With grocery shopping! It just amazes me how much things have gone up in the last year. I find it hard to buy what we need for much less than 100.00 a week. I live in a very rural area with only a Dollar General and a small locally owned grocery store to shop at. If I want a bigger store/chain store I have to drive 45 minutes- 1 hour to a bigger town. The only store anywhere near me that doubles coupons is a Kroger and then it's only up to .50. By the time I pay 2.85 a gallon for gas for a gas guzzler, then drive that far I'm not saving anything!

Today I bought very little at our little store and spent 74.00! Here is what I got.......

Dollar General

3 bags of Lays chips for packing lunches - 2.00 each
4 boxes of probe covers for our digital thermometer - 1.25 each (these are VERY hard to find in my area this time of year so I stocked up)
2 2 liters of off brand diet cola for dh - .75 each

total 13.03

Little Corner Store

10# potatoes - 2.99
2 # carrots - 2.09(carrots are almost as much as potatoes!)
2.48 # bananas - 1.12
3 cake mixes - .89 each
1 gallon 2% milk- 3.29
1 head cabbage - 1.39
toilet paper - 5.99
2 dozen large eggs - 2.98
1 box instant mashed potatoes - 1.00 ( I use these for making sourdough bread)
1 pack of ham lunch meat - 2.99
1 8oz. block cheddar cheese - 1.99
1 4pk. of biscuits for making monkey bread - 1.25
1 small jar picante sauce - 1.55
2 3# bags of apples - 3.98
2 heads lettuce - 1.59 each!!!
3 tomatoes - 2.92
1 bag of tortilla chips- 1.89
1 pack of boneless pork chops - 4.96

Total 60.37

And my big deal for the day------ 2 packs of cheese, those big blocks with 160 slices in them??? for 5.19 EACH! There was no price on them so I asked the meat guy and he showed me a packing sticker on it and told me it was 5.19. I told him there was no way, it's usually 13.00-15.00. He told me it said 5.19 and if they tried to ring it up as more to tell them HE told me it was 5.19. So I bought TWO! This will last us a while and I know it's not really 5.19 and I will never get it at that low price again! A 24 pack of Kraft cheese was 3.19.

I feel like I get nothing for my money. I know I'm just going to have to adjust my thinking to the new higher prices and deal with it though! My family prefers most fruits/veggies raw and our little store charges a fortune for them and so much of the time they are half rotten. That limits me as to what I can buy there.

I feel your pain! It is astonishing how much everything has gone up in price. I try to only shop once every two weeks now. That is an awesome deal on the cheese, btw!

I know what you mean. I told my MIL this past weekend that I was anxious to see how much groceries would go up since the holidays were coming soon. I probably won't do my weekly grocery shopping until Sunday and I'm really dreading that too. Hubby wants to go with me and when he goes........it is double what I would normally spend. LOL! Oh well......he deserves a little junk food once in awhile.

I know what you mean. It's HORRIBLE. I went last week and spent $165...I was just sick.

Looks like you got some great deals even at a local store. Goodness....those prices seem lower or the same as the big chain stores around here.

I agree about the high cost of groceries. I usually go to Save-a-Lot for my staples, and they are almost as much as the chain stores.

Oh, and totally OT, but when I saw the price of your head of cabbage made me remember. Back years ago when I was a college student working at a grocery store, a little old lady pushed her cart to my register with only a head of cabbage. I checked her out, and her total was .74 cents. She said that was too much and walked out. When I called my manager for a transaction void, she asked me what happened, and I told her that she said it was too expensive. We both cracked up, but I can see how older people feel that may have been a high price. I just thought it was hilarious though!

QUOTE=crazymom4;144511]I know what you mean. I told my MIL this past weekend that I was anxious to see how much groceries would go up since the holidays were coming soon. I probably won't do my weekly grocery shopping until Sunday and I'm really dreading that too. Hubby wants to go with me and when he goes........it is double what I would normally spend. LOL! Oh well......he deserves a little junk food once in awhile.[/quote]

This is so true!!! We always spend more if DH goes with me!!!

I'm not sure if they have it in your area, but there's a program in many states called SHARE. It's usually run through community centers, churches, etc.

You can get approximately $36 worth of food for approximately $18 (at least here in FL) with a couple of hours of volunteer hours. ANYTHING you do for someone else counts. The center I used to go to let us 'bank' our hours if we had extra or you can give them to someone else. You request a box the month before and pick it up the next month and when you go in to get your box you place your order for the following month.

I don't know if they allow live links here, but if you just take out that extra space between the 'h' and the 't' you can use this link.
h ttp://www.wvoehp.org/Outreach/SHAREProgram/tabid/1179/Default.aspx

We used it for years in my house and it was such a help for augmenting my pantry during some really tight times. I hope this helps.

Tampa Mom

I know what you mean! Those prices seem a little lower than here, which just makes me more mad!!! I didn't need anything really this week (yay!) So I didn't even look at the flyer! My dd2 and dd3 are off track now so I don't need to pack their lunches every day, so that will help. Grocery prices are just crazy these days!!

I know, it's so frustrating and the fact that my hubby never grocery shops makes it that much more annoying. Like it isn't bad enough that I leave the grocery store annoyed with how much everything costs....but I have to come home and hear about how I spent too much...grrrrrrrrr

We feel the same way. We'll go grocery shopping, drop $200.00 and feel like we still have no food in the pantry. It is very discouraging.

Another thing you can look into in your area is Angel Food Ministry. http://www.angelfoodministries.com/ I just saw on their website you can now place orders online. How cool is that!!

It seems that I have to continuously work on my menu to maximize my money. But there is only soo much I can do. I wish there was something like the Angel Food Ministry in Canada.

I can relate. We went to walmart the other day and I barely got anything and walked out with an $80 bill. It seems milk goes up every week! Its so frustrating.

I do have to say that all these holiday sales are doing pretty good on my budget. I'm going way over for now, but I am stocking up and that will help in the long run.