There were many grocery shopping trips this week. Very many. I was out of town for the biggest of these. Am I pointing fingers? Perhaps.
The weekly grocery total ($189) included $15 worth of gardening supplies (although I bought stakes and not steaks, I count these as groceries). It also included a $12 chicken/cooking lesson that counted as much toward child rearing as food. Aside from that, it mostly included grocery store stuff, either from the "her" list (lemon juice, carrots) or the "his" list (ice cream, pineapple slices, gatorade, olives, potatoes, ramen noodles, ketchup, apples, and tuna).
The five week average is $201. Or in Roman numerals, $CCI. I do not give up on the optimism that time will prove this is an unrealistically high number for our household, even as I do sort of wish we could give up on purchases of gatorade and ramen noodles. But there you have it: I married my guy for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for organic or artificial.
Our pantry is still full of food I canned last summer. Our freezer is still full of yummy food we have not gotten around to eating (in fact, I still haven't gotten out the "March" pillowcase of frozen foods). And because I really do want to empty out the freezer by early summer, what lies ahead for our family is an exercise in organization . . . translating existing food into meals. Avoiding grocery store trips that turn into spending sprees. Ahem.
It's also a time to take notes and prepare for what we should "lay up" more of for next year. Because --ramen noodles and gatorade aside -- there are foods we're buying now that I would gladly buy locally and in season, food that I might be able to store so we have it ready to go, even as late as March or April.
The weekly grocery total ($189) included $15 worth of gardening supplies (although I bought stakes and not steaks, I count these as groceries). It also included a $12 chicken/cooking lesson that counted as much toward child rearing as food. Aside from that, it mostly included grocery store stuff, either from the "her" list (lemon juice, carrots) or the "his" list (ice cream, pineapple slices, gatorade, olives, potatoes, ramen noodles, ketchup, apples, and tuna).
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| This fifth week of the record keeping, |
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| Our average spending per week is down from $577 (week 1) to the current $201 (week 5). |
It's also a time to take notes and prepare for what we should "lay up" more of for next year. Because --ramen noodles and gatorade aside -- there are foods we're buying now that I would gladly buy locally and in season, food that I might be able to store so we have it ready to go, even as late as March or April.
- Carrots: we love carrots, and I didn't have a way to can them last year. Now I do.
- Potatoes: I have to learn how to store them so they don't rot en masse.
- Apples: especially apples for cooking.
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