I really appreciate working air conditioning in our truck!

Today’s stock up shopping trip was a smaller one, and I even managed to be under budget, but not by choice in a couple of places.

The big stock up shop will be at Costco, in the middle of next week. This trip was going to be Canadian Tire, then Walmart, then the international grocery store.

I goofed and found myself in the wrong lane to go to Canadian tire, so I ended up going to the international grocery store first, rather than trying to find a way to turn around and go back.

The international grocery store shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so I decided to go there, first. I didn’t bother taking a photo of that shop. I got a couple of cheap plastic table cloths for our dining table to protect it from the cats, some tomato twist ties, a square box of facial tissues for the truck and a couple of large ice packs for future stock up shopping trips, since we’ve had to get rid of a few older ones. That trip totaled $22.12

It was lunch time by then, so before I did my shopping at the grocery store, I got some dim sum and a drink for lunch. That totaled $19.94.

Then I finally got the shopping done. In this store, there are things we get that are more like special treats, things we don’t find elsewhere that we normally go to, and sometimes some unusually good sales.

This is what $120.32 looks like.

Yeah. Seriously. That’s it.

The cooked and raw prawns were both a reduced price. We normally get Basmati rice at Costco, but we were completely out, so when I saw the sale price, I grabbed a bag. Last of all was the raspberry syrup; a Polish product that isn’t usually in stock, so I made sure to grab a bottle.

That’s is. Eleven items. I fit most of it in a hard sided insulated back, with ice packs, and still had room to put the soft sided bag with the rest of the ice packs on top. The cans and the bottle of syrup went into another hard sided bag that got added to, later.

Usually, I’d be putting the bags in the box of the truck, but with just a couple of bags, I kept them in the cab, with the air conditioning.

My next stop was Canadian Tire. There were two things I was looking for there. Litter pellets and a new air filter for our lawn mower. It’s a Canadian Tire brand, so only Canadian Tire carries the air filter. I meant to get one last month, but they were out of stock in both Canadian Tires we normally shop at.

They were still out of stock!

So all I got there were 4 bags of stove pellets for the litter boxes, which totaled $33.56 after taxes. I didn’t bother getting a photo of those. 😁 I didn’t take the time to look for anything else, since I had stuff on ice in the truck, and I knew that cab would be heating up fast.

Last of all was the Walmart. The girls had a couple of things they asked me to pick up, but the rest was mostly just “pick up enough to last us until the Costco trip”.

This is what a total of $269.44 looks like.

*sigh*

I got a couple of soy milks for the girls as well. Normally, I get 2L cartons from the fridge, but they were completely sold out, and I grabbed the last two 1L self stable cartons when I found them.

There was a really good sale on bacon, so I grabbed two packages of thick cut bacon. The beef stew wasn’t on sale, but it was the only thing that both looked good and was affordable. I’m actually quite shocked by how much of the beef I saw today was turning colour! I grabbed a pound of butter – just one, as I’ll be stocking up on butter at Costco. There’s a couple of vegetable bouillon cube boxes in there, a bag of raw pumpkin seeds that will be ground up to include in the cat soup (though it’s something we can eat ourselves, too), and a bag of avocados. It’s been a long time since we’ve bought avocados, they’ve become so expensive! I got 2 bags of pasta for now; I’ll stock up on pasta more at Costco. Finally, I picked up and energy drink for the ride home. That totaled $127.43.

Yup. We spent more on cat food than on food for ourselves!

Then, as I was packing things back into the cart, I remembered I was supposed to get ice. I had even picked the cash register that was next to the freezer, so I could grab them at the last moment! Thankfully, the cashier allowed me to get 3 bags in between the customer she was ringing through, and the next one – and the next one in line was okay with it, too. We even joked around about it.

The three bags of ice came out two $10.44

So that was the shopping and lunch. I also got gas.

On the way to the city, I’d stopped to get $40 of gas, plus some perogies and a drink for breakfast. I also grabbed some beef jerky to keep in the truck for road munchies. That totaled $60.77 I was under half a tank when I left home. With gas at $1.539, that brought me a bit above half. By the time I was done shopping, I was at half a tank. So, on the way out, I decided to put in another $40 in. (I’ll do a fill, and reset my trip counter, at Costco) I decided to get myself an ice cream bar as a treat, which brought the total to $45.37

So, everything together, including gas (which comes out of a different line in the budget), meals and beverages, the grand total for the day came out to $571.52. Taking out the gas budget items, the groceries, etc. budget items totaled $465.38

We didn’t get a lot for that money, that’s for sure.

I’m not looking forward to seeing how much the Costco trip is going to cost!

The Re-Farmer