Once again, this month I'm going to be focusing on primarily shopping my freezer and pantry as much as I can. The freezer is starting to slowly shrink as I'm using it's contents from day to day (same with the pantry), which makes me nervous, but I can't help it at this point. We need to shop as little as possible to conserve money, so that's what I'm doing.
So, this month's shopping goals are really pretty simple. I'm not sure if I'll accomplish them all, but we shall see.
I'm running somewhat low on fruit as time goes on as I'm using canned fruit to avoid buying fresh, so I'm going to try and get a flat of fruit each month over the next couple to see if I can keep on top of the loss before it gets troublesome.
I also decided to add salt to my list this month as I've found making our bread, baking our treats and cooking all of our meals at home is making me kind of blow through salt. So, I've decided adding it to the list is probably wise.
Normally in the fall I use a ketchup based BBQ sauce recipe I have to can our BBQ sauce for the entire year, but ketchup has become so expensive (I have to be picky at the type I use because of my children's sensitivities and such) that I was worried about the cost associated with making it this year. Luckily, Carrs gave me a Just 4 U personalized price on BBQ sauce a couple of times this month for Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, so I managed to buy 4 jars for .98 a piece. I'm going to try to pick up more condiments with my regular grocery shopping if I can swing it this month to pick up at least enough to supplement home canned goods for the rest of the year.
Shopping Goals for June
Bulk Stores:
- 1 bulk bag of salt
- 1 Flat of fruit cocktail
- Spice and Sauce Packets (if possible in budget) to make my husband's life easier when he wants to make himself something to eat.
- BBQ Sauce (if the sale price goes for .99 or less)
- Mayonnaise (1 container), ketchup (4 containers) if target prices are reached.
- 3 containers of garlic stuffed olives (my son has discovered that this is one of the "real food" items that he likes, so I'm having to budget out for these. They are 6.99 per jar)
- Lemon juice. I need this for canning coming up, for use in iced tea and other things.
And that is it in the way of food. I decided to work non-food shopping goals into my list this month too, so...
Non-Food Shopping Goals
- Adding Machine Tape (my husband managed to find me a used adding machine for 5.00 for when I do the books, but I need tape to make sure it works well. I've been shopping the used stores for this, but so far no luck).
- Use Amazon giftcard from Swagbucks to buy daughter a Fancy Nancy book toward Christmas gifts (here's hoping I can find one really cheap on Amazon).
Well, I hope you can find your mayonnaise. It has been on here for sale on and off for quite good prices with picnic items. I managed to buy six. Do you do coupons.com? They had a mayo coupon on there. I notice you mentioned all the things you add salt to...I don't add salt to any of that. Are you real salt-eaters?? I know I cook pretty much salt free as I saw what too much salt did to my husbands parents...they both died of complications of undiagnosed hypertention probably brought on by too much salt all their lives. They had very little medical care, so I was kind of too late when it was all discovered. So I've kind of really cut back on salt as my husband most likely is predisposed to it. I use salt mainly in canning and sprinkling into the boiling water when I am cooking potatoes or pasta. Just a little worry I have.
ReplyDeleteI have not heard of Fancy Nancy! What age reader? I'm a librarian too, I always feel I should know every book, but of course I don't, so am always looking for suggestions for our school/church library. (clean, no swear words, no witches etc)
Mayonnaise has gone on sale here, but I ended up using the money for other things we'd need that week. And up, I use coupons. I used to run a coupon blog years ago, actually *laugh*.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to salt, yes I do add salt to those things. We don't eat much processed foods around here, with the exception of my son (which I keep hoping that we can get him on more and more REAL food, but with the autism it's a long hard road to get there), so I don't worry too much about sodium content because of that as honestly where I notice people get the most salt in their diets is from processed foods like Mac and Cheese, Campbell's soupons, etc. I'm pretty careful keeping track of my husband's and my blood pressure because my dad's family has a heart defect that runs in the gene pool somewhere that doctors can't seem to figure out what causes it, but it can cause congestive heart failure and high blood pressure runs in my husband's family, so I always worry about tanking our diets on salt. I do make sure to include salt in our diet, though, as honestly I believe we had taste buds to taste salt, so it's important to keep in the diet. It's all in moderation. The bulk bag of salt will also be used for things like pickling refrigerator pickles and such and will still probably last me a few years, but I figure, it's cheap, economical and it is something that when you need it, you need it :).
Fancy Nancy is a book series that seems to be all over the board, although the early books seem to be geared to the 7 to 10 age range. There are newer books for older readers that the author has come out with recently, but my 8 year old LOVES the earlier series of books. They are cute, I have to admit, so I really don't mind getting them for her. We're huge book readers in this family, soooo we're suckers when it comes to getting books ;).
And YUP, is what I meant to say...thank you auto complete.
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