Grocery Shopping...

I loved peeking into D's recent shopping trip. Good bargains are always nice to find :o) With food prices they way they are these days, good prices are a blessing to find!

My last couple trips to the store have been a bit whacked out compared to our normal shopping. We had not done any real shopping for a good 18 weeks around here. Slow work, low paychecks and all those other budget-crunchers. We were buying the absolute barest of essentials. I've always loved Dave Ramsey's advice on finances, but really, a beans-and-rice/rice-and-beans menu gets rather monotonous after the first month!

The list from just this week at Wal-Mart:
3 bunches of Romaine hearts
2 boxes of GV Butter Crackers (we had some summer sausage I'd made)
2 bottles of ketchup
1 box of beef patties (not all that delicious, but they work great for quick 'salsbury steaks')
2 bell peppers
1 cucumber
1 block GV Monterey Jack
1 block GV Mild Cheddar
1 dozen GV cream of mushroom soup
2 loaves GV Wheat sandwhich bread (yes, we bake our bread but once in a while it's just nice to have sliced bread around)
1 mega pack Parents Choice diapers
1 mega pack White Cloud Pull-Ups
1 large box 33-gal trash bags
1 large box 13-gal trash bags
1 24-count pack Angel Soft toilet paper (didn't go to Sam's or I'd have bought a case there)
2 bottles GV dishwashing liquid
a can of Repel bug spray -- there are more fleas around here than animals right now and they eat me alive outside!

A trip to Save-Alot netted me this:
4 5-lb rolls of ground chuck (sale priced)
3 boxes of shell pasta (it was all they had aside from spaghetti and egg noodles)
2 boxes of Raisin Bran (for muffins)
2 large cans pumpkin (for muffins)
2 packages hot dog buns (yes, I could have and should have just made them...)
2 jars mushroom pieces

And we stopped at the farm stand and bought 2 boxes (about 40 lbs) of red potatoes and a bushel of Granny Smith apples for that pie filling we made.

All in all, I spent around $120. Not my best effort at shopping, but not my worst either.

Coming up, late October, Miss Emily will have her next follow-up visit to LeBonheur's in Memphis and we will make a mega shopping trip at a little Sam's Club there. I swear, it must be one of the first ones -- looks like a true little warehouse and nothing like the mega Sam's Clubs with all the fluff and nonsense in it. It's stocked full of things I can't get at ourlcal Sam's.

We will pick up the large restuarant-zized cans of veggies there --
a dozen peas
a dozen potatoes
a half-dozen mushrooms
a dozen sweet corn
a dozen kitchen-cut green beans
4 2-lb pkgs of dry yeast
2 containers of baking powder
2 bags of baking soda
4 cider vinegar (we add it to the chicken's and goat's water)
2 cases of TP
5-lb tub of real butter
2 cases of eggs (15 doz. each -- that's a month's worth of eggs for us)
4 bags of frozen broccoli
1 case hot dogs and 1 case hamburgers for the freezer stock
4 jugs of Olive Oil
4 bags of bread flour *
2 bags of sugar *
3 containers each of Beef Base and Chicken Base
2 large bags of rice
2 large bags of pinto beans
2 25-lb pails of lard

I'm hoping to get to the butcher in Corinth for a case of ground beef and a case of stew meat for canning as well. We'll see how that goes when the time comes. For other meat needs, I'll get several bags of cut up chicken, 2 cases of the 1-lb rolls of ground turkey, a case of the small turkey hams and I'd love to find 4 really od, decent-sized rolled roasts. I haven't had a truly good beef roast in years. The beef around here seems so small. Pork is the local meat d'jour.

Some other needs would be things like 6 tubes toothpaste, at least 6 bottles of shampoo, and 2 large bundles of a mild bar soap. I'd like to find someone carrying Kirk's Castile locally, but so far, nadda. I need 6 boxes of Washing Soda and 6 of Borax for laundry soap, as well.

I'd like to stop at Ada's for some grains as well. If I do, I'll call ahead on prices for their high gluten flour and fructose, instead of the smaller bags at Sam's. I need some more Tea Tree Oil and some dried catnip and chamomile for tea, too. Ada's has a great selection of 'supplements' like that.

I'm good on cornmeal and have a bucket of popcorn to grind and add to it. We seem to be good on the miscellaneous pantry things like a small variety of canned vegs (in normal-sized cans like the rest of the world buys) and BBQ sauces, pasta sauce, etc.

Now to get with D and find out more about the #10 cans of powdered milk! I stock up on the Wal-Mart loxes when I can, but Sam's quit carrying any, and really, GV isn't our favorite brandtaste-wise. It's one we can live with, but if the finds are there and we can, we'd prefer something different.

As to the funds...well, if things go as planned on the budget for next month, we have an extra paycheck. A great bonus would be having some over-time start, but that's not likely at this stage of the game. I juggled around the payments as I could where I only needed a full tank of gas for Emily's Memphis appointment that particular week. The rest of the paycheck is all gravy in the budget.

Honestly, we need to restock the pantry here in a serious way and not the little ways we've been doing this month. But a part of me is wanting to order the remaining schooling needs (about $300 total, including reading books we have as just a wish-list) then worry about the pantry. Another part of me is screaming buy the materials to enclose the front porch and get the stove pipe for the wood cookstove and set it up!

It's a good thing Ihave so many weeks to keep this in prayer. If it were today, I'd try to pinch the budget just enough to go stock some more fabric :o) I'm a fabric-aholic. I admit it.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some pantry staples...let me know what you see missing from my list here.