Meals for a Month (almost)

Yesterday morning, before our wonderful beach day that resulted in only a slight sunburn, I did what is (roughly) a month's worth of grocery shopping. Altogether I spent about $150. Here is how I did it:

Rather than go to Whole Foods or Publix or Winn-Dixie or any of the other grocery stores down here, I go to the Brothers Farmers Market. It isn't your usual farmer's market. It is indoors, open daily, and has canned and refrigerated goods too. But I mostly go for the produce, which is mostly organic and very affordable. I bought all this for $25, and I didn't even shop the overripe produce rack this time! The potatoes, romaine, and celery are all organic. This produce won't last us the whole month, but it will last us a good week or two anyway. I'll probably make another fruit and veggie run later.

Next, I drove to Supersaver Supermarket. I have found that there are several grocery stores with this name, all very different from one another. My Supersaver Supermarket is smaller than most, but has a lot of international goods. Plus, I can get a ton of meat there super cheap, because while everything is FDA approved, it isn't FDA graded, which is a process that adds to the cost of the meat. I don't shop here for meat every month, because the Brothers Farmers Market is right next door to a really good butcher shop. The meat there is hormone-free, but it is also pricier. So every few months I go to Supersaver and stock up on meat. I spent roughly $40 on meat yesterday, which will be enough for 21 dinners for two. We have one or two meatless meals per week, and go out to eat occasionally, so this will last us a while.Supersaver is also great for stocking up on other grocery items. I spent $85 in the rest of the store. The big ticket items were a 12-pack of toilet paper, eight bags of frozen veggies, two liters of olive oil, 1 gallon of cooking wine, and 12oz evaporated milk. No coupons were used on this trip.

When I got home, before I put everything away I made a list of all the meat, veggies, and starches on hand, to help with meal planning. I write down how many two-person meals of each item we have. This means that I don't have to start planning what to eat until an hour or so before dinner time - I just pick one thing from each category. Any leftovers get added to the convenience food list. I drove maybe 15 miles round trip to shop at both stores, rather than going to the Publix that is half a mile away, but saved a lot of money and didn't get distracted by impulse buys.