Homespun Simplicity...Market Day & Planning Ahead

If your like me, you have your certain days that are scheduled out for particular errands, meetings or appointments. Wednesdays are not typically my market shopping day, but for some reason I just felt the urge to tend to it today. We're already 10 days into the month and I haven't had to do any market shopping in a few weeks. If you know me, you know I like to try and stock up so I can limit my shopping to once a month if at all possible. Now, I did pick up some dry goods (grains and fresh vegetables) the later part of January which was my only market trip for the month, but as for 'major' shopping...I haven't really been since before Christmas. Now that's a good feeling. Truth be known, we could probably eat for another month before we really would notice a dent in our freezer and pantry goods. But...I went shopping anyway.

I went to both Kroger and Walmart this afternoon, so I was able to take advantage of more store specials than if I just limited myself to one store. Since they are both within 5 minutes of each other, it took no extra drive time or gas. This may not hold true for all locations but I wanted to share with you a few of what I thought were good buys...

Kroger had Healthy Choice pasta sauce marked down to $2.00 each. Yes, you can get the stuff in the can cheaper but to me, this has a better taste and is a better value over all. Also, for anyone that is watching their sodium intake, Healthy Choice had the lowest calorie and sodium numbers in comparison to the other brands on the shelf. Also, the smaller cans of Maxwell House coffee are on sale for $3.00. South Beach meal replacement bars at Kroger are on sale from $6.99 a box to $4.99. Top that with a dollar off coupon from the Kraft SB Diet website and that makes them only $3.99 a box. That's a steal!

I haven't canned up any homemade stock in a bit and since we are out, I went ahead and picked some up at Walmart. So far they are the only place I have found the Rachel Ray brand chicken stock. I really like Swanson, but the sodium is extremely high. I even looked at the "low sodium" and it was still up there in number. I opted for the Rachel Ray brand as it does have a good flavor and best of all...the sodium is w-a-y lower than all the other brands that were next to it (including the organic brands.) Walmart also has Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Wheat pasta for $1.18 a package. This was about .35 cents cheaper than Kroger. Also, if you are looking for rice vinegar at Walmart, make sure to check both the vinegar isle and the Asian section. I noticed the bottle in the vinegar area was $2.19 but if you got it off the Asian area it was only $1.98. That's a big enough difference in my opinion to justify the extra few steps in the store.

Kroger has their precooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts and tenders in the freezer section on sale this week. The regular price is $8.99 a bag, but this week they are $5.99. I don't usually buy it but since the price was right, I went ahead and bought a bag of the tenders.

Walmart had the large packages of boneless, skinless chicken breast halves on sale for $1.98 a pound. I picked up two packages with 10 breasts each in them and they were less than $10 a package. Kroger has strawberries this week for $2.00 a carton. The trays of precooked, peeled cocktail shrimp with sauce are buy 1 get one free. They also have fresh frozen gulf shrimp on sale. I got a 16/25 bag for $9 and change. The original sticker price was marked at over $20. So for something to have on hand until we go to the seafood market and catch a sale, this will work just fine. They're pretty large sized shrimp too & are de-headed for you. All you have to do is peel them. And yes, you will notice I have 6 dozen eggs. Using my coupons from the Incredible Egg website that was issued out last week for buy 1 get one 1 free...I was able to get 6 dozen for the price of 3 dozen. That was a $4.41 savings to me. We use eggs a lot so they won't go bad on us. So it was definitely a bargain.

We shouldn't have to go to the market again for food items this month or part of next. Yes, we may have to pick up toilet paper between now and then or other household goods, but by buying for the month (or more) it helps keep you on your budget, reduces time and gas from having to so many trips to the market during the month, as well as helps reduce the extra expense of going out to eat because you already have enough food at home to plan out your weekly or monthly menus. By knowing in advance what your cooking on any given day lessens the likelihood (at least in our experience) of calling out for take away meals. That's homespun simplicity at work!