My Grocery Shopping Habits

I've decided to keep a log of my grocery shopping. I tend to sale shop and stock up when there's a good deal. I used to use manufacturer's coupons quite a bit, when I could go to a store that doubled them. In Pittsburgh I would "dumpster dive" at the recycling center and collect coupons from the newspaper bin, then double them at Giant Eagle and got lots of cheap or free stuff. Since we moved to northern Michigan, though, I don't have any doubling stores, and I don't really have a good source for coupons either. So I'm stuck with just sale shopping.

I try to keep my spending to about $50 per week, for my husband, baby and me. We have a pretty well stocked pantry right now, so what I bought today should be good for two weeks. It came to a total of $98.24.



Split chicken breasts were $0.99 per pound, ham was $0.88 per pound, and bacon was $1.99. Eggs were $0.88 a dozen.

There is a box of Ramen noodles in the back right, which was $4 for 24 packs, which is pretty much the only thing my husband can cook so it's good to have on hand in a pinch! This will last us quite a while obviously.

Frozen vegetables were $1 a bag, and I got 7. The avocadoes ($1 each), sweet potatoes ($1.90 for 2), and cottage cheese ($1.99) are for the baby.

I bought the pasta ($1.59), olives ($1), tomatoes ($2.59) and cheese (1-1/2 pounds for $4.99) for a pasta salad to serve after a funeral on Saturday. Hellman's mayo was $2.50, not a great price by my standards, but I needed some for potato salad. I had to get celery, too, which was $2.79.

I picked the Cheez-its up because they were on sale, 2 for $4, and there was a coupon for $1 off 2, but I forgot to give the checkout girl the coupon! The Mt. Dew was another $1. Ice cream was $3.34 (a staple for my husband!)

Butter was $1.69 and there was a limit of 3. Otherwise I would have stocked up on more of that. Milk was $3.19.

Ranch dip mix was on sale for $.92. In retrospect, I shouldn't have picked it up because I don't use it for anything, and I can imagine it hanging around for years. That's one down side to sale shopping. You buy things just because they're on sale. Soy sauce was $2.14 (25% off), and we were completely out of sugar, which was $5.49 for 10 pounds. Honey was $2.99.

Borax is for washing the baby's diapers. It was $4.69 and will last a couple of months. I also needed a scrub brush for the kitchen, so I went ahead and picked one up for $2.19, though I'm sure I could have gotten it cheaper at a dollar store.

I think that's everything. I was pleasantly surprised at checkout to find that I earned a bonus 2000 "yes" points, which will get me free food at Glen's on another trip. They have a program where certain items have a point value and you can redeem them different weeks. I haven't used it yet, just storing up points for now. The program is usually 50 points for every $50 you spend in a week, and if you sign up with your email address, they'll double that (so of course I signed up). Problem with requiring $50 per week is, I usually spend just under that. Since the beginning of the year, I had only accumulated 400 points. Today with the 2000 bonus and the 100 for spending over $50, my total is up to 2500, equal to about $25 worth of free groceries.

They're also offering a $25 gift card for transferring prescriptions. The store I went to today didn't have a pharmacy, but on Monday I will go to another one and get my iron refilled, which was prescribed when I was pregnant last year and is good for one more refill. That will be nice for next month's budget!