Before Samuel started really eating solid foods I could feed David and I on about $75 a week. The food at that price was good, and healthy, but not terribly imaginative or varied. We ate a lot of salads, stir-frys and curries, but we certainly ate well. Once Samuel started to eat more and more, my grocery bill went up and up. So, my very first question, and one I hadn't asked myself in a long time, was:
1. How much do I actually spend on groceries?
I'm still living in a dream world that says: "You spend $75 a week on groceries, Amy, you clever girl!" Clearly, this can't be true anymore, but it's what I've told myself for the past nine months, even to the point of telling other people the same lie! If you asked me before this morning "So, how much does your family spend on groceries every week?" I would have told you, straight-faced, "Oh, I don't know, around $75."
Well, time for the truth. Today we had to go shopping, and I thought this morning that there was no better time to look at our REAL food bill. I jotted down a few things I knew we needed, and then I did what I usually do, I wrote down the meals I wanted to cook this week and what I needed for each of them. And then we headed out. Here's what we bought:
Produce
broccoli - $1.49
cauliflower - $1.49
eggplant - $1.33
1 bag of onions - $2.99
cilantro - $1.99
dill - $.99
mushrooms - $1.67
pineapple - $1.99
1 bag of apples - $2.49
1 bag of tomatoes - $2.84
Meat
2 sirloin tip steaks - $6.18
1 pkg. Italian sausages - $4.51
4 pkgs. ground beef - $10.35
1 pkg. bacon - $3.49
Bakery
1 bag of assorted bagels and rolls - $3.29
1 bag of 5 frozen tubes of bread dough - $5.99
Grocery Items
4 cans of diced tomatoes with spices - $5.00
2 blocks of cheese - $5.99 each
1 carton apple juice - $1.29
2 cans black beans - $0.89 each
2 cans mushrooms - $1.09 each
1 tub margarine - $1.99
2 cartons of eggs - $3.29 each
1 carton of saltine crackers - $3.19
2 pkgs spaghetti noodles - $1.29 each
2 cans of tuna - $0.87 each
1 can corn - $1.39
1 pkg raisins - $4.79
1 club pack wheat germ - $1.69
2 bags chips - $0.88 each
1 bag dill chips - $1.67
2 litres soy milk - $3.49
1 box shreddies cereal - $2.50
Non-Food
1 tube hand cream - $2.99
The total was $114.43. Almost $40 more than I thought.
Now, I have to be fair to myself here! To start with, several of those items were treats. David and I love to try new chip flavours and two bags at 88 cents each was, in our opinion, a fairly harmless way to indulge a bit. The third bag was actually on the list since I use dill chips in my tuna cakes. The bag of assorted buns was an emergency item; we had completely run out of bread at home and I wouldn't have time to bake one of the frozen loaves before lunch. And then several of the purchases will last much longer than one week. The wheat germ for muffins is a month-long club pack bag, at least. I bought four tins of Italian spiced tomatoes but only have plans for two of them, the other two are for the pantry...and so forth.
But on the other hand, several things went wrong right off the bat. When I got home I discovered that I already had several of the things I'd purchased. In fact, in one case I had done it twice over! I had bought a bag of apples, put them in the crisper drawer, then forgotten about them and purchased a second bag of apples, put them on the top shelf, and then today saw apples on sale, thought "I haven't seen apples in a while" and purchased a third bag of apples.
I also found myself staring at items on the shelves trying to remember if I had them at home. Did I have dried dill? Did I still have carrots? And I was unintentionally vague on my list. For example, for a vegetable curry I had planned for lunch this week I wrote "buy veg. for curry", then spent a whole heck of a time wandering the produce aisles trying to decide what vegetables I felt like having in a hypothetical curry that might happen at the end of next week! By the time I got home and was unloading produce I wasn't sure what was supposed to be in what dish anymore, which I know from experience will result in my using foods intended for one dinner in another dinner and force me back out to the store again.
And so, it wasn't a huge success in terms of a frugal shopping trip, but it was a start. It highlighted problem areas, at least. I need to plan not just what we're having, but what specifically goes into each dish. I need to write that down and buy those items, by-passing other things that I think we may possibly need in favour of those I know we need. I need to keep a list of food basics somewhere visible in the kitchen so that if we run out of cooking oil, we write down and subsequently buy cooking oil, rather than have me try and figure out if we need it by staring at it on a grocery shelf and trying to imagine my pantry in my mind's eye. And finally, we need to stop completely running out of things, necessitating an emergency purchase. I could have saved us money if I had something planned for lunch that didn't need bread.
Oh, and in case you have any curious questions, here's what we ate today:
Breakfast - porridge with dried figs, brown sugar, vanilla and milk. Samuel also had a banana.
Lunch - David and I had tuna melts, Samuel had grapes, half a bagel and some cheese. (We're testing his cheese intake).
Supper - omelets with onion, green pepper, mushrooms, bacon, eggs and a bit of cheese on top. A piece of Christmas cake for dessert for all three of us!
Lunch cost me about $2.27 for two buns, a can of tuna and about 1/6 of a block of cheese. Maybe 20 cents for Samuel's bagel and cheese as well. Let's say $3 total.
Supper cost me {half a carton of eggs+1 onion+1/3 carton mushrooms+1/6 block cheese+1/2 pkg bacon}
about $5.00, since I already had the green pepper.
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