The BIG shop

Well today I sat down and made my meal plan for the week. I will post that tomorrow on Meal Plan Monday. I came up with a few good meals mostly all standard fair for our house and one new recipe found in the local newspaper. I was able to make the meal plan with little trouble and really only needed a few things from the grocery store for each meal. What we did need was EVERYTHING else. We were out of all the staples and almost all of the meat we had in the freezer. We had to do the BIG shop and replenish the pantry. I was happy to find that both the stores we normally shop at were having pretty good Buy one Get one free sales this week. So I made my list, gathered my coupons and off we went to the store. I took a pad and paper so I could comparison shop for the normal everyday items I buy that I can never find coupons for like butter, bread and eggs. I was really surprised to find the store I thought would be cheaper for these things was not cheaper at all. I spent way more then the $40 a week that some of "expert budget shoppers" spend but I did have to buy a lot more then just a regular weekly shopping trip. I bought everything I usually buy and only had a few coupons (Not a good coupon week in our paper). Over all I was happy with the amount I spent and what I was able to get for that price. I wont need to go to the store now for several weeks so really if I brake it down I guess I can say I spent close to that $40 a week. My goal is to be able to go to the store weekly and buy what we need for our weekly menu along with whatever staples we need and to spend less the $75. This week I spent a total of $145.52. $89.14 of that was at Publix for the majority of what we needed and the remaining $56.38 was at Winn Dixie. Looking at what we bought I know there are areas we can cut cost and a few connivance items we can do away with once we are better organized with our weekly meal plan. For our first time at this I think we did fairly well. Check back later for our Weekly Menu Plan for this week and for the link to the "Meal planning Monday"

The Prep Work

Winn Dixie

Publix

( I need to learn to take better pictures)