I honestly almost didn't post shopping goals this month. I don't see much wiggle room in the budget this month, honestly, but hey, if you put it down on paper you're more likely to get it done (I'm a big believer in that), so hopefully if I put the energy out there the universe will help me find a way ;).
I have felt overwhelmed and kind of scattered the last little bit around here with all of the appointments going on that get kicked down the road, kids being sick on and off (kicking appointments down the road because of that) the last few weeks, the end of school coming up quickly (our school year ends May 18th up here), starting to get things into transition to move my daughter from elementary to middle school next year, getting used to the husband's new schedule, trying to get the house clean (which is always a challenge with the son around), getting used to driving a truck around again (I am NOT a naturally talented driver by any stretch, so it takes me a bit to learn a new vehicle...I'm getting there), dealing with things breaking left and right, dealing with the usual budgetary concerns and just generally trying to keep my sanity in tact. It's kind of wiped me out the last few weeks. I'm dealing but I can't say I'm doing a spectacular job by any means. The end of the day comes not soon enough, it seems and all I want to do is pass out before I have to get up and do it all over again. I probably need to sit down, read a good book of gold old fashioned fiction (mental vacation), drink a cup of something not caffeinated and just not think about everything that needs to be done everywhere. I'll put it on my list after changing the beds and getting the laundry completely done *laugh*.
When it comes to things to get this month, there's plenty I need (unfortunately and I'm not including meat in this list..that's something I'll tackle another month), but not a lot of money to get them with. I'm hoping to get a few things from Amazon as they are just plain cheaper there, but I might have to deal with getting less (for more money per unit of course) locally just to stretch the budget a bit (like canned pineapple. Amazon has a great price for pineapple tid bits, which work fine for me in things like cake or in teriyaki, but I might just have to let the deal pass and get a few cans here and there locally to see me through until a later date) . We'll see how it all goes as the month progresses (read: how big or small the next paycheck ends up being...I'm not holding out much hope at this point since next paycheck the mortgage comes out of and there is usually not much left of it after that). I'm figuring most to all of these goals are going to end up getting rolled over into June, but we'll see how it goes.
Regular Stores:
- Vegetable oil (yup, still need to stock up on it)
- Olive oil (starting to run low and I need it for the son's pasta)
- 25 lbs Sugar (Fred Meyer has the cheapest price for bulk sugar the last time I checked, but I need to check it again. If it's not cheaper I'll hit Three Bears for it).
- 25 lbs all purpose flour (Three Bears or Fred Meyer, whichever one is cheaper)
- Brown sugar (I'll get it if it comes up on sale at Carrs)
- Rice (25 bulk sized bag, hopefully, from Carrs or Three Bears, depending which one is cheaper)
- Black Olives (luckily I found some buried in the pantry, so I'm not as out as I feared I was, but I'd like to get a few more cans as we use them a lot during taco night and I found that they are starting to carry reduced salt black olives, which is awesome!).
- Angel Hair Pasta (picking up a few boxes at a time)
Amazon:
(NOTE: The following contains affiliate links. If you order through these links I receive a small commission for pointing you in Amazon's direction. You will not pay more if you order through these links and thank you for your support!)
- Canned Pineapple
- Bumblebee Tuna Salad (for the son to help pad out his diet over summer break. These go for 2.00+ locally a piece, so it is definitely worth buying the 12 pack if I can afford it!).
- No Salt Added Tomato Paste (to make salt free ketchup and BBQ sauce. I can't find this locally at all, so to Amazon I'll have to go).
And yeah, that's about it for my shopping goals for this month. How about you guys? Anything you need to get this month?
I just got the tuna on sale at CVS. Do you have CVS by you? Also Aldi and Dollar Tree carry off brands that are very good cheap. Don't know if you have any of these stores. Good luck. Sorry things are so tight.
ReplyDeleteNope, we have none of those. Thank you for trying to help, though :).
ReplyDeleteIf you add all of this to your Amazon wish list and provide a link or how to search for it, I'm sure some of us will be happy to supply a few things.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the thought, truly :). My husband started using the wishlist on our Amazon account years ago, so I just let him have it for tooltools and things.
DeleteBright side is that I was given a survey opportunity with an autism research project I have been with for a few years, so I was able to just now order the tuna salad with the gift card the gave me for compensation. Progress!
Tools. My auto correct on the Kindle is nutty. It turns tuna to guns and made up a word with tooltools. Gotta love it lol!
DeleteYou should be able to have more than one wish list on Amazon. I tend to have numerous for various different purposes. I also think you really should create your own and post a link. It's not charity, it would be like a small payment for all the time and effort you put into maintaining a blog. I am a huge reader and have no trouble paying for books I enjoy reading when I can afford to, because the writers need to be paid in order to carry on writing. So why not you? :-)
DeleteI am amazed because I won tuna at Safeway with Monopoly. That was the first time I won that! You might win some, too! (I think you tend to shop there). Still, it's a long shot and the game is almost over. I hope you find a way to get a bunch of those grocery items one way or another.
ReplyDeleteDo you have Cash and Carry there? That is another place to get large quantities of things for low prices. (Sometimes they are cheaper, sometimes other places are, like Costco, so it's worth doing some research). It caters to restaurants, but will sell to anyone.
Wow! You have gotten some cool freebies! The lost of bread and the spinach salad really are the best ones I have gotten this year. I think I have about forty things of gravy mix (and I won another with the huge pile of tickets I got this week since the game ends like the 8th), got a bunch of the small fans of tomato sauce (can use it so not complaining) and I just won two more bagels this week, but I have not won many oddball type of freebies this year. It is nice that I got what I did though :).
DeleteWe don't have Cash and Carry here either. We have Costco and our local "But from Costco and Sam's Club distributors and resell" type of outfit in Three Years and that's about it for bulk types of stores that I am aware of.
Loaf not lost, cans not fans and buy not but. Auto correct again.
DeleteI'm not sure if this will be constructive for you (and perhaps you already do this), but I've had times in the past (MANY times) where money was extremely tight. I needed quite a few things to buy but just didn't have the budget for it. Eventhough I know that buying in bulk is cheaper, at those times I just bought single amounts to stretch me to the next paycheque or even the following month.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I like to buy bulk taco seasoning at Costco, but the $5.00 for it wasn't in the budget, so I just bought a single taco packet at the grocery store for 99 cents instead. That freed up $4.00 to purchase other badly needed items. Or if I had enough chili powder, cumin etc. at home, I'd just make my own mix. Another example, if I needed orange juice ($4.90) for baking but couldn't afford it I would just buy one frozen can from concentrate ($1.50). Or if I had to restock the flour but I couldn't afford the bulk bag ($17.00), I'd just purchase the smaller bag ($4.99) to get me through the month. Again these little adjustments helped me stretch my money a little further so I could purchase something else I also needed.
Most often, I had to change what I wanted to serve for meals that month and use only what I had available in the house. For example, I may have not had any rice in the pantry, but lots of dried beans, so meals were centred around the beans instead. During these times, a lot of meals were a mishmash but my family didn't go hungry.
Again, these were just little adjustments made until the better pay would show up. Then I'd purchase the bulk items needed and restock here and there when they were on sale.
Yeah, I do that now for sure. Biggest road blocks I am running into is some things aren’t available locally and Amazon has the most reasonable deals to get things. I haven’t tried Wal-Mart yet to see if they have certain things (I hate shopping there), but will go and see what they have soon, I think. Thanks for the advice :).
DeleteI don't know if you know about Swagbucks. You can earn Amazon gift cards from them. I think right now you will get $3 just for signing up. I also do Bing, Branded Surveys, and Gifthulk to earn gift cards. I was just thinking that might help go towards your Amazon orders. I have been doing it for about 7 years now and it has helped a lot.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I did Swagbucks and stuff for years but it now crashes my computer as soon as I log in, so I had to quit using it. The survey opportunities for my region and things weren’t really there anymore, anyway, so I gave up trying to make it work. I really appreciate the other site recommends, though. Bing, when I signed up a few years back was a mess and what it did to my computer wasn’t pretty. I haven’t heard of the others, though. I’ll check them out :).
DeleteErika, do you already use Ibotta? I also use Checkout 51 and Savings Star, but Ibotta is by far my favorite. I can give you a referral code if you need one. I've made $300 in 2 years! Also, Fetch lets you scan receipts from any grocery or drugstore purchase. You earn 25 points minimum per scan. I also have a referral code for that.
ReplyDeleteI did sign up for Ibotta a few years back, but didn’t have a cell that would work for the receipt end of things. I might have to sign back up with that. Could you link to both with referral codes? I’ll see if I can make those work :).
DeleteFunny your pantry looks just like mine!
ReplyDeleteMy shopping goals are boring, boring, boring this month! That's because, once again, I'm not really buying anything to stock my pantry. We're wanting to move, so we've been eating through the pantry instead so I don't have to pack up so much foodstuffs. The variety has now dwindled to mostly canned beans, creamed soups, dehydrated potatoes and pasta for cooking, (and I still have home-canned jars of relish, pickles etc. and some freezer veg. and fruit) so my menu has become pretty mundane even when I add some fresh produce, like salads into the mix. But doing this has really lessoned the amount in the pantry and freezer.
ReplyDeleteOn the down side, I will have to restock once we move into the new home, and spending money to rebuild said stock won't be a treat, I'm sure. Well, there's not much that can be done about it. This is the way it must be for now.
Erika, I live in the Valley in AK near you. If you will buy the BIG cans of tuna (like you can get at Costco or 3 Bears), you can freeze whatever you are not going to use immediately. Same thing with the #10 cans of pineapple and peaches. The #10 cans are so much cheaper per unit. We have done this for years. Or go ahead and make a tuna casserole (if you eat it) using a remaining part of the tuna and freeze the whole casserole for later. We only have a 3 people in our family (the others are grown and gone), but we still do this. Lots more to do with the extra savings.
ReplyDeletecheck 4 and 5 lb bags of sugar and flour. I have ran across them that actually is cheaper than buying the bulk. Got lots of strange looks going to check out though but filled my 5 gal food bucket.
ReplyDelete