2011 grocery totals to date

nice picture to go along with my dead and butchered chicken discussion?

I realize it is May already, but in my absence I never finished posting all my purchases for April. Last month I bought 28 packs of chicken over the course of 3 days. Why so much chicken you ask? Because Bilo had the chicken I like to buy (well, I like to buy local, organic chicken but the price is too steep for me!) on sale for $4.50 a lb and there were coupons out for $1.50 off a pack. I only had two of those coupons so I ordered 20 from Ebay. I was sent 28. I had to hit Bilo three times to get all the chicken I wanted (minus two packs because I got what I could) but it is worth it to me to have so much chicken in my freezer at a great price!

I did not take pictures of all the chicken. I am sure that you guys are really upset over that but you will just have to get over it and use your imagination. And no, I did not take a picture of the inside of my fridge to show you all the chicken crammed in every little spot. My fridge is scary enough on a regular basis so you definitely don't want to see it with 30+ pounds of poultry in it.

Oh, and there are some purchases here that are not poultry related. I promise. I must admit that this is a long, kinda boring post. So feel free to skip to the end to hear my confession if you like (unless you are a grocery nerd and like reading everything I bought) :)

Bilo Trip #1

12 packs of chicken
4 cans of crushed pineapple (yes, in BPA lined cans, I know)
bottled lime juice
bottled lemon juice (yup, bottled, get over it)

Total - $46.70

Bilo Trip #2

10 packs chicken
2 Greek Yogurt
small box disposable spoons (please don't leave me!)

Total - $44.53

Bilo Trip #3

8 packs chicken
4 bananas

Total - $21.37

Aldi

32 oz frozen mango chunks
pineapple
frozen salmon
frozen  white fish
pepper grinder

Total - $14.94

Earth Fare

3 dozen eggs - 2 for $2.18 each (1 for free! coupon expired)
tamari sauce - $4.49

Total - $8.81

Target

4 boxes of creamy mac n cheese - $2 each (yup, boxed...it is for the kid's birthday and he likes this kind)

Total - $6.06

My Favorite Things

2 50lb bags organic white wheat kernels
1 50 lb bag rolled oats

Total - $129.79

Ebay

chicken coupons

Total - $1.75

I also took out $40 cash to go pick strawberries (I have half of that left for May) and spent $12.60 on something else at Bilo (or so Microsoft Money tells me) but I don't remember. I am sure that ice cream was involved though.

So if you have stayed with me this far (or even if you just skipped to the end) you deserve to hear my confession. My confession is that I have been a very bad thrifty model the past couple months. I mentioned that I was changing how I look at my grocery budget so you guys would know that some months would be high. But they have been really high these past couple months! I may be able to show people how to spend less overall, but I am not a good model for someone on a strict budget. Though I do think my tips on getting started would help anyone.

Okay, before you die from suspense, here are my 2011 grocery totals to date:

January: $200
February: $200
March: $1303.79 (this includes my CSA and a large bulk order and money had been set aside for both)
April:  $693.53

That makes a grand total of $2,397.32!


But in my defense, I have really been working on adding basics to my food storage. I am definitely not going to hit an average of only $200 a month...so maybe I should change that to include my food storage purchases? Good news is that I KNOW I will not have another month that high again :) I will be stocking up on local fruit this summer, but other than that my food purchases from here out will be minimal. I hope...

This post is included in the Grocery Cart Challenge Shopping Round Up.