Friday, February 3, 2012

Learning TO Be Poor: Preparing for the grocery haul

Oh the sense of dread is almost over whelming. Did  I mention I HATE to grocery shop..no really I loathe it, I'd rather be beaten with a spiked stick. First of all, let me say I have NEVER been a good grocery shopper, I forget the list and coupons at home, I impulse buy what can I say I suck at it.
However, over the course of starting this adventure I have gotten better. I still forget the coupons, (Its okay I know I will never be an extreme couponer LOL) but I have learned you can't put all your eggs in one basket so to speak. You have to compare prices, you have to do your research like any purchase. Sad isn't it. To buy food you need to do research. Ugh.
So how do you research for groceries? Well LOL it's not that hard. Okay the next time you grocery shop at your favorite store, when you get home make note of the prices of things you regularly buy, then just start price comparing. I have a note book just your average spiral notebook and I have three sections, one for Wal-Mart, Meijers and Aldi's the three stores I shop at most. It is time consuming I won't kid you but its well worth it. I will post pictures of it later today. I update it every time I grocery shop so it is current.  Okay let me say this,I know it seems like a lot of unnecessary work but for me at least,it is an important thing that i have even a very rough idea of what things cost. I have a limited budget to feed my family  on every month about 360.00  do the math that's roughly 90.00 a week. I NEED to know what things cost in order to best spend what I allow myself.


Okay so how should I best approach explaining this, really I don't have a clue I write like I talk which I'm sure makes this a ton of fun to read. I think, best approach I start with the basics of what I do to figure out what the hell I am going shopping for so if I ramble forgive me and bear with me this will probably be posted ,edited, re-posted, re-edited you get the idea.
Price list for Walmart

Price list for Aldi's




SO let's start;
First I have to admit I am not that organized I really am not. This is probably the ONLY area in my house or my life that is truly systematic and organized and only because if it's not it isn't possible.
Before I could even begin to try and slash my grocery budget and not sacrifice quality meals I had to figure out the following;
1. What did I already have in the house
2. What did I make frequently
3. Where was I wasting money (buying food and not using to it's full potential)
4. Where could I make reasonable cuts without again sacrificing quality, taste or nutrition
5. What could we absolutely NOT get rid of ( I am a diabetic I can't or shouldn't do real sugar so you get the idea.)


From there it was time to take "stock" literally of what I had in the house. At the time I started this I had a 7 cubic foot freezer about 1/4 of the way full of meat. My first sub goal (is that  a word) was to use the meat I had in the house before I bought more. It wasn't a hard thing to do there was a mix of chicken, pork and beef so possibilities were endless. Then came the task of going through the pantry and I can tell you it was a hodge podge of nothing you would think you could make a meal out.  As I went through each the chest freezer,the pantry,the freezer on the fridge I was making lists. Time consuming? A bit yes but definitely necessary.  Once the lists were complete I had an exact idea of what there was food wise in the house. I then set out to plan to some degree what I could make to use what we had.
In the past I was one to just shop wildly. I would make a list yes but  I never really stuck to it, nor did I price shop or any of that. Now absolutely but I digress.
In making the menu I re-discovered the sheer joy and peace I find when cooking, something that had been largely forgotten while I lived in a construction zone. I dug out mom's cook books, my own, poured over numerous foodie sites on the web and had a good idea of what I could do that would at least get the kid's to try it and that type of thing. 
By the time I was done , and this did take some time ,about a day to get the lists and find palatable recipes, I had enough stocked in the house for roughly four to five weeks (Scary isn't it) and my intention and ultimate goal was to use every morsel of it I could.
I won't tell you we did not have some um "mistakes" in the dishes I prepared but for the most part the kids were good sports and at least tried everything I made. Side perk my cooking repitoir was and continues to grow.
By the end of the four weeks the house was truly almost out of food and it was time to grocery shop. Ugh is all I can say i was so not looking forward to it at all. Did I mention I hate to grocery shop? 
The dreaded grocery list and believe me this time it was most certainly dreaded. As I sat pondering over what I thought most likely would happen I knew my habits as a shopper had to change. I did what anyone do, I started searching the internet about better ways, more efficient ways to grocery shop and save money while I was doing it. Stay tuned for more....

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