Thursday, April 2, 2015

March Stock-Ups

Hello, all!  Here is a summary of my stock-up items and spending for groceries for the month of March.  Our grocery budget is $180 a month, but we had also rolled some funds over from last month.  In addition, Husband transferred a prescription to King Sooper and received a $25 store credit.  With all of that, I still went a little over budget - $18.10.  I had forgotten to tally a receipt, but truth be told, I'm OK with going over.  I will subtract that overage from the April budget, to even things out.

Bean Burgers are a great way to get non-meat protein.
Just don't try to trick anyone by claiming they are beef!
Listed below are the items I bought in bulk to stock up for future months.  You'll notice different prices at different places for the same item, like butter.  The butter sales came late in the month, after I'd bought a 4 pound shrink-pack at Costco for about $2 a pound.  Later in the month I was getting butter for $1.25 and even .99 a pound!  That is a great price, so even though I had the 4 pounds of butter, I continued buying it at the lower price too.  I have a chest freezer and butter stores really well there.

I bought beef - both steaks and a roast, some fish, chickens, pepperoni, pasta sauce, sugar, flour, butter and more butter, strawberries for jam, condiments, yeast and more.

We spent a little more week-to-week on produce, but we had some really nice meals!
March Stock-Up Summary

Here is my list, along with my total spent on stock-ups:

              6 lb. Challenge butter ($5.94 after sale and coupon, paid with free gift card at King Sooper)
              8 lb. C&H cane sugar (3.98 after sale/coupon, paid with free gift card at King Sooper)
              20 lb. unbleached all purpose flour at King Sooper ($7.16, paid with free gift card)
              2 chickens at King Sooper (88/lb, paid with free gift card)
              2 boxes Bigelow green tea at King Sooper ($1 each after sale/coupon, paid with free gift card)
              2 pkg. Hormel Pepperoni ($2 each after sale/coupon, paid with free gift card)
$    2.76 4 jars Classico pasta sauce at King Sooper
$    1.49 1 jar Kraft mayo at King Sooper
$    4.96 4 lb. Challenge butter at King Sooper (price matched w/coupon at Walmart)
$  23.22  almost 6lb. bottom round roast at Safeway (sliced for teriyaki beef)
$    2.09 2 cans Rumford baking powder on clearance at Safeway
$      .92 2 3/4  lb. cabbage on markdown at Safeway
$    2.38 8lb. C&H cane sugar at Safeway
$    7.96 4 boxes Twinings Red Rooibos tea at Safeway (price matched at Walmart)
$    9.57 2.5 lb. smoked Provolone at Sam's Club
$ 10.99  2.5 lb. grated Parmesan cheese at Costco  (which I then found out was on sale at Albertsons - oh well!)
$   8.99  4 lb. breaded fish at Costco
$   7.98  4 lb. butter at Costco
$   4.79  2 lb. yeast at Costco
$ 27.34  almost 7 lb. petite sirloin steaks at Albertsons
$   2.98  1 lb. grated Parmesan cheese at Albertsons
$   1.18  2 bottles of Kraft barbecue sauce at Albertsons
$   9.52  8 16 oz. jars of Planter's Dry Roast peanuts at Albertsons
$   3.42  3 10oz. bottles of Gray Poupon Dijon mustard at Albertsons
$   4.47  3 30 oz. jars of Kraft mayo at Albertsons
$     .98  2 pkg. of oyster crackers at Albertsons
$   5.00  4 lb. of strawberries at Sprouts - used to make jam to last all year
$     .80  2.4 lb. yellow onions at Sprouts
$143.79

I started the month with $241.68 in the grocery budget, spent $143.79 on stock-up items, and just over $22 a week on items we needed week-to-week, like milk and produce.  All of that combined put me over by $18.10, so I will begin April with $161.90

Yellow cake, baked in a loaf pan, topped with vanilla pudding, fresh strawberries,
frozen blueberries and leftover canned pinapple.
April Stock-Up Plans

We have the Easter sales posted now.  Cook's shank ham is .99 a pound, and I have a coupon that will double to give me $1 off the total price of the ham.  I have a few of those coupons, but I will likely only purchase one ham, because I have almost two whole hams in the freezer right now.  I will also be able to get a little more butter for .99 a pound, so I will do that as well. Potatoes are 1.49 for a 10 pound bag - more than I'm used to paying (they have been going on sale for .99/bag), but still a good price.  As far as items I just need to stock, I will need to get some of the minced garlic that comes in a jar.  I'm not aware of anything else at this time, but I will be re-working the pantry this month, which will give me a chance to do a good inventory.

What deals will you be looking for this month?

8 comments:

  1. You did really well considering all the butter and beef that you were able to stock up on.

    We really do not need anything right at the moment except pepperoni in the 3# bag and 5# of mozzarella from Sam's. I was not able to stock up on flour like I had hoped since all the sales were for Gold Medal and I just do not like that flour so I did not buy it. I will be alright with what I have for maybe 2 more months so I can wait for a White Lily sale. We may need some ground chuck this month but I will go to the Fresh Market on a Tuesday when they have it for 2.99 a pound. This is cheaper by 50 cents a pound than Sam's so I will combine it with a trip to Aldi since they are on the other side of town but within a few blocks of each other. We will need produce of all kinds next week but I am waiting until after Easter since we do not need those things over the weekend. I am pretty well stocked for Easter except for a couple of items for my Strawberry Pretzel Salad which I will pick up on Friday. Our Easter ham is actually the one hubby received from his employer at Christmas. It was frozen when he picked it up so we just put it straight into the freezer since we did not need it for those meals. We will be out of town for 15 days total in May so I need to be mindful of that this month.

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    2. I have always wanted to try that strawberry pretzel dessert that all the recipes list as a salad! ;) We are well stocked right now too, though I'm sure I'll add a thing or two to my list when I'm re-organizing the pantry. Thanks for posting, Lana! You reminded me that I need to check the ground beef prices at Sams and Costco.

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    3. Here in the South jello salads are considered a salad. :) When I was growing up jello was also a salad. I don't know what the reasoning behind that is but we often have jello salads as part of holiday meals and never eat jello any other time of the year. That salad was a regular at church potlucks when I was a child so it is a very old recipe that has just come around again. It is so good with the sweet and salty all in one dish.

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  2. Since I am now the only one in my home,(widow) I have realized that I can have the foods I like to eat. I like fresh fruits and veggies. For this week I got a melon for .99 and beans for the same price. The asparagus was 1.97 and a head of lettuce was also .99. I made a chocolate cake with no frosting which cost 1.00 for the boxed mix. The beans are gone and the cake is quite a bit smaller than when it came from the oven. It's OK, though, I drink lots of milk with it!

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    1. You got some great prices! My mom bakes a cake, cuts it into serving pieces, then freezes them. Once they are frozen she wraps them and puts them in a container in her deep freeze. That way she can get out a couple of pieces when she and Dad want cake, but she says it lasts longer that way. :) Thanks for posting! :)

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    2. My husband and I eat a lot of foods that we could not on a regular basis when we had the kids at home. It is nice to be able to do so! I make cupcakes and freeze them. We can enjoy them for several weeks that way.

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  3. I love reading about what everyone is buying, where and what deals they got! Store names like "King Sooper" sound so exotic, LOL. You did a great job, Laura!

    I usually don't plan on stocking up in advance, I just wait until I see good sales and try to combine those with coupons. Right now Publix has their brand of butter for $2.00 for the lb but they are letting me use the $1.00 off Market Pantry butter Target printable coupon as a competitor coupon so I'm getting it for $1.00, yay! I got one yesterday and I'm going back today (running a couple more errands to maximize the fuel usage) to get one more. I was only able to print 2 coupons since my son's computer is having problems :( I will freeze it as well, provided that I can find room in my freezer. It is stuffed to the gills. I would like to get more ground beef if it comes back on sale but... not sure I have room for it.

    I posted my March recap a few days ago: http://imperfectlyfrugally.blogspot.com/2015/03/grocery-budget-report-march-2015.html My budget was $200 and I spent $199.59 with the help of coupons, rebates and a little bit of credit left from that American Express statement credit we had gotten for signing up for the card (no pharmacy gift card deals down here). I'm going to try and stick to $50 a week for April as well, but it might be a bit harder since my daughter will be living with us full-time so some staples will be consumed faster. Both my kids are teens and my son is a real locust :)

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