Grocery Shopping & Misc.

This is gonna be kind of a random post, but first up:  Groceries and menu.

We had another fairly light grocery shopping week, which always makes me happy.  We had to hit all 5 stores though, and here’s what we spent:

• Meijer – $11.93
• Giant Eagle – $1.99
• Fresh Thyme – $19.84
• Aldi – $8.07
• Walmart – $8.31

For a grand total of:  $50.14.  That’s only half our weekly allocated budget, so that’s a great start to March grocery shopping!  And lest anyone think we waste significant amounts of gas driving from store to store… they are all within 5-10 minutes of each other.  We go to Aldi first, which is the furthest away from home.  Then we drive back towards home and hit the other 4.  And it saves us a pretty pretty penny to shop at all 5, although we don’t necessarily need to stop at all 5 every week.

The menu this week is another simple one.  Hot dogs, waffles, eggs, sausage, toast, soup and sandwiches will make up our lunches.

Dinners

Friday – Spaghetti {was supposed to have salad with this, but I forgot to make it.}
Saturday – Beef roast with potatoes and carrots
Sunday – Baked pasta with leftover meat sauce, with salad this time
Monday – Leftover roast beef with creamy noodles
Tuesday – Chicken stir fry, egg drop soup
Wednesday – Beans and rice, steamed veggies

In other frugal news… finding bras on clearance is a gift from the lingerie gods.  I have been buying a specific type of bra from Walmart for a while.  I was in need of some replacements, and when I went looking… they were on clearance for $3!  Although it’s maybe not such great news, since it means they apparently aren’t going to carry them anymore.  That’s a bummer.  But 7 bras for something like $22, I’ll take that!

We went on a not-as-frugal-as-I-thought side trip today.  I was looking for inspiration for a photo for my 365 blog, and I wanted something outdoors.  I recalled having been told there was a park north of where we were headed, so I thought we’d go check it out and perhaps get a nice shot.  I thought it was going to be a short diversion, but it ended up being more like a little trip.  The park was far north of where I thought it was, which meant we were using gas to drive up there just for a couple of photos.  It was too cold and muddy to properly enjoy the park otherwise.  When we did get there, though, we discovered the park was significantly larger than I thought, and found ourselves wondering how we didn’t know about such a large state park within an hour drive of us.  So although it wasn’t exactly a frugal trip today, it WILL be a frugal trip when we go back with a picnic lunch and a few hours to enjoy it.  And I did get a couple photos.  The best one is going up on my 365 Photo Blog, but here’s one that is a stark reminder it is not fun-in-the sun time yet.  A picnic table covered in snow is not great for picnics.

On tap for tomorrow?  A no-spend Saturday!