Shock at the grocery store

So, it's that time of the month - payday {sigh}.  That means paying bills, of course, but it also means trying to get the best grocery deals for the least amount of money.  Right now, we are trying to pay of medical bills in addition to the regular monthly bills, so things are a little tighter than normal around here.  With that in mind, I sat down and went through circulars yesterday and matched up what coupons I had - minimum of stuff, but things I can build several meals around.  I thought I was done and ready to go...I was wrong.

Since Food Lion doesn't put their circulars in the Sunday paper (because their specials don't run from Sunday to Saturday like every other store), I decided I'd check out their circular while my son was in karate class today - figuring I had an hour to kill anyway.  Well, in that hour, I shopped, found great deals, matched coupons (don't forget that if your store has a coupon kiosk, you can scan your bonus card, or enter your phone number if you don't have your card, and it will print out coupons based on your previous purchases).  In the end, I had steaks, shrimp, chicken breasts, turkey sausage and turkey bacon, lunchmeat, some canned goods, frozen veggies and 2 Red Baron pizzas in my cart - all either on sale, with a coupon, or marked down because the sell by date was today or tomorrow.  Total spent: $96.39...yep, less than $100 for food to feed a family of 4!

Next step, and I believe I mentioned this in a previous post, MEAL PLANNING!!  After writing everything down on my inventory list, I sat down and started planning our dinners.  Breakfast is always fend for yourself, as is lunch for most of us.  Because the cafeteria where my husband works is currently closed, his lunches are made from dinner leftovers, so I try to cook a little more to make sure that he has something to take with him.  I had thought I would get about 2 weeks (to the next payday) worth of dinners planned, but once I started working on them, I ended up with......FIVE weeks of meals planned!!  Now, some of this was food we already had in the freezer, but most was from the food that I bought today.  I called hubby dear and told him I wanted to celebrate beause I've *never* done this well before.

Now I have to look at the lists I made for the 2 other grocery stores that I like and see exactly what we NEED from them....one store has bread for $0.88 per loaf as well as a special this week where, if you buy 4 GM foods, you can get a free gallon of milk (and with milk almost $4/gallon, we could use this....we use GM foods anyway), so I will go there for that since it's on a regularly traveled route.  The other has canned cat food, cat litter, roasts all at decent prices, and I need to go there to pick up Rx meds anyway.  BUT.....that should only be another $60 or so.....so for $150, I will be able to feed my family of 4, plus 2 cats and a dog for 5, maybe 6 weeks??!!??  HELL YEAH!!!