretty bang on this month even with Christmas!  I also managed to get in some stocking up.  And, as I’ve referenced other weeks, I haven’t kept as closely to not buying on sale because I need to keep some level of stock in the house at present.  (More on that another day.)

• December TOTAL: $802.12
  • Stop & Shop: $196.45
  • Wegman’s: $168.19
  • BJs: $184.13
  • Other: $253.35
    • Local: $110.78
    • Star Market: $74.43
    • Trader Joe’s: $10.36
    • Target: $36.41
    • Other: $21.37

I didn’t shop too much this week – plenty of leftovers, the boys are all home from school, etc.

Early in the week I did go to Wegman’s.  I don’t think there’s much exciting here.

Late in the week I went to Star Market.  Generally I would prefer to purchase the pizza dough at BJs, but it seems to be a hit or miss item and the last time I went they were out.  So I got some at Star Market even though it is more expensive.  Unfortunately, Star was low on oatmeal so I could only get 2; I was planning for 8 so I’ll have to go back again more quickly than I had wanted.  Since I went late in the day I got a bag of fried chicken and the watermelon for the boys’ dinner.  We’d never had their fried chicken before, but it was well received.

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.

We’re slowly getting back to normal eating, between traveling and such.  Baseball is still knocking out dinner twice a week though, but I think I just have come to terms with that.  The numbers are in line and I’m happy with the flow of produce coming through our house now.

• June TOTAL: $749.13
  • Stop & Shop: $163.08
  • Wegman’s: $104.62
  • BJs: $277.95
  • Other: $203.48
    • Local: $52.43
    • Star Market: $139.11
    • Trader Joe’s: $11.94
    • Target: $0
    • Other: $0

I did get some grocery shopping done last week.  First I went to Wegman’s.

I went to both the farm stand and farmer’s market on Tuesday.  All of this produce is local (I’m not sure why the tomatoes came wrapped up.).

Then, late in the week I went to BJs.

That’s a lot of stuff.  But, for better or worse its mostly gone so we’ll do it all again next week.

Well, we’ve been away for a few weeks so sorry for the lack of posting.  On the plus side, I’ve got a bunch of catching up to do as well as some new things to review / write about.

First, here’s the results of my June shopping.

• June TOTAL: $618.01
  • Stop & Shop: $120.05
  • Wegman’s: $176.96
  • BJs: $165.67
  • Other: $155.33
    • Local: $54.96
    • Star Market: $63.49
    • Trader Joe’s: $25.14
    • Target: $9.95
    • Other: $1.79

Unfortunately I didn’t made it to the farmer’s market as much as I would have liked, largely because it rained that afternoon for two weeks in a row (and its outdoors in a grass/mud field).  Also, while this total looks low we traveled at the end of the month and ate out so I’m sure if that were factored in it would be a very high month.  This is reasonable for the number of days we were home.

Let’s also take a moment to get caught up on the CSA.  I did miss one week with the travel so this is the update for last week – week #5.  It is getting slightly more interesting.

The good:  blueberries, sugar snap peas, red leaf lettuce, baby arugula, baby spinach

The ok: zucchini (not anyone’s favorites, but we’ll eat them), salad onions, green leaf lettuce (two types is too much for one week)

The waste/donate: beets, golden beets, and kale (we have no use for any of these items), radish (too many already)

I’ll go with the “good” plus the zucchini.  All in all not a bad week.

I accept the lettuce now because the lettuce in our garden went nuts while we were gone.  It looks like little trees.  Frankly, its probably getting too hot for it now so I pulled it out in anticipation of other things.

Here’s how the spending went for May.  I decided to pull Wegman’s into the top section as it was often dominating the “Other” section.  Nothing seems particularly out of whack.  BJs might be a bit higher than it has been and groceries a bit lower, but nothing worrisome.  And, the total is in line; that’s what matters.

• May TOTAL: $980.62
  • Stop & Shop: $161.39
  • BJs: $363.98
  • Wegman’s: $209.23
  • Other: $246.02
    • Local: $77.38
    • Star Market: $107.12
    • Trader Joe’s: $11.15
    • Target: $50.37
    • Other: $0

Not much in the way of grocery shopping to report for last week.  I made one trip to Wegman’s.  Yes, the premade sandwich is in my food total.

This week I anticipate more shopping as I plan to go to BJs, Stop & Shop, and Wegman’s.