The Bare Essentials Challenge: This Week's Grocery Shopping Trip

As part of the "Bare Essentials" Challenge, I knew that I would have to post up pics of my grocery shopping to help keep myself accountable for what I'm spending.  I normally try to shop for the following week on Friday, but this week I had to run in to Palmer to drop a time sensitive piece of mail off at the post office, so to get the most out of my gas and time I just picked up groceries while I was there.

I'm aiming for 50.00 or less spending on groceries per week during this challenge, so we'll see how I do as time goes on.

How I do my grocery shopping is this.  I'll figure out what I need/want to get between Fred Meyer and Carrs (our Safeway affiliate) because they are within a block of each other where I shop.  I then sit down with the ads for both stores, figure out what sales, if any, will help me out for that week and then I'll cost out sale items line item wise on my shopping list, estimate my regular shopping items (usually at non-sale prices just to be safe) and allow myself wiggle room in my 50.00 for milk later in the week and such.

So, between the two stores, what I got is above.

To break down what I bought...

Fred Meyer:

The Uncle Ben's Flavored Grains and the popcorn were free with E-Coupon freebie downloads (thanks again for the freebies, Stephanie!).  The cat food I needed, but I found that a couple types were on discount for .34 a can.  So, I bought a couple more cans than I had scoped on my shopping list, which still wasn't bad.   The Pringles are normally 2.00 or more per can pretty much everywhere anymore, but they were on sale for 1.79 a can, so I got two to put in my son's school lunches next week instead of Cheetos for a change for him.

All totaled I spent 6.26 at Fred Meyer.

Carrs:

My son has been blowing through Coke the last bit because he's always demanding fresh, so I end up buying a ridiculous amount of soda, a good portion of which goes down the drain.  Carrs has Coke on sale this week that if you buy 5 2-Liter bottles you get them for 1.49 per bottle.  For Alaska this is an excellent price.  I had originally planned to get 10, but decided against it as I didn't feel the need to stock up ridiculously on Coke.  I found, though, when I went to check out that the two "odd man out" bottles I got actually did ring up for 1.49 too along with the other five.  It was a cool find.

The ginger ale was .99 for the bottle after E-Coupon.  I've been battling a sore throat this week and my husband fought a stomach bug one day, so we drank the bottle of 7-Up I had in the pantry.  I bought the ginger ale to replace the 7-Up.  I actually bought this separately from the rest of my groceries, believe it or not, and used my very small amount of pocket change (now 1.25 left.  This is what is left of the birthday money my family sent to me that I kept 10.00 of for personal use.  I'm ridiculously scroogy when it comes to cash) to pay for it.  I felt less guilty that way as I really didn't feel like it was part of regular groceries, but more of a luxury item.

The Doritos I had a personalized price on for like 3.32 per bag.  Still kind of ridiculous for chips, but my son will eat them, so I just choke on the price as I put them in the cart.

The diapers were 9.49 after a 2.00/1 E-Coupon was applied.  Noticed the price on diapers went up and adjusted my mental cost book accordingly.

The flavored water was kind of depressing as I had an E-Coupon to get the water for free at Fred Meyer.  I checked three different stores and none of them carry it anymore, so I ended up buying it, like usual at Carrs.  I put these in my daughter's lunch instead of juice boxes as they keep her better hydrated.  3.49 for the six pack.

The eggs were a really cool circumstance.  I have found that the Jumbo eggs at Carrs are MUCH better at staying fresh than the large eggs and they are really reasonable in price, if you can find them in stock.  They are normally 2.49 a dozen, but as I was checking out a cashier was walking by to put some cheese back someone didn't want and it had a coupon stuck on it for 1.00/1 Lucerne product on it.  Without saying a word to me, she double checked the coupon, tore it off the cheese bag and stuck it onto my eggs.  That was so very cool of her that I can't even begin to say how awesome she was for doing that.  I'm going to be sure to get her name totally right the next time I go in and write a nice letter to corporate about her.  She's always a wonderful cashier that goes above and beyond the call of duty :).

So, to make a long story short (too late, I know) I spent a total of 36.43 at Carrs (plus the .99 I spent out of pocket change, but I'm not counting that on the groceries) after taxes.

Total for the week so far:  42.69

This should give me enough left to get two gallons of regular priced milk later in the week and still be right around 50.00 total for the week.