Thrift Food Plan report October 2017

It’s like the newspaper reads my blog! Here’s an article published about the amazing deals to be had at WinCo.
Well darn it, despite being careful all month, I did not meet my goal of my weekly groceries averaging out to be $37.50 (or lower).  In good news, my weekly food costs, were $43.02, which was a new low.  And they were lower than August and September by  $2.18 and $3.49 respectively.  I’m still spending less than the low-cost food plan.

In order to have met my goal, I would have had to shave $22.08 off my grocery bill.  One thing that may have got in the way was making two birthday cakes.  I had to buy honey from New Seasons, rather than WinCo, and that cost $10.00.  It would have been cheaper if I planned ahead.  Also, I bought bulk sliced almonds to decorate the outside of one cake and then nearly had a heart attack when I looked at the receipt and noticed they were $5.50.  I have both leftover honey, which will go to bread making, and almonds, which will be used for a meal this week.

I think the other thing that would help is if I wouldn’t cook from recipes so much, as that usually results in having to buy random things I wouldn’t usually purchase. But I find that without a recipe, my food becomes very bland, as I’m not well versed on improvising spices.

I have been substituting ingredients to ones I have on hand.   I have a delicious bean and cheese pie recipe that called for one can pinto beans and one can garbanzo beans.  I had on had two jars of frozen pinto beans, so I used them instead and the resulting dish was delicous.

On the last weekend of the month, I bought ingredients for “inside out stuffed pepper soup” which called for both ground beef and Italian sausage, plus a red bell pepper.  All of those ingredients are spendy.  I would have been better off sticking to a bean soup for this last weekend of shopping.  The previous week I had too much celery and I googled “celery and bean soup” which gave me this amazing recipe.  I marveled that an onion, celery, beans and salt could end up tasting that good.  Although, I had to buy white beans at Fred Meyer (more expensive) because I didn’t buy any on my monthly WinCo shopping trip.  They will be on the November WinCo shopping list.

On the plus side, I cooked 22 meals for Matt this month, which gives me a tidy $90.20 payment from him.

November will bring its own challenges with Thanksgiving, so I will think of ways to make that holiday affordable.  I see why employees used to get hams and turkeys as presents around the holidays.

3 thoughts on “Thrift Food Plan report October 2017”

  1. I’m impressed! You’re certainly doing much better than me, and I’m working to cut down on my own monthly food costs. Our big problem is that neither of us particularly enjoys cooking, so we get lazy and order food a lot. Bad for the budget and for the arteries! I’m constantly striving to cook at home more. A website that’s helped me is Budget Bytes. Her recipes are simple enough that I don’t get overwhelmed.

    1. Good for you for cooking more. When Dan also starts doing this, you will be golden.

      Thanks for the Budget Bytes recommend. I need to be better at finding recipes that are tasty and also inexpensive. It’s amazing to me how many recipes call for red bell peppers, which are never inexpensive. I just looked at the site and her Sweet Crunch Winter Salad is getting made next week.

      I recently purchased Good and Cheap by Leanne Brown. It turns out you can also download it for free at her website: https://www.leannebrown.com/

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