| | It's 7.40PM...
This past week has been a flurry of shopping trips... I kind of like the "shop a lot at the beginning of the month, and only go when needed for the rest of the month" method... but sometimes I miss the spontaneity and well, when I see a good stockpile at the end of the month and I had spent nearly all of the budget, that's kind of a bummer. It's definitely a good way of making sure we're not collecting things we don't need though... Speaking of stockpile, our TP and PT pile are going down (big yay!) which means I can keep an eye out for free or almost free TP and PT this month.
An update to CVS'ers... Apparently because of the merging between CVS and Long's drugs (CVS bought Long's so if you have lots of Long's stores near you, they'll transition to CVS this month), CVS is not giving out Extra Care Bucks. You can use what you already have, but there'll be no ECB scenarios this month. I was a little bummed because I went to CVS and was expecting a $5 ECB for my next trip, when I realized, no ECB! That's OK though cause I made out with 2 John Frieda hair styling items (normal price $6.99 a piece) and paid only $1.34 (tax was $0.35, so the items added up to only $0.99)! The nice manager at the store I went to cheered me on and said "woah!"  Alas, hair products don't belong in the food budget but I wanted to let people know, in case you go to CVS and collect ECBs. As far as I know, ECB's will be back in June (but not totally sure of that). Maybe this break from ECB is a good thing because it's stopping me from going to CVS so much and stockpiling lots and lots of toiletries (we have to use them up first!)
Anyhow... So, last time I left with $64.51 for food. I went to Ralph's again, spent $10.93 and got:
Juicy Juice apple juice for kids (15 grams of carbs, perfect to fix a low sugar) 2 packs of 10 each - $2.98
Quaker Quakes rice crackers for Vince 1 bag - $1.19
Mission tortilla chips 1 bag - $0.99 (coupon from Ralph's weekly sales flier)
Dannon organic yogurt 1 container - $0.60
Kraft sliced cheese, Monterey jack - FREE (I played a game on Kraft site, and got coupons for 3 free items)
Ralph's milk 1 gallon - $2.15
Wholly guacamole 1 tub - $2.99
2 Limes - $0.67
Mentos Gum 2 containers - FREE (they were 10 for $10, I had 2 coupons worth $1 each)
The cashier credited me the full amount of the Kraft cheese and didn't adjust it down to the sales price. So, she gave me $4.59 credit and the cheese was $3.50. I got an extra $1.09 because of what she did. I didn't even realize this until just now, when I tallied things up...
I realized I've been getting lots of prepackaged juice products this month. Between the Caprisun and JJ apple juice, I have lots of juice for my car. We don't drink these for fun, we'd rather get the big juice containers for home use but unfortunately, I can't leave juice in water bottles in the car, they go bad. Prepackaged juice, however, will last me months and most of the time, the sugar content is exactly the amount I need to correct a low sugar. For this reason, I count all "juice for low" purchases as a "health" item, not food. So, the Ralph's trip cost $7.93 of the food budget.
The guacamole, tortilla chips and limes were used in tonight's dinner. I used the steak I found on clearance last week and made it into fajita meat. Used lime juice, cilantro, cumin, salt and pepper as marinade, left overnight and cooked it in a hot pan on the stove! Vince said it was really yummy and the best part is, I can stretch that steak for 6 meals... I cook the steak, add onions and bell peppers and 1/3 of the steak is enough to give us both really filling dinner and leftovers for lunch.
I also went to Smart and Final, where I found cream cheese is a lot cheaper there than at Ralph's. I missed the last sale for cream cheese at Ralph's and I didn't know I was going to be making cheesecake for Mother's Day so I went to the next best thing, bulk food shops. Cream cheese at S&F was $5.69 for 48 oz. I will make 2 cheesecakes, each need 3 8 oz. bricks = 24 oz. So the 4 oz. cream cheese box from S&F will be just perfect. The cream cheese is a food ministry item.
Other S&F purchase were:
Whipping cream large container - $4.39
Eggs 18 per carton, 2 cartons - $3.50
Snyder Jalapeno pretzels for Vince's snack - $2.39
Total for S&F was $10.28 for food, $5.69 for food ministry. Vince loves Snyder jalapeno pretzel pieces so to thank him for putting up with my $25 and $75 food budgets, I got him fun snacks. Although we have a tight budget for food, I have an index card in my coupon pouch with a list of things Vince likes to eat to make sure I use the opportunity to serve him the best I can.
Another trip was to Walmart, where I found more things for the cheesecake! I spent $16.96 there and got:
True North almond clusters - $1.50
Malt O'Meal Golden Crisps cereal - $4.42
Seedless raspberry jam, 2 jars - $7.06
Total for food was $5.92, food ministry is $7.06. I like Malt O'Meal cereal because they're cheaper than other brands and the flavors are quite good. In April, I bought a big bag of the MOM cocoa rice krispies cereal and it was a good low fixer before bed-time for me. The carbs keep my sugar from going too low while I sleep.
Last stop was at the local Middle Persian market and I spent $3.58. I got:
1 artichoke - $0.99
1 green bell pepper - $0.73
1.61 lbs of broccoli crowns - $0.79
2.13 lbs bananas - $1.07
At this point, this is all I'm going to mention (I went to a couple other stores) because this post is getting a tad bit too long. I now have $36.80 left for food, and my food ministry budget is actually slightly in the negative because we took my boss and his wife out to dinner for their 40th anniversary this year. No worries though, there's no more food ministry items that I can foresee this month. So, until next month, we just won't purchase any more food ministry items.
Have a good week everyone! |
| | Posted 5/5/2009 8:15 PM - 5 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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