This Week's Shopping Trips

This week's shopping trips went kind of wonky right out of the gate.  I'm figuring that I'll be doing my shopping on Thursday over the summer as my son has OT that day and if I plan right I can get my shopping done in the hour when he's at therapy so I have the ability to think when shopping. 

But, like the best laid plans of mice and men, when a mother makes a plan on when to shop the children will get involved and things will immediately go awry.  In this case my son, probably due to all of the medicine he's on, wasn't feeling great Thursday morning so we missed OT.  So, I ended up going shopping on Friday and Saturday.  Friday we went to Fred Meyer and by the time I got done there I was NOT going to hit another store with an uber cranky son in tow.  No way, Jose.  So, when we took our normal weekend drive with my son on Saturday I made my husband drop me off really fast at Carrs where my daughter and I ran in to get one item.  They have RC Cola on sale this week for 1.49 a piece if you load the right E-Coupon, so I went and grabbed that instead of Coke for my son to drink (we found, quite on accident a while ago, that my son almost prefers RC Cola to Coke, so it's an option when I can get it cheaper than Coke).

At Fred Meyer is where I did the majority of my shopping this week.  You'll notice a lack of...well...groceries for being two weeks without shopping and all, but I only grabbed a week's worth of groceries this week.  Mainly because I am hoping to go shopping for the few "son" items we'll need for next week on Thursday and two because I stocked up big time when I got ready for not shopping for two weeks on things like chips for the son and then found out that he was willing to eat things like pasta and rice for meals, thus not blowing through chips like they were air.  Always a nice change of pace.

I'm kind of concerned with my meat situation right now.  We're starting to run low on meat in pretty much every area (I'm even starting to run lower on chicken...surprised me to find that honestly), but there haven't been any killer sales or meat reductions I've run into of late.  So, I'm worried eventually that I'm going to have to do meat as part of my normal weekly shopping, at which point my grocery budget is going to go up again, which we can't really afford to do.  Right now I'm stretching the meat as far as I can by having meatless meals or meals that include things like beans to stretch the meat we have, but I'm not sure how long that's going to work before I have to buy more meat.  I'm hoping for some good sales coming up for summer holidays such as the Fourth of July on things OTHER than hot dogs and things, but more like sales on steak and other true meat items.  Fingers crossed.

But, yeah, the majority of my shopping this week is above.  

I went to Fred Meyer and decided to get my freebies from Freebie Friday and the ones that my friend gave me as well as see what I could find for cheap produce.  I was able to get a BUNCH of peaches and nectarines in the dollar bags, a HUGE bag of fresh ginger (that I'm going to peel and freeze tomorrow), some limes and a lemon and a couple of apples.  I then went and looked for the free oat bars that I had loaded on my card, but while there is a slot for them at the store they haven't had them since the freebie popped up online.  I'm hoping they haven't gotten them in yet and will hopefully get them in before the coupon expires.  Here's hoping.  I did, however, pick up a box of Fred Meyer brand breakfast bars for my husband as he's found that taking a few for the road in the morning helps him not get shaky.  I had a 1.00/1 breakfast bar coupon for the store brand ones (it was a personalized rewards rebate coupon thingie that I got in the mail) and they were on reduced for 1.53, so I only paid .53 for the box. 

I had signed up for free samples of Silk dairy free yogurt and got two coupons in the mail instead of one, so I went and got those.  I have no problem eating soy yogurt for breakfast...heck I could probably use the extra protein, so I was grateful to have them.

The crackers were the Freebie Friday this Friday and so I got the one I had and the one my friend gave me.  We've tried both flavors.  The garlic herb one wasn't too bad, but the veggie one...yuck.  It tastes like dried tomatoes and not much else when you bite into the cracker.  I'm figuring that meat loaf will be a good way to use these up, or use them for breading for chicken or something.

The cat food was on sale for .49 a can and the Doritos were on sale for 3.50 per bag.

After coupons and freebies were applied I paid a total of 24.59 at Fred Meyer. 

I then went to Carrs on Saturday and picked up soda for the son and spent 9.19 there.

So, all totaled I spent a total of 33.68 on groceries this week between the two trips.  However, I also need to send my husband to get milk again tomorrow, so I'm probably going to average about 40.00 and some odd cents this week for groceries.  Not too bad, though, especially since I got some canned peaches and frozen ginger out of the deal.

I'm still hoping to not have to shop for much this week at all, so I'm aiming at spending about 30.00 on groceries for the rest of my two week period just to get my son his snack foods and call it good.

How about you?  Find anything cool at the stores this week?