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Busy Shopping Day Yesterday

After doing some things around the house yesterday, I made my shopping lists for the week. I decided to go to Top’s with plans to go to Walmart and Aldi’s afterward. My plans changed because Top’s was so very crowded. Thinking that the other two stores would probably be worse, I decided to wait to go this week while people are working.

I did both regular grocery shopping and stockpile shopping.

The regular shopping was 2 pizza sauce($1.00 ea.), flour($1.99), lettuce($.99 with store Q), monterey jack cheese($1.79 with store Q) and T bone steaks($19.00) that I needed for this week. I was out of pizza sauce. I don’t have enough flour to make bread. The lettuce is for salads. Hubby loves the monterey jack on his hamburgers.  The T bones are to be grilled for our 53rd Anniversary dinner. Since we are not going out to a restaurant, we will make a nice dinner here at home which will be steak, salad, and strawberries and raspberries with SF cool whip for dessert. We might even enjoy a glass of wine if I get to the liquor store to buy it.

In order to get the lower price of $ 8.88 a lb. for the steaks, I had to buy what they consider a big package of 3. So 1 of them will get frozen for the future. 

The rest were stockpile items. I got 10 Gatorade Zero which were $.80 each when you purchased 10. The pound of bacon was $3.99 with a store Q. The hand sanitizer was $ 5.99. The Softsoap refill was $ 8.98. The yeast was $ 5.99. The canned mushrooms were $1.00 each. I got 2- 50 oz. Purex for $2.50 each. Lastly, I got 1 of the gallons of distilled water for $ .69 with store coupon and 2 gallons on sale for $ .88 each.

Right now I am stockpiling things that I know we will use in case the sickness comes back to our state. I am not waiting until fall because if we lock down again, the supply chain will be affected. Just look at Texas and the supply problems they are having. If it doesn’t come back, we will be set for the fall and winter.

I spent $ 25.77 on the regular groceries and $ 43.76 on stockpile groceries. That leaves $ 458.78 in the July grocery budget. My stockpile budget was $ 1200. minus $ 43.76 = $1156.24. 

Did you find any good buys this week? 

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Every Day

Frugal Things July 2 & 3

Wanting to do something different with our granddaughter yesterday, we went for a ride to Lake Ontario to the Towns of Wilson, Youngstown, and Lewiston. It was a beautiful day and she really enjoyed it.

When we came home, I raided the stockpile and this is what I came up with for a quick and easy dinner. 

Of course later last night, my granddaughter had a Hershey’s Cotton Candy ice cream cone. She absolutely loved it. We will see what West thinks of the ice cream later today.


The money saving things we did yesterday was that Hubby put the new clips that arrived to hold all 4 glass doors in my cupboards in the kitchen. He even replaced the clips that hadn’t broken with the new ones because they are much better than the old ones. He also put them in areas that didn’t have clips prior. Now when you close the cupboard doors they don’t make any noise. You could hear the glass rattle before. He did such a better job than the installers did when they put them in. DIY is the way to go on certain projects.


I put our homemade BBQ sauce on the 5 chicken breasts last night so that they could marinate overnight. I used the extra quart jar up that I had put in the fridge a couple of weeks ago. Hubby will be grilling them for dinner tonight using the extra sauce to baste them while they cook. I will cook rice and broccoli to go with it. Ice cream will be dessert later in the evening.


Today, much to my delight, I opened an e-mail from Skinny Syrups that had a 20% off code. We love and use these syrups in our coffee and on ice cream. I was getting low on Hubby’s Irish Cream and my Keto syrups so I placed an order for 2 Keto and 8 Irish Cream. They also now have shelf stable milk so I ordered 3(that is the limit) for my stockpile. The code saved me $ 17.57 and I qualified for free shipping. I stockpile a few times a year with a code or when they have a 50% off sale.

I have decided not to take these syrups out of my stockpile money. Instead it will come out of this month’s grocery budget. The cost was $ 70.30 which leaves me $ 414.25 in my grocery budget for July. 


I wish all of you a wonderful July 4th! For those of you who are traveling, I hope you have a safe trip.

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Every Day

July 1st Grocery Savings

Yesterday, I had a haircut appointment. So on the way home I stopped at Aldi’s to see if they had any of their Wednesday sale chicken left. Those Wednesday items go quickly in my store.

They did so I was able to purchase 2 large packages of bone-in chicken breasts. They were $.99 a lb. which is comparable to $1.99 per lb. for boneless. I have not seen the $.99 a lb. price in a few years in my area. I love bone-in breasts because because I can make soup from the bones and meat left on the bone. I could not resist this price and we had just enough room in the freezer for what we needed to freeze. 

The breasts were enormous so this is what I did with them. I deboned them all leaving a bit of meat on each bone. I put 4 breast bones in each bag and froze them to make 2 pots of soup which will make at least 3 – 4 meals for each of us. I will boil the bones and then take the meat off to put in the soup. Then I will add some chicken base if needed depending on how rich the broth is, diced carrots and celery, rice and seasonings and let it cook a couple of hours in the crock pot on the patio.

I put 5 of the breasts in a ziploc for a cookout we are having on Friday evening. We have at least 4 people for the cookout and possibly 5. West is coming to spend the day with Alexa and my daughter in law will be arriving that day. I don’t know if West is being picked up before or after we eat.

I will marinate them in our homemade BBQ sauce overnight tonight. Hubby will cook them on the grill on Friday. I will cut them in half so that people can eat what they want. This will make our cookout meal and we most likely will have leftovers for Saturday night for the 2 of us. We will put those leftovers on a salad.

The other three breasts I froze separately. Hubby and I share a breast for a meal because these are so big. 

So these chicken breasts will make a meal for 5, 4 meals for 2 of us, and 3-4  soup meals for 2 of us. I spent $ 12.27 for these 2 packages of chicken. If the chicken makes 19 servings, it is $ .645 per serving. If it makes 21 servings, it is $ .584 per serving. You can’t get much cheaper than this for meat servings. 

At Aldi’s, I also picked up a bag of yellow onions for $ 1.89 and a 2 lb. bag of carrots for $ 1.29. They were the best prices in the area. 

We have been eating our dinners outside on the patio this week. Now that our maple tree and patio tree have grown, we have great shade out there. We have all been loving this and getting some fresh air at the same time. 


Did you get any good deals this week?

My total for this shop was $ 15.45. We were out of fresh onions because I chopped the soft ones and put them in the freezer to put in soups and casseroles. I needed the carrots to make a carrot cake.

I started this month with $500. in my grocery budget so I now have $ 484.55 left for July.

Dinner last night was hot dogs on rolls, your choice of canned chili, onions, ketchup, mustard and relish to top them and steamed broccoli for a side. Dessert was fresh sliced strawberries and raspberries with SF Cool Whip. All items were from my stockpile.

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Every Day

Our Grocery Strategy

Grocery and meat prices have rapidly risen since this sickness came here. Beef prices are extremely high per pound as are many other meats. Chicken seems to be about the only thing that I can purchase at a decent price. But with inflation already here and continuing because of the stimulus payments and other acts that were passed or may be passed, everything will continue to go up. So much money has been printed that we will not see prices in the future like we are used to.

I was in sticker shock when I shopped last Sunday. So many grocery items have risen so rapidly. There has to be a better way to purchase what we need without paying so much money.

The first thing I do is make a list of what our necessities are. Then I check the ads and Flipp to see who has the best prices on those items. The first page of the ads are usually the best prices or what they call the loss leaders. They are the items that the store puts on sale and lose money on hoping that you will buy a whole lot of non sale items while you are in the store. I will strive to only purchase the loss leader items. Then I look at the back page which usually shows the fresh produce sales and I strive to buy those things to make our salads and other side dishes. To me the front and back pages are where you strike it rich!

The second thing that I have been doing is going into the grocery stores as early in the morning as I can so that I can scope out the prices and pick my items according to sales. No more grocery pickups for me. Walmart usually was out of 10-15 items every time I ordered but didn’t tell me until the morning of my pickup. It was frustrating me because I would then have to go into a store anyhow. I used Instacart a couple of times and the fees and the higher prices on each item weren’t worth it to me.

I also have been very conscious of using up everything we buy. Not so much as a teaspoon of food goes to waste!  We eat leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We use everything. We eat a lot of salads and soups to use things up. When I got home from my trip, I found potatoes going soft so I made mashed potatoes and froze them. Tomatoes were getting soft so I made spaghetti sauce. Onions were also getting soft so I diced and froze them. We had bread and rolls getting stale so I made salad croutons. There are so many other ways to use up your food. Don’t throw your money in the garbage! You work very hard to make that money.

I refuse to raise my grocery budget for the things that we buy and like. Fortunately, we have full freezers and most of the items in them are meat, poultry, fish, and seafood. It should last us at least 6 months. Perhaps by then, some of the meat prices will come down a bit. If not, we will find cheaper ways to get our protein like eggs, beans, dairy, and peanut butter.


We do have a good supply of frozen and canned vegetables and fruits too. Condiments and sauces are in good supply too. We will use them up and perhaps learn to make many of them. I make quite a few now but not nearly as many as I could make. 

I told Hubby that we are going back to basics for as many things as we can as our food gets used up. As rolls and bread get eaten, I will make those things from scratch. Flour and sugar is cheap purchased in 25 lb. bags or stocking 4 or 5 lb. bags during the holidays. I will be checking recent prices at all of my grocery stores and the warehouse club. I am doing a good job of checking most prices and updating my price book. 

I will buy as little prepared foods as possible. 

In the future,the majority of my shopping will be done around the perimeter of the store: produce, dairy, meat, bacon, fish, seafood and some frozen(mainly veggies, emergency pizzas, and ice cream). The bakery will be skipped. I already make most of our cold cuts from cooking turkey, chicken and ham. We slice them ourselves on our meat slicer. 

The grocery aisles will mostly be potato chips, tortilla chips, popcorn kernels, baking goods, dry beans,  canned tomatoes and tomato sauces, canned vegetables and fruits, corn or flour tortillas, chocolate chips, cheap cake and brownie mixes($1.00 or less), canned pumpkin, cranberry sauce(around Thanksgiving), cheap after holiday candy(for Halloween, gifts, and to put in cookies), nuts, coconut, olive and avocado oils, vinegar, spices including salt, coffee, diet soda or flavored seltzers for Hubby, Crystal Light, Gatorade Zero, canned meats like tuna and chicken, pasta, rice, evaporated milk, raisins, cream soups, salsa, olives and pickles, bouillon cubes, tomato powder, chicken and beef broth when it is cheap at Thanksgiving, a few boxes of cereal, pizza sauce, rock bottom priced spaghetti sauce, and a few other things that I have probably forgotten. I will buy more store brands of these items if they are cheaper.

I am including HBA, OTC meds and vitamins, paper products and cleaning products in our budget. They will be purchased when needed on sale and with coupons if there are any.

We spend $500. a month now on our food and our HBA, OTC medicines and vitamins, paper products, and cleaning products. I do not plan on raising that any time soon. I will include any family feasts or holidays in this budget also.

Any Fetch gifts cards or bottle deposit money will be turned back into the grocery budget.

To be right up front with you, we have not spent any of the $1200. of stimulus that I have earmarked for  stockpiling meat at rock bottom prices. We got $2400, in stimulus. We saved the other $1200. As the freezer starts to get empty, I will be looking for rock bottom meat and frozen vegetable deals and will use some of that stimulus money to restock it.

I will keep track to the penny what we spend and on what and share it with you. I will also be updating our inventory so that we always know what we have on hand. 

How do you plan on making every penny of your food budget count? Are you buying cheaper cuts of meat or more store brands? Are you eating every drop of food and not wasting any? Have you cut back your portions? I would love to know. We can each help each other by commenting and telling us your tricks to contain your food budget.