Spending Freeze Adventure: Week 5 Shopping Trip

I haven't had a chance to post about the Spending Freeze lately because I have been crazy busy!   Between potty training Liam, canning applesauce (my first canning experience ever!), and helping to plan and execute a fundraising banquet I haven't had much time to sit down, let alone compose a post.  Now that life has slowed down, with the exception of canning applesauce, I feel like I have time to give you guys an update!

I finally found time (and money) to go shopping last Friday morning.  So it had been 11 days since my previous trip.  Will gets paid on Thursdays so I wanted to wait until payday before I went again.  This was an "expensive" week for grocery shopping.  For those of you who are familiar with Meijer they had their "10 Items for $10 and get the 11th Free" deal going on.  And those of you who are familiar with me know that I have a hard time passing these deals up because they can be extremely good.

There were so many good deals in this round of "10 for $10" and I knew I could definitely spend more than $10.  Unfortunately I had a conundrum on my hands.  Should I spend more than $10 and stock up on some much needed items, or should I stick strictly to my $10/week?  It was a really hard decision but I think I came up with a good compromise.  I decided that this month, instead of having $10/week I would give myself $40 for the whole month.  That way I wouldn't have to scrimp on purchasing things we could really use in the near future that were part of the "10 for $10".

So on Friday I stopped at 3 stores with my newly potty trained little buddy!  Thankfully he lasted through all 3 stores without needing to make a stop.  I'm LOVING having him potty trained!

Anyway, here's a picture of the results from our shopping trips:

 

Our first trip was McCord's where we picked up a $0.99 clearance bag of plums, 2 bags of shredded cheese (cheddar and mozzarella) and a couple pounds of bananas.  The plums (there were 12) were in excellent condition, definitely not what you normally consider "clearanced".   Another reason why I love, love, love McCords!  My total for this trip: $5.38

After McCords we hustled on over to Meijer to cash in on the "10 for $10" deal.  We picked up the following:

• 6 bags of pretzels (we use these for snacks and Will's lunch)
• 4 bottles of salad dressing - 2 ranch and 2 ceasar (we use these for stromboli, pizza, quesadillas, and of course salads)
• 4 jars of salsa (we use these in southwest chicken casserole and other Mexican themed dishes)
• 2 cans of pumpkin (it was really hard to only buy 2 cans!)
• 2 cans of refried beans (I know, I know, I could make them for less but with all the canning and other things I've been making from scratch this was a concession I was willing to make)
• 2 bags of tortillas (ditto the above comment)
• 1 bag of hot dog buns
• apple juice
• 2 packages of butter

My total for this trip was $22.35 

So the total for my Week 5 grocery shopping trip was: $27.73

I also purchased 40lbs of cat litter for $10.60 (a crazy good deal at Meijer and something I said we would continue to buy) and then Liam and I buzzed over to Walmart where I picked up a 21 quart canning pot for $21.17.  I really needed this pot in order to can  applesauce.  I purchased a pot a while ago that had been labeled "canning pot" but it didn't hold my quart jars.  Big problem!  Technically I'm not counting this as money spent because I used the money I make from teaching piano lessons which is not counted as part of our regular income.  We generally save this money to pay to have my piano tuned and for gifts throughout the year. 

Other spending: $31.77

By the way, if you're looking for a piano teacher for your beginner kiddos I've got openings!!