Monday, August 8, 2011

Grocery Shopping: The unprepared and frazzled edition

I'm just on a roll with being unprepared and disorganized today, ugh.  It started out when I went to take the boys to summer camp, only to realize that I had locked my keys in the van over the weekend - brilliant.  Thankfully my very patient and wonderful husband drove home from work to unlock it (at the expense of an hour round trip).

Then I went to drop the boys off at camp only to realize that I hadn't remembered to register Gabe for the week, only Tristan.  I registered Gabe for a week in July and meant to register him for this week if his first week went well.  Turns out it was a good thing he wasn't registered because he pitched an absolute fit and decided that there was absolutely no way he was leaving my side today.

Then off we went to go grocery shopping.  We were down to no milk, cream, yogurt, or cheese in the house and down to only oranges for fruit - not going to fly around here.  So I get to Wal-Mart and realized that I'd forgotten my list, and my reusable bags.  I despise Wal-Mart with a burning passion, but it was a necessary evil today.  Wal-Mart is the only store for 45 minutes that sells the soothers Brighton likes, and apparently the replacement soothers I bought on Saturday were completely unacceptable (a $7.35 mistake).  I realize I could have just bought soothers at Wal-Mart and done the grocery shopping somewhere else, but I hate getting my kids in and out of the car more than I hate Wal-Mart.

So here is the grocery shopping for the week.  I'm hoping that this will last until the end of the week and I haven't forgotten anything that's critical to our meal plan.  We'll make it work.

I'm breaking everything down for you to see where all the money went.  Keep in mind if you do not live in Canada and specially Southern Alberta that groceries in Canada can be drastically more expensive than in the U.S.  I do need to start using coupons - this is something I need to start hunting out.  I'm sure that for the yogurt and the soothers I probably could have saved a few bucks using coupons.

So here is the breakdown:

PRODUCE:
Watermelon $3.97
Gala apples (1.575 kg) $4.41
Bosc Pears (.98 kg) $2.74
2 Mangoes $1.44
Bananas (1.935kg) $3.29
Tomatoes $1.97
Blueberries $2.97



GROCERY AISLES:
2 cans pink salmon $2.94
Ritz cracker sandwiches $2.47 - total impulse buy, I hate shopping with kids :(
Paprika $2.00
Chili powder $2.52
Curry powder $2.28
2 cans tomato soup $1.44



DAIRY:
Silk Chocolate Almond Milk $3.97
Activia vanilla yogurt $5.17
Cracker barrel old cheddar $8.97
Cracker barrel marble $8.97
Crush yogurt $4.77
4L milk $4.37 (+ $0.31 deposits)
Vanilla coffee creamer $2.00
Astro vanilla yogurt $3.07
Astro blueberry yogurt $3.07
Coffee cream $3.47



NON-GROCERY (taxable):
2 packages soothers $10.94
Melatonin $14.97
Mattress cover $5.00
Sunscreen $9.97



Subtotal: $126.95
Tax: $2.21
Grand total: $129.16


Considering I was hoping this trip would be under $100 it was a fail.  I  bought a lot of yogurt though so we should be good for the next couple of weeks - and if I had just bought another 2 tubs rather than buying packages I could have shaved $4 off the total (more if I'd found coupons).  I will definitely plan better next trip!

And in my stressed out state I also bought an iced coffee at Mc D's - hey, at $1.05 it was much cheaper than Starbucks.  Little victories!

3 comments:

  1. Hi there, Kelly78 from GF here.
    Groceries are so expensive. I do my big shops twice a month, since Costco and Super Target are a 45 minutes drive. I try to stock up and only go twice a month to save money on gas. However, we always still run out of stuff and need to make a run (thankfully hubby works by a costco and target and can stop in to grab what we need on his way home from work if need be).
    I wanted to tell you... I saw you following my blog on the Networked Blogs, so I clicked to follow yours. Now it is saying I am trying to claim I am the author of your blog, I want you to know I AM NOT! I don't know what happened there, some sort of crazy glitch I am guessing lol... talk about embaressing. I tried to fix it by clicking I am not the author about 100 times. Sigh....

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  2. I think it says that you are confirming ownership, it takes a certain number of readers on networked blogs to confirm ownership - not that YOU are confirming YOUR ownership. It's all good :)

    I wish that I could grocery shop bi-weekly. Unfortunately our fridge is just not big enough to hold everything we eat in 2 weeks. I swear it looks so full at the beginning of the week it looks like we're set to feed an army, then by the weekend it's empty again.

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  3. Okay, I am still new to networked blogs and all that. Yeah, I hear you on the fridge looking empty. We are nearing the end of a pay period (have 5 days left) and we are starting to get down to slim pickin's. I will probably have to go to the store Friday to get milk and a few other things to tide us over till pay day.

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