First Grocery Haul of 2024

Happy, belated, Holidays and Happy (late) New Year everyone!

I had plans to blog some more coming up to Christmas and the holiday season, but my husband brought home the flu right before he got off for Christmas vacation and he and I ended up horribly sick (my husband and I did not get flu shots yet, which my husband especially regretted as he got it the worst of all of us) for the entire holiday season, which, to put it bluntly, sucked.  We managed to get the gifts unwrapped on Christmas, I made lasagna and beef roast for Christmas Eve and Christmas and that was about it for holiday celebrations.  The kids got sick, but to a much lesser extent than we did (yay flu vaccines), but they are both still tiring easily still.  I have about one thing in me a day before my energy levels just bottom out right now, but at least I'm finally getting a sense of smell and taste back, which makes eating a lot more enjoyable and I got enough energy out of myself day before yesterday to get the laundry caught up (HUGE project after being sick for so long).  Hopefully I can keep the cough at bay as I'm actively fighting it and trying to stop it from giving me the creeping crud for the remainder of the winter.  Despite being sick, somehow I managed to keep cooking and getting food on the table for everyone (yay me), which saved us a ton of money that we didn't spend eating out or getting delivery.  I just postponed my birthday cake for a later date as I didn't feel like making a cake I couldn't enjoy, so I'm hoping that I can maybe make that this weekend and be able to eat it and actually taste it.  

I managed to go and get grocery shopping done for the next couple of weeks yesterday, so I thought I'd share what my grocery haul looked like (well part of it...I didn't take pictures of Alvah's food, a box of wet cat food and a bag of frozen cod fillets....that stuff was already in the freezer or put away).  I do have blog posts lined up, some even half done (yay for progress!) and I actually figured out a few goals for this year that I'll share here, hopefully soon (I'm not making plans other than getting well and doing what I feel up to at this point), but watch for a hint on one of my goals for this year when I go over the shopping haul (ooooo!!!  Excitement!!!  *Laugh*).

So, without further ado, let's get to it!

So, including what is above there and also Alvah's food and the aforementioned cat food and cod fillets, I spent a total of 233.01 after taxes, fees and the like.  I still have to pick up cheese at Three Bears (local Costco-like bulk store) and milk later on and I had to order a box of Zyrtec for Alvah from Amazon as Carrs was out of the dissolvable tablets (the only ones Alvah can take), so I'll probably be getting close to my usual 300.00 grocery budget for the next couple of weeks when those things are picked up/received.

You'll notice a lack of produce on the table.  Reasons for that are simple.  During sick time we didn't eat much at all, including produce and before the Christmas holiday Carrs had apples, oranges and pears on sale for 1.25 lb, which is UNHEARD of cheap, especially for this time of year, so I ended up buying a lot, so we still have fruit to go through around here.  Also, I still have a bag of salad I bought last grocery trip that is still good and hasn't been used yet.  I also have a few bags of coleslaw mix I bought as well that are still hanging in there in the fridge, so I'm going to work hard to use up the produce that is already in the fridge the next couple of weeks.

There are substitutions that Carrs put into my order as I guess they were out of the things I asked for, so I'll highlight those as I get to them.

Breaking it down by the numbers I got...

1.  Three packages of boneless, skinless, chicken thighs.  One of my goals this year is to do more freezer cooking, so these will be used partially for that.  I got these on sale for 3.49 lb and on top of that I redeemed some fuel rewards (we weren't using them because of the aforementioned sickness, so I wanted to use them before they expired) for 7.00 off meat, so that took off a bit from each package as well.  Also, they had a sale that if you spent 50.00 you got 10.00 off your shopping trip, so that took off some cost as well (on everything, so if you notice weird pricing that would be why).  I paid right around 8.17 for each of them.

2.  Next up is two dozen eggs, which I ordered the regular store brand eggs and they subbed out the Eggland's Best eggs at no additional cost, so that was 4.01 for the two dozen (I had a personalized price on the eggs).  

The Sheba cat food was free with a digital coupon, so hopefully my cats will eat it.  

The ham is my daughter's preferred for sandwiches and we use it as a sub for Canadian bacon on pizzas on pizza night too.  That cost me 4.99 after a sale and personalized price on the item.  

The tortillas were such a disappointment to me.  Tortillas went crazy in price, so I ordered the street taco tortillas as they were on sale and when I got them  could see why they were only 3.82 as they are smaller than corn tortillas.  We'll be having mini-tacos one night in the next couple of weeks and I'll be trying my hand at making tortillas here soon.

3.  Next up is a box of sandwich bags as I needed them.  3.82 for those.

I also got two bags of unbleached all purpose flour as I go through about a bag a week between baking bread and other baking projects.  6.19 for the two of those after a personalized price on flour for the week.

The Provolone cheese was for sandwiches I wanted to make.  2.64 on sale.

4.  The deodorant was for me as I am nearly out, 5.26 for that (and that was a cheap deodorant!!!  My brain seized a bit when I saw those prices).

The vitamins my daughter needed and were on sale Buy 1 Get 1 Free, so 18.17 for the both of them.

The Parmesan cheese is something I buy every shopping trip.  My son eats that on pasta, as a topping for bread sticks and such, so we go through quite a bit.  9.56 for that.

2 things of heavy cream.  My husband uses cream in his coffee every day for work and I am also hoping to use some of it to make some ice cream in the next bit.  10.43 for both of those (I had a personalized price on these as well as the money off basket sale).

2, 1/2 gallons of 2% milk (they were out of whole milk, so subbed out the 2% instead).  These were on sale for CHEAP so ended up spending 3.54 for both of them.   These are something else I bought for freezer cooking as I prefer to use our nice, expensive, local milk for drinking as much as possible.

5.  4 cans of sliced olives.  These were substitutes for the Carrs brand olives.  I had ordered three of one type of olive (ended up being 7.16 for those three) and I had ordered some chopped olives to try as they came with more in them, but they didn't have those so they gave me one more can of the sliced olives for 2.39 instead.  We use these on pizza for pizza night and the daughter likes to have sliced olives on her ham sandwiches as well.

All Free and Clear laundry pods were 16.22 after a sale and a 1.00/1 digital coupon.  These I got just to have one container ahead as I just opened my last container.

Cascade powder, 7.73.  I had a personalized price on Cascade for the week, so I got it for cheaper than normal price.

And there you go folks.  The prices I spent this week for groceries (well some of them anyway :).  Stay tuned to see what I do with some of the stuff for a freezer cooking day (hoping to do it this weekend) and getting some stuff into my freezer to make my life easier when it comes to cooking when I'm busy :).

Hope you all had a great holiday season.  Enjoy!