Shopping in October

After following Nathalie's Blog for quite some time now, I have decided to become more like her. *laugh*

She accounts for every dime she spends on groceries and knows how much she saves by taking advantage of sales, coupons, rebates, reward points, etc.She also divides her purchases by food groups to make it easier to see where the bulk of the money is going. The savings are impressive. I, on the other hand, tend to pick up loss leaders for the most part. I don't have a specific grocery shopping day. I seldom remember to check for coupons until after I get home. Because my husband is often in town, I will ask him to pick up loss leaders or items from my grocery list on his way back from somewhere. Shopping ends up being kind of "hodge-podge". On the other hand, I keep my $300 budgeted money in a jar at home, and when it is gone, it is gone. We take the money out of the jar, and return the change left over as well as the receipts and put them back into the jar. But I haven't been writing it down. So because it is the beginning of October, I will post my grocery shopping here, by categories and amounts. This is my first shop of the month. 

Produce and juice......$10.21

I only had three items on my LIST....celery, peppers and cheese.  Cheese is on sale this week at Food Basics, but because I only picked one place to do my shopping, I picked No-Frills because it had the most number  of sale items that I was interested in. I will have my Sweetie pick up the cheese and other loss leaders from Food Basics next time he is by there. Unfortunately, celery is not on sale anywhere. I paid full price of $1.47. Peppers were on for 97 cents a pound....not a great sale price at $4.03 for the bag,  but the best price in town. Tomato juice was 97 cents; but the greatest deal was 5 pounds of onions and 5 pounds of turnip for $1.87 a bag. 

Dairy.......$7.41

We can buy cheap margarine, but Becel is our preferred brand because it is heart-smart,  and it was on sale for $2.47 each

Processed food..........$7.46

Quaker cereal was only $1.97 a package. Stuff and Such was on sale for  88 cents a box. I have lots of  bread cubes in the freezer to make my own dressing, but I read on someone's blog this week that this instant stuffing (as well as instant rice and instant potatoes) are a good starch to have in the pantry for emergency preparedness because you  add it to hot water. 

Proteins........$22.91

Eye of round is only $2.97 a pound this week (cheaper than hamburger), and I picked up two packages of Oktoberfest sausage at $1.97 each. That roast is approximately 6 lbs 4 oz. and I have cut it into 2 smaller roasts. 

My total expenditure for groceries so far is $47.99

Miscellaneous........$17.37

I was very excited to find crossword puzzle books for my Sweetie Pie. He loves to do these and I haven't been able to find any this summer in any of  the Dollar stores. They only cost $1 each, which is cheaper anyway than the Dollar Store at $1.25 each. I bought 7 toothpastes and 2 more tooth brushes at 97 cents each for the Advent calendars, and a few more calendar/stocking items I can wrap this weekend. Although I picked these up in the grocery store, this money will come out of another reserve. 

Finally, I have finished up the two bags of Macintosh apples. Applesauce is cooking in the crockpot, and the last of the apples are sliced and frozen to make hot fruit crumbles when the cold winds are blowing the snow around. Now I only have two more bags of apples to do up this coming week....but not this weekend. I am going to take a break from apples. I finally had to turn the furnace on today. The interior of the house was at 57 degrees F. That is cold. Only 2 weeks ago, it was unseasonable hot and humid. What a change. Have a great weekend everyone.