This morning, I got word that the parts for our van are in, but the work won’t be done until Monday.

I had hoped to do our big monthly shop with our own vehicle instead of my brother’s.  We aren’t out of food, but running low on things and have made a few trips into the next town to get enough to tide us over.

Unfortunately, doing that is murder on the budget.

My husband and I headed into town earlier in the day – his first real outing in some weeks – and were able to trade in his sharps container.  I had to decide whether or not to make the trip into The City, though.  Costco isn’t open on Sundays, so it had to be today, or we’d pick up some more “tide us over” stuff before coming home, then do the big shopping on Monday.  Assuming the van can be worked on early in the day.  Which I don’t know.  If it didn’t get worked on until evening, the shopping would be done on Tuesday.

So it was decided to use my brother’s van for another trip to The City, today.  The only thing we picked up on the way home was a couple of bags of deer feed, which only cost $12 each.  I considered picking up more bird feed, too – we’ve still got half a bag – but decided to check out what Costco had.

We’ve been working on an extensive list for the past while, knowing that we won’t actually be able to get all of it.  It all depended on what was left of the food budget.  So after double checking the numbers, both girls joined me for the 1 1/2 hour drive to Costco.  We didn’t go to the closest one, because it sucks – very tiny, terribly designed parking lot, and very hard to get in and out of.  There’s a third one we will check out one of these days, but not on this trip.

So to give an idea of what we get when stocking up for a month, here is a list of what we actually got, as opposed to what was on the list.

Dry cat food – three large bags (for the outside cats)
Wet cat food – 1 large case (for the inside cats, to supplement their dry cat food)
Bird seed – their bag of songbird mix was only about $11; cheaper than the local, single variety seed, bags, but also smaller.
Cat litter
large package of yeast
Milk – 4L homo milk (none of this low fat/no fat stuff! *L*)
Whipping cream – 1L
Butter – 6 pounds
Old Cheddar cheese – one of the giant blocks
Hummus – 2 pack
Peanut butter
Eggs – 5 dozen package
Frozen berries
Frozen vegetable mix
Rye bread – 2 loaf pack (for a baking break!  Plus, I haven’t found a place to buy rye flour, yet)
Tortilla wraps – the big pack of plain wraps
Tortilla chips
Potatoes – 20lb bag of Russets
Carrots – 10 lb bag
Sweet Potatoes – 3 lb bag
Yellow onions – large sack (can’t remember the weight)
Meats.  For this, it’s based on whatever is cheap or on sale.  This time, we got pork breakfast sausages, honey and garlic fresh sausages, a pork loin (aka a meat slug), beef stew, lean ground beef, ground pork, ground turkey, pork roasts (package of 2), pork chops (pork tends to be cheap, so we get a lot of that).  For the bigger package/cuts, they get broken down into smaller pieces to last at least a couple of days.
Laundry detergent
Shampoo/Conditioner
Toilet paper
Tax software
Package of 6 giant, super colorful, gorgeous mugs.  Like we need more mugs!  But they were only $20, and my daughter said she’d pay me back.  Not that I intend to let her!

The grand total was just over $530, but I also had my rebate coupon, which finally came to the right address, so that took off just over $90, leaving me with a grand total of just under $440.

What we DIDN’T get, that was on the list.

Cold drinks; I was hoping to get at least a case of V8.  We also sometimes get a case of Coke Zero.  No room in the flat cart, and for this month, not really room in the budget for it, either.  At some point, I want to stock up on canned drinks, just so I have something to offer visitors besides tea.
Coffee; my older daughter is the only coffee drinker, and she said she still had enough.
Flour; again, we ran out of room on the flat cart.  I’ve also found it at a better (sale) price at the regular grocery store we go to, so we’ll get more from there again, instead.
Crackers; need to have something for the hummus, right?  No room.  We do try to have some sort of snacks or treats, as much for the psychological benefits of having a “treat” as for the actual snack.
Olives; my husband had asked me to get nacho fixings – I got the chips, but didn’t see their big containers of green olives.  Not that we had room for it, anymore.  I’ll pick up a smaller jar from the regular grocery store, instead.
Black olives; for more bread baking.  Will be purchased at the regular grocery store.
Oil; I had intended to get a Costco sized container of vegetable oil, because of all the baking we’re doing, but not only did we run out of room, I never found the size I was interested in.
Popcorn; dang.  Completely forgot that one.  Not that we had room for it.
Canned tomato soup; we like to have canned soups for those days when we need to make something quick, or want something light for a late night snack.  It also works well as an ingredient.  No room.  Mushroom soup and New England Clam Chowder are also canned soups we like to pick up every now and then.
Apples; for things like fresh fruit and vegetables, we tend to get them at the regular grocery store, rather than Costco.  Their quantities are usually too large for our needs, and we’d rather get smaller amounts with more variety than giant bags of things.  Now that we have a root cellar, though, I was able to get the large bags of potatoes, carrots and onions.  They will be okay for the month.
Rice; we still have some, so it can wait this time around, but when we do get more, we like to get Basmati rice.

For the list of things we didn’t get, we likely won’t be able to get much of it this month, anyhow, for budgetary reasons.  As long as we have the basics and ingredients, we manage without.  We also already had a good stock of things like soup, toothpaste, dish detergent, etc.  Other personal grooming/hygiene products will have to wait for either a Walmart trip, the next time we go to The City, or the regular grocery store.  We might be able to get better prices in The City, but not enough to warrant the cost of gas to make the drive.

Next month, I hope to have enough room in the budget to hit a Bulk Barn for things we are starting to run low on.  I prefer to go there for dried goods, as they tend to have a greater variety of choices.  It’s always handy to have things like split peas, lentils, barley, etc.  Especially for slow cooker meals.

So with the big monthly trip, plus supplemental shopping later in the month (we’ll for sure need to pick up more eggs and milk by mid month, for example), we’ll be spending about $700 total, for the 4 of us.  Normally, my budget would be higher, but those “tide us over” trips kyboshed that pretty good. :-(

That’s food, household goods, personal hygiene products, pet supplies, and extras, like the software and those mugs we got, for 4 people, for 1 month.

What I find interesting about that is going back to what I read at Dining with Donald and his Joe Average Buys Groceries challenge.  This is based on the statistic that the average Manitoba spends $241 per month for food.  Times that by 4 and, for our household, that would be $964 average for just food, per month.

I honestly can’t remember the last time we even had a budget for that much food for the 4 of us for one month.  At our highest, we were spending about $1200 a month for everything we got at the grocery store/Costco.  Taking off for non-food items, it was probably more like $800 a month, average.

I’m not sure if that’s “good” or “bad”. :-D

The Re-Farmer