By Elizabeth Prata
Regular readers know I'm frugal. I have to be. I live for 365 days on a 190 day salary. I have to make it stretch.
Groceries is one of the biggest expenses we have in normal daily life. I'm not talking about the big exceptions of buying a car or house. Of the daily or weekly bill paying scenario that includes utilities, gas, entertainment, and food, food is a huge cost. It's even bigger if you want to eat healthy.
I want to eat healthy. I can't buy any take out food, or prepared food, or most snack food, my body is allergic to one thing or another in those items. So, groceries get expensive when I have to buy everything fresh and prepare it myself. And since it's all fresh, I have to shop every week.
I have done price checks with Ingles, Aldi, Kroger, Ollie's Bargain Outlet (a chain of discount closeout retailers), and my local grocery store. Ollies was a disappointment. And Aldi, I can't stand Aldi. If you really look closely, they sell mostly junk food. Very little fresh and what is fresh isn't so fresh. I dislike handling my groceries so much, as in, putting them in the cart, taking them from the cart onto the conveyor belt, and then bagging them in the cart the cashier dumps them all into, and of courseloading them intot he car, unloading them, and stowing them in the fridge or cabininets. A lot fo handling If I can save one time handling, as in the bag bou does it, I will happily let him do it.
You also have to remember bags, remember the blasted quarter, and the carts are huge and hard to manage. It is a far distance from me, too, adding to my negative outlook about the store. Anyway, a lot to dislike about Aldi.
I'd heard there was a Lidl coming to my city. Lidl is Aldi's main competitor and it gets better reviews. I'll check it out if it ever comes. So that leaves Kroger, Ingles and local store. Ingles was very expensive. I marked that off the list after trying twice. Thus, I usually shop Kroger and local.
Kroger has excellent sales, good coupons, and a variety of marked-down items. This week I saved $10.53 in sales and coupons. That is aside from the marked down items. I got $72.49 worth of groceries for $61.96. You see the stickers on the items, that is the mark down sticker. Seven of my items were marked down with a yellow sticker. Let's go through the haul to see what I got. Starting with the chicken and the eggs, and moving right,
Proteins: chicken, eggs, and 20 jumbo raw shrimp. The chicken was marked down to $3.45. I will make 3 meals out of that. Behind the chicken is 20 raw shrimp. $5.00. I can make 5 meals out of that. Eggs, the packet contains 18. (I am planning a Christmas Morning breakfast casserole that will use a lot of eggs). So 3 proteins and at least a week's worth of meals for $8.00.
The box of jasmine rice was on the marked down section for 90 cents. The bag of frozen diced potatoes are for my upcoming Christmas Morning egg casserole. They were on sale so of course they were out of the shredded, and this one bag was left on the top shelf all the way at the back. I had to wait in the aisle for someone tall to roll by and politely ask them to grab it for me, lol. $1.99 on sale.
For veggies I got a marked down 2 lb bag of variety veggies that contains cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and other for $3.45. I can use them for stir fry with chicken, and for soups. Also a tub of baby spinach for $1.63. There's a large zucchini between them, too. Many meals. Shirataki noodles are no-carb plant based noodle. I will use them with some of the shrimp and some veggies for a stir-fry.
Produce included pineapple on sale for $1.67, a huge bag of cuties on sale for $2.99 plus I also used a 75/cents off coupon for them. Bananas are always cheap. But blueberries aren't, over $5 for those. But I'm limited on how many fruits I can eat, so into the cart they went.
I got two cartons of chicken broth, one was a bit crunched up which is why it was in the marked down section for $1.18. It wasn't leaking, so I picked it up. I also got a small marked down vanilla soy milk to use in my coffee tomorrow, for 60 cents. If you go to Kroger look for those marked down stickers, and also there are sections of marked down stuff, there is a cart in the bakery for breads and cakes, one in the produce section (behind the bananas) where anything in the red net bag is 99 cents, and one in the trash bag aisle for non-perishables. It has a sign that says "Deals."
Saving and buying marked down stuff allows me to buy other things I need or want, but are expensive, like the blueberries.
For snacks on the far right I have peanuts in the shell, (I like cracking them while I watch TV), edamame nuts, and marked down pico de gallo to have with corn chips.
Now, I did so well buying the fruit, veggies, and proteins, I had room in the budget for treats! My personal tradition is to kick off Christmas Break with smoked salmon and cream cheese brunch. I got the Schar ciabatta rolls for my 'bagel'. They cost $5.49. That's a lot and there are only 4 in the package, so that's why they are a treat. But they taste good, and that is saying something because they are gluten free and G-F bread stinks. The smoked salmon was on sale for $6.50. Fake cream cheese was on sale also, $3.49. I was able to get a semi prepped food item, the tray of chicken and cheese for tortillas. It was marked down from $12 to $5.85. It will last me 3 meals.
I'm not above scrounging. The PTO lavished upon us again at school Wednesday. They put on a great spread for us in appreciation for all we do, they said. Left over till this morning were a huge amount of red grapes and about a pound of cubed cheddar chunks, among other items. I took the grapes which I will roast with some salmon I have in the freezer. I took the cheddar chunks which will be cooked into my Christmas morning casserole. Scrounging those two items saved me about $6-7.
Budgeting doesn't mean you have to do without. It is being wise with your means so that when you DO want a treat, you can afford it. I am looking forward to my smoked salmon brunch on Saturday, and my already prepped chicken tortilla dinner, because I'm tired tonight after a long week at school. Looking forward to making my egg casserole too with plenty of cheese.
It takes time and effort to scour for coupons and look at the sale flyer. It's worth it though. Kroger says I've saved $517.00 this year in sales and coupons, and that doesn't even count the sticker marked down items I buy, like this week's jasmine rice, chicken broth, and pulled chicken, etc. So despite the extra effort it takes in time and energy, it is worth it to me.
Thanks for reading!
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