Weekly groceries---4/9/11

This was a "payoff" week, with a grocery total of about $40 ($39.99 actually, to be exact), and a lot of that total was taking advantage of some sales. 

The necessities---about $6.74 in produce and juices, $1.39 for bread, and $9.70 in dairy. We went to our secondary store to pick up frozen ground turkey, where the bad news is that it has gone up by $.09 a pound, and at $1.48, we'll probably start using some other meats more often. So $10.36 for the ground turkey and $9.34 for other meats that were on sale. Our only other purchase was a 4 pound bag of pinto beans for $2.46, which is $.61 1/2 a pound, to go into the pantry. 

We could easily have pushed this week's total for two people down to about $10 for a gallon of milk, bread, and a couple of pounds of ground turkey, and our freezer was really too full to buy as much more meat as we did. I expect the next week or two to be other payoff weeks, possibly bigger ones, unless there are deals too good to pass up (and that we have room for). Hams often go on sale about this time...


Doing a quick survey of the pantry, we have at least 25 pounds of flour, around 20 pounds of rice, around 20 pounds of legumes, at least 10 pounds of sugar, at least 15 pounds of pasta, a freezer stuffed full of meats, a couple of gallons of cooking oil, and a variety of canned foods and other non-perishables. We could easily go a couple of months without buying anything except milk and a little produce and possibly bread (summer is arriving early here and I hate to turn the oven on). 

I really wish we had room for a small freezer, we could take real advantage of some great deals then (and some things like flour and beans can be stored in the freezer to last even longer.) But even with all of this food, we COULD store more food that doesn't need refrigeration. However my experience is that we wouldn't use it before it was too old. I already expect that some of the pasta and beans will have to be donated to a food bank, but that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned.