Monthly Grocery Haul + All Other Grocery Spending so far this month

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If you read about the financial stresses that we’re dealing with now, you can understand why we’re being extra careful with our grocery spending this month. You can see my menu plan and how I came up with it here.

I love having a category that I feel completely in control of. When we need to cut our monthly spending, I know I can do that with the grocery budget. After going for 3 months without going to the store at the start of Covid, I know that it is possible. Completing a self-imposed Quarantine Food Storage Challenge of just eating what we already had at home really taught us to be creative and make the most of our food storage. And we didn’t have any warning to prepare for that challenge.

After that experience, having a month where we just spend less than normal on groceries isn’t really very difficult. Plus, it’s a good opportunity to eat through some of our food in the freezer that’s starting to get older. Not only does that prevent waste, but clears out more space for some freezer meals and possibly stocking up next month.

We also still have our garden producing lots of tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini. Plus, we’ve got peaches, plums, and apples from our orchard. I also committed to making all of our bread for this month. Now that it has cooled off, I don’t mind baking. I usually make four loaves of whole wheat bread at a time. My 14-year-old son makes soft French bread pretty regularly too.

We’re about half of the way through the month. Here is what we have spent on groceries so far.

Walmart

To start the month off, I bought 10 gallons of milk. I thought it would be fun to keep track of how many gallons of milk we went through in a month. We put three or four in the fridge and the rest in the freezer to hopefully limit the number of times we go to the store.

• 10 gallons Milk @ $3.52 x 10 = $35.20

$35.20

Grocery Outlet

I volunteer teach a community English class every week and sometimes my three younger kids come with me to play with any of the children of my students. They were especially good, so we got a treat on the way home.

• 1 gallon of milk @ $3.59
• Ice cream bars $2.99

$6.58

Sam’s Club

Earlier in the month on my way to Arizona, I found a great deal on mozzarella sticks (that I talked about here), so I got three boxes, though I left one with my dad. We also decided to try some freeze dried caramel M&Ms that were more than half off!

• Mozzarella Sticks (6 lbs) $4.51 x 3 = $13.53 (sale price)
• Pop’d M&Ms (19 oz) $5.98 (sale price)

$30.26

Then when we returned to California, we stopped by Sam’s Club again to see if the mozzarella sticks were still there, but they were gone. We got some more M&Ms along with some muffins and yogurt for breakfast, plus I knew we were out of sour cream.

• Honey Vanilla Greek Yogurt (48 oz) $5.74
• Muffins (6 ct) $6.74
• Pop’d M&Ms (19 oz) $5.98 (sale price)
• Sour Cream (48 oz) $5.54

$24

On the 11th of the month I finally made a monthly grocery trip. I marked the items that were on sale and also linked to them in case you want to get them while they’re still on sale. Here’s my Sam’s Club pick-up haul.

• Honey Nut Cheerios (48 oz) $5.64 (sale price)
• Frosted Flakes (55 oz) $5.88 (sale price)
• Cottage cheese (48 oz) $6.36
• Carrots (5 lb) $3.37 x 2 = $6.74
• Celery (2.5 lb) $4.86 x 2 = $9.72
• Taco seasoning (23 oz) $5.98 (sale price)
• String cheese (48ct) $9.47
• Butter (4 lb) $10.22 x 2 = $20.44
• Flour (25 lb) $9.98
• Burrito Tortillas (40 ct) $8.98
• Salsa (38 oz x 2) $7.48
• Pork Sausage (2 lb) $7.34 x 3 = $22.02
• Shredded cheese (5 lb) $12.77
• Uncooked tortillas (36 ct) $4.73 (sale price)
• Chicken breast ($2.49/lb) $26.67
• Sugar (10 lb) $6.58 x 2 = $13.16
• Eggs (5 dz) $6.94 x 2 = $13.88 (sale price)
• Bananas (3 lb) $1.47 x 4 = $5.88
• Romaine hearts (6 ct) $3.96
• Canola oil (192 oz) $13.88

$213.62

I also got Pantene shampoo and Oxiclean. They go in our “household” category, but they were on a really good sale, so it’s worth mentioning in case you use those too!

Walmart

We have had several other Walmart pick-up trips that include other household items along with food items. I got the oatmeal cream pies for my son to bring to school as a birthday treat. I will put all of those purchases together here:

• Shell pasta (16 oz) $.98 x 5 = $4.90
• Lentils (16 oz) $1.92 x 3 = $5.76
• Oatmeal cream pies $3.38 x 3 = $10.14
• Corn tortillas (80 ct) $2.97
• Cream cheese (8 oz) $1.10 x 6 = $6.60 (sale price)
• Whole Milk $3.52 x 3 = $10.56
• 2% Milk $3.32 x 4 = $13.28
• Ham lunch meat (32 oz) $8.48
• Cheese (32 oz) $6.96
• Brownie mix $1.88 x 2 = $3.76
• Egg noodles (16 oz) $1.78 x 4 = $7.12

$80.53

Total Spent

Our total grocery spending for September as of September 17th is $390.19. The only other thing I anticipate buying is more milk. We still have a couple of gallons in the freezer of the 18 gallons we have purchased, but we go through quite a bit of milk! Right now our household is a family of 7 since our oldest is away at college. If she were home, we’d need even more milk!

Stay tuned to see what our final grocery spending total for the month is, along with all of our family’s other spending, in September’s transparent monthly budget update!