The Grocery Bill

I meant to post this nearly a week ago, but like the saying goes, time makes fools of us all. So this is all about what I bought for groceries a week ago at Superstore.

…

Today (Wednesday October 14) I did the week’s shopping. While I meant to be responsible about what I bought, I hadn’t taken the time to organize things as well as I should have. Ideally, I would have planned at least a general menu for the week instead of planning my meals as I walked down the aisles.

This resulted in a somewhat surprising bill at checkout. However, I took the following into consideration after lifting my jaw off the dirty grocery store floor:

1. Some of the purchases were toiletries, etc which should have a separate budget
2. Some of the purchases were kitchen tools (like parchment paper etc)
3. Plenty of the larger expenses were things that will last at least 4-6 weeks, and won’t need to be replenished on my next few trips
4. Brian’s back today! So most of the food cost will be split in half.

(click the read more link below to read on!)

I will share with you my intended list, and what I actually bought.

As you can see, I actually did stay on budget for food. I felt better about the list after breaking it down in my little chart here.

Combined with what I have in my pantry, here are some of the meals I concocted with this grocery list (and grocery list ingredients in brackets):

• Cinnamon rolls (flour)
• Beer bread (flour)
• Tom Yum Soup - spicy thai (bok choy, onion, half jalapeno, garlic)
• Twice-baked potatoes with caramelized onions & feta (onions, oil, side of steamed bok choy)
• Shanghai noodle stir-fry (peanut butter, bok choy, oil, tofu)
• Spicy Tofu Sandwich (tofu, aforementioned beer bread)
• Regular ol’ pasta with an egg (1 egg)
• Oatmeal (soymilk, banana)
• Toast (peanut butter)
• Chinese scallion pancakes

Let me know in the comments if there are any recipes that interest you and I’ll do my best to share them!

As you can see, the few ingredients I actually used went a long way. However, since I didn’t actually use up most of what I bought, I could have spent less money overall. I’ve been very aware of my expenditures since officially ending my $30 challenge, although today was deplorable ($2 on Starbucks drip coffee, $6 on highballs at the bar at school…hehe). Tomorrow we’ll have to get some more groceries, although I’m pretty sure we can get away with just picking up fresh vegetables.

I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with my progress so far. I would call myself a bit of a foodie; buying, cooking and eating my meals is a treat! It’s been good to cap my expenditures and still eat delicious, interesting and pretty nutritious meals. Stay tuned...