Grocery Recap - End of Week/End of Month

Here is this week's grocery recap.   I think this is going to be my last one, at least for a while.  My intent in doing these was to get my grocery spending back under control, which I have.  If I find the budget spinning out of control, I may pick this series up again in the future...the accountability works wonders for me.

This week I went over budget by $10, but I expected that I would because I made a run to Sam's Club and because I stocked up a little.  I also (finally) spent a chunk of money in the paper products category, also because of going to Sam's.  Some of you may have been wondering if we ever buy bath tissue...as you can see, we do!  Just not often.  We also still buy paper towels.  We're moving away from paper towels as much as I can convince my family to do so, but there are a few jobs where they still make sense for us.  Also, most of our used paper towels (except those that end up with meat, dairy or harsh chemicals on them) go straight into our compost pile.  That's not much, but it's something. 

And I have to say that yeah, maybe I could find better prices on our paper towels and bath tissue, but it's not as easy as it sounds.  A couple of times I thought I had, but the rolls were "super" or "jumbo" or "large" instead of "mega" and "double", so I wasn't comparing apples to apples and didn't get as good a price after all.  Not to mention that smaller packages meant I had to buy more often.  So I just quit looking and get them both every 2-3 months at Sam's and call it good.  I know that the price is good, if not rock bottom, and good is good enough for me in this case.

Groceries:

Needed now: 1 quart half & half, large bag string cheese (lunch food), 2 pounds butter, 1 head lettuce, 10 pounds potatoes, 1 lb. dry garbanzo beans, 1 gallon milk, 5 lbs. all-purpose flour, 1 lb. frozen corn, 4 cans green beans (it's a veg. that Kat will eat), 1 lb. ground turkey, 42 oz. rolled oats, 12 oz. bag of prunes (Kat and I eat these just because we like them), 4 lb. sugar, 2 lb. strawberries, 5 lb. white whole wheat flour

Not yet needed: Another quart of half & half, 3 more pounds butter, 1/2 gallon milk, 16 oz. cream cheese, 2 cans evapomilk, 1 lb. dry pinto beans, 1 lb. dry great northern beans, 1 can black olives, 1 lb. whole wheat pasta, 8 oz. vermicelli noodles, 2 pkgs. flour tortillas

Splurges/unnecessary items: 1 can sliced pineapple, 3 limes and 1 bottle white wine (all for a Cinco de Mayo summer sangria), 1 pkg. Wholly Guacamole, 1 bag pretzels, 2 bags tortilla chips, two 2-ltr. Sprite,

Total spent, after a few coupons - $65.61


Other Categories: (not included in grocery budget)

Health/Beauty/CoPays - kids' acetominaphen tablets - $2.90
Paper products, cleaning/laundry supplies - Paper towels (12 "mega" rolls store brand), bath tissue (36 "double" rolls Northern), 216 ct. quart Ziploc bags (we reuse these for as long as we can) - $44.30
Cat food/litter - $0.00
Lawn/garden - $0.00
Dining out - Long John Silver's family feast thingy one night when nothing was going as planned.  It stuffed us to the gills, then Kat and Shane both had lunches from it the next day, too. - after a coupon, $21.83

Here are the totals of all categories for the entire month of April (keep in mind that since I shop on Thursdays or Fridays, this month had five shopping days for me).  Marches totals are in italics for comparison.

Groceries - $102.55   $208.95
Health/Beauty/CoPays - $131.90   $37.47
Paper products, cleaning/laundry supplies - $0.00   $51.33
Cat food/litter - $43.12   $9.73
Lawn/garden - $85.63   $105.48
Dining out - $47.85   $52.96

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TTFN, TTYL, see you in a couple of weeks.  :)