First shop in July

 I am going to write these posts out of order. First I will show you what I bought and how much I spent on Friday (which isn't even July yet, but close enough). Later on I will recap what I got accomplished and how much I spent during the month of June. I realized this morning that I still have not figured out my new grocery budget. It is a work in progress....not good.

My Friday morning began in the rain by my driving to Giant Tiger in Napanee. I wanted to take advantage of the grocery specials there. In the first picture you will see four bags of vegetables with the meat. Ignore them. I just wanted to take the photo so I could get everything in the freezer as quickly as possible. 

Meat cost me $56.00 even

 I bought two packages of my lean ground beef chubs for $10 each (that is a total of 8 pounds for $20). The bacon is not perfect, but cooked up in omelets, or on pizza, etc., who cares. It was only $1.50 a pkg.so I bought two of those. One box of boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $8, 2 boxes of Angus burgers for $8 each,  two pkgs. of beef hotdogs at $1.50 a pkg, and one pkg. of pre-cooked smoked sausages for $3 rounded up my meat purchases.

Veggies cost $15.41, including the four bags of frozen veggies pictured up top.

Pantry items cost $21.00

 Breton crackers cost only $1.50 a box, so I picked up my limit of 5. I opened the tin of red sockeye salmon right away and made salmon salad sandwiches for lunch. I will use the creamed corn to make my potato and corn chowder.

4 Liters of milk cost $4.27

This detergent only cost $1.50 per jug, which is even cheaper than I can make it.

Everything I bought at Giant Tiger, including the Canada T-shirt for $7, was sale priced except for the milk. I paid a total, with taxes, of $104.86

After returning home and taking photos and putting away the groceries, I made lunch and then proceeded to work on some more card-making. I was invited to my son's for a dinner birthday party for a friend. On the way to their house I stopped at Walmart to pick up some more specials and used some coupons.

My bill at Walmart was $47.64

I used a $5 coupon against the already low price of $32.98 for 20 kg of Pedigree (lowest price in town). I used a $2 coupon against the cost of the Pedigree DentaFlex. I bought a box of Multi Grain Cheerios to get a free box of Maple Cheerios (a Friday Freebie), and I used a coupon to get a free box of All-Bran Crunch. I bought the block of Armstrong old cheddar cheese for only $3.77 (an unadvertised special), and I paid full price for Walmart's own brand of Stevia. I had 4 coupons worth $15.95

I also dropped into Dollar Tree to pick up more art supplies and some Herbal Teas for a total of $12.39 with tax.

I thought my son was cooking a BBQ for the birthday celebration, but we had a lovely sit down dinner of salad and Penne a la Vodka with tomatoes, heavy cream and bacon. When did he get to be a great cook?? He had also baked the birthday cake from scratch.

On the way home I stopped in at No-Frills to pick up their weekend specials.

Not pictured here is a gallon of white vinegar. My total bill here was $35.76

I bought 3 bags of sugar for $1.50 each, 3 cans of frozen juice concentrate for 50 cents each, 2 jars of dry roasted  peanuts for $1.97 each, and 2 boxes of Celebration cookies for $1.50 each. The 2 liter size of Chapman's ice-cream was on sale for $1.50 each (which is a fantastic price) but I had a $4 coupon, so I picked up 6 liters of ice cream for 50 cents. I paid regular price for the oils (baking spray,olive oil and sesame oil), the white vinegar and the T.P. I also bought a ready made potato salad which I would eventually take to Amherst Island the next day, along with a carrot salad I made with the 2 lb bag of carrots, one green pepper and a Spanish onion. 

So far I have spent a total of $200.65  in one shopping day. That is nuts. However, I  have already put most of it aside for my company coming at the end of the month. I will also be doing some baking and putting that away in the freezer. My breakdown is such: food cost $143.28 and non-food items cost $57.37 (dog food, T-shirt, T.P. and laundry detergent) I have just recently started using the second half of the dog food I bought a month ago. I probably didn't need to buy another bag so quickly, but I now have a reserve and I was able to use a high end coupon with it. Because it was a holiday weekend, I was able to take advantage of a lot of sales. I am very happy with a full freezer and pantry.