Once a month grocery shopping....it can be done!

Whew!  I have spent the last two days doing enough grocery shopping to last us a month.  I spent most of last week reading suggestions on how to do this, coming up with meal plans, seeing what I have in stock here and making up shopping lists.  On Sunday, we picked up the newspaper so that I could also go through the ads and coupons.  I feel confident that the next time I do this, it won't be as time consuming and it will definitely be more efficient.  

This time around, I wasn't always sure which store had the best prices.  I took the advice I found in both blogs and in the book "America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money" by the Economides and started noting the price and size of certain items (like flour, sugar, cornstarch, etc) at each store.  I also had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the supplies I will need to make my own laundry detergent, fabric softener, household cleaners and hand soap.  This resulted in going to both Apple Valley Health Foods and Harvest Health Foods.  I won't need to pick up those supplies regularly in the future and now I know that Harvest Health Foods is the place to go.  I'll also be looking online for a good resource for essential oils since HHF did not have all of the scents that I wanted.

All in all, the shopping spanned over two days, at eight different stores and probably took me about seven hours including unloading and putting away.  Yesterday I hit Target, Meijer, the dollar store, Apple Valley Health Foods, Harvest Health Foods and Sam's Club.  This morning I finished my shopping out with a trip to Horrock's and Aldi's.  Because I am way too particular, I had to put everything away as soon as I came home from each trip.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of all of my great finds...but here is one from my final trip to Aldi's this morning:

 This was my largest trip and took the most time to put away.  Now it feels like every nook and cranny is stuffed to overflowing and I feel like I've accomplished something!

Here is our back freezer....I don't think I could fit much else in.

And some of our pantry cupboards

I tallied up my receipts and it came out to a total of $437.  It went over my budget of $400 but it's not bad for my first trip.  I also bought several items that I won't need to buy every month like all of the supplies for my laundry detergent, etc etc.  In addition, Aldi's had boneless turkey breasts for $7.99 and we always get one for Thanksgiving in addition to a 16-18 pound turkey so I just couldn't resist for that price!  

In further homemade adventures, I started my very first attempt at making yogurt this morning.  I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!