Grocery Expense for this Week - I am Stoked!!

Is the word stoked still used?  It means to be excited or energized for those who are wondering.  Well, I am "stoked" about my grocery spending this week and what I found out from doing an inventory of my pantry and freezer.

Some of my deals
BTW - Don't you like the name "Snappy" Popcorn?

Here is what I bought and spent on groceries this week. Remember I set a goal to only spend $20 per week for the next five weeks.

$1.99 - 4 lbs. of granulated sugar
$0.99 – Regular popcorn
$1.49 – Head Lettuce
$2.00 – Two – 8 oz. packages of Kraft Shredded Cheese – on sale for $1.50 and
              I had a $1.00 coupon off two packages
$0.99 – 5 lbs. of Russet Potatoes
$2.31 – 3 Red Sweet Peppers (.77 per pepper)
$0.66 – 1 loaf of white bread
$1.13 – All natural hot dog buns
$1.57 – Half Gallon 1% milk
$1.76 – 2 dozen eggs (.88 per dozen)
$1.12 – Bananas (.44 lb.)
$2.49 – 1 Gallon 1% milk

$18.50 – TOTAL SPENT SO FAR

Here's a good tip.  I picked out three heads of lettuce that appeared the heaviest and then I weighed them so I could get the one that had the most lettuce.  I use this kind of lettuce as a little base to my salads.  I usually can get about 7 bowls of salad out of a head of lettuce.  In the spring and summer I switch to leaf lettuce and romaine when they come into season.
I have carrots and apples in my fridge, but I will need to purchase some more apples by Saturday. Thankfully they have Stemilt apples on sale for 88 cents a lb.

I regret purchasing the sugar, as I realized later that I had plenty on hand. This would have saved me $1.99 that I could have put towards more apples and bananas.

I have plenty of all purpose flour, rye flour and whole wheat flour on hand along with yeast, honey and molasses for bread making. I will be making up a 1 week menu plan and will note what bread items I need to bake. My DS doesn’t like homemade bread at all, however he will eat store bought wheat bread. I will look for this type of bread when it is on sale.

One thing I need to learn to do is to make bagels as my husband eats a lot of bagels. Has anyone ever made bagels before? It is a process, but it kind of looks like fun too. 

Instead of buying chips, I bought popcorn. I had to dig out my old hot air popcorn popper from my college days, dust it off and I popped a batch of popcorn. I leave the butter off or will add a very small amount sometimes.

I organized and inventoried my freezer and my pantry this week. From this information I have made the decision to eat from the pantry and freezer until the contents are almost depleted. But if I do this over the long haul, I am going to increase my weekly budget to $25 a week. I can do it on $20 a week but as we go into spring, we will see more fresh produce and such that I will want to purchase for my family.

What is the difference between what I am doing now and previous challenges?  I really believe it is the encouragement I have received from those who leave comments on my blog and also from re-reading the Tightwad Gazette.  The readings have encouraged me and propelled me to the point of really hunkering down and being more committed to living on less and saving money.

A Portion of my Pantry

My Main Freezer

Here is what I am going to do; this weekend I am going to post the entire contents of my pantry and freezer along with toiletries on a separate post. This will be the only information on the post. When you have reviewed the post, please leave a comment as to how long you think I will be able to make these things last. I will probably have to work out some details so if anyone has any ideas on how I can make this interesting, let me know.