Saturday, June 2, 2012

Groceries - week 3

Groceries for this week, where I think I got it all, but honestly? The family came down with the flu by the end and so this is going to be a kind of 'eh, hopefully?' kind of week on the budget front. And I do realize how lucky I am that I can HAVE a lazy budget front sometimes. I can't stop cooking every day - which takes on a sort of half-stoned feel with the flu -but at least I can relax a little about the money sometimes.



A very strange week, all around. Buying groceries at a Farmer's market in another state and taking half of them home with me, because my Farmer's market would be over and done with and I'd have nothing I could buy at home!

Budget for this week is $150 + $34.60 (from last week) - $184.60

Whole Foods -$156.67
Biggest purchase - 2 bottles of olive oil for $60. This is the only brand of olive oil that we've found which doesn't make us react, and we happen to be IN the state where we can actually get it at the store rather than having to order online and pay shipping. Obviously, we're getting extra. This is what I try to retain extra from the budget for, but this has gone up in price since last time, so we'll see how the budget survives it.

Whole Foods - $33.71
Crappy food I can eat on the run with the kids, because I was so busy sewing costumes for an event that I never managed to make food for it, too.

Farmer's Market - $43
All organic from a sustainable farm. 5 persian cucumbers, 1 celery, 6 potatoes, 4 sweet potatoes, 3 garlic, 1 bunch carrots, 1 head lettuce, 1 bunch rainbow chard, 2 bunches cilantro (sigh, not at home, so no herbs here!). The garlic alone was $5.

Free!
5 artichokes from a friend's garden, 3 lemons from another friend's tree

Total: $233.38

$48.78 OVER the budget. Holy crap. This is what I get for buying my last set of groceries without checking the budget first to see how we were doing.

This does highlight something for me, though. In the past, our budget has been $200 per week for three people. I don't like that. It seems very high to me, and I have to make sacrifices in other areas of our lives to spend that much on food, sometimes. I've never sat down to see exactly what we spend where, though, and doing this is really, really helping me see where the money goes.

Our money pits seem to be:
1. Our special foods that I'd like as staples, like the olive oil. Without the oil, I still would have been within the budget.

2. The crap food moments when I don't plan well enough and have to buy food we can eat out of the house, like for the trip here last week and for the event this week.


I don't think the budget can support both of those. Either I man-up in the planning department or I do away with some of the foods that are staples-but-expensive. I think manning up is definitely in order, as I don't want to lose our oil, or our few nuts, or our salt. Not a real hard choice.

I'm SO glad I started doing this. It's a bitter pill to look over the finances and realize I screwed up by almost $50. It's going to make things tight. But at least I'm learning. And next week, when I've only got $100 bucks, I imagine I'm really going to remember to pay attention!

Although in the end, that olive oil? I LEFT IT in the apartment and drove home without it. Dang! That was our olive oil for the month, so no more of that for a few weeks. At least we eat meat, though, so I can save the fat from that for anything we need it for later.  :-)


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