After last week’s big snow, I was glad to get to the grocery store again. This week, I spent $38.73 so far and am planning to spend the remaining $11 on milk and bread. I spent $12 at Mars and $26.73 at Target. I don’t think I’ll detail everything in a long boring list unless it is an awesome deal I need to explain to you this year.

Photo: SXC

I do want to let you know that if you have a Mars grocery store near you, you should keep a close eye on their produce clearance cart. I get tons of limes, pears, apples and bananas that are just ready to eat off my local cart if I stop in Sunday or Monday. I’m talking about pounds of stuff for a few dollars. I also get cheap rolls there – $1.69 for fresh baked, incredibly soft blunt rolls.)

Target deals to keep an eye out for are clearanced popcorn (Pop Secret was on clearance if you have coupons.) and holiday Oreos in a blue package with snowflakes on it.

How did you do this week?

So, the two week grocery challenge will be up on Saturday and I’m not planning any more trips to the store because we’re going to be eating leftovers like Thanksgiving sandwiches. Yum. I think I like them better than the actual meal! Anyway, I was able to stay under $50 for two weeks. My brother did buy a second gallon of milk with his own money, but he was making a huge batch of rice pudding, which has been his specialty ever since he worked at a restaurant that served it and needed the milk for that.

Photo: Vangelis Thomaidis/SXC

What did I get?
Gallon of milk 3.60
Ton of tea from Amazon 16.00
Dinner out $7
Trip to Martin’s $22.65

• 2 bags of chips (Buy 1, Get 1 Free)
• Paper towels (I try to use rags when possible, but I haven’t been able to cut them out completely.)
• Macaroni salad
• 7 Banquet frozen meals (Only $2 total after instant savings. I had a coupon off 6, so I only spent 80 cents total on them. Look hard at the fat and calorie content. Most of them are pretty high in both, but there were a few that weren’t too terrible.)
• 2 Dr. Oetker pizzas (Best pizza in the world. I like the spinach pizza the best.)
• Foot long Italian sub

Free food – The really nice farmer my brother helps out when he can gave us a ton of yams fresh from the ground last week, my mom gave me some apples because the packing house was overly generous with her box of seconds and my sister stopped in at the bread outlet and gave me a bag of bagels, which I used instead of a bag I had in the freezer.

My total for two weeks was $49.25 and I actually got a break because of the three convenience meals. (Eating out, subs and mac. salad and pizzas.) We got to use up a lot of stuff that needed to be rotated out  of the pantry and had a lot of fun with new recipes, like pepperoni pizza bread in the breadmaker and veggie filled tortillas. (We’re going to try the pizza bread again sometime, but with more cheese. The oregano completely overpowered the cheese.)

Now, if you are going to try this challenge, you do need to have a stockpile to start with or you’ll end up being really frustrated and overwhelmed. You may also want to completely avoid the convenience stuff. The pizzas were only $2 each because I had coupons from last week’s Sunday paper, but the sub meal was $11 and the meal out was $7. That’s about a third of the money right there. If I wouldn’t have already had enough fruit and veggies to use, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to do the meal out.

I think I’m going to try the challenge again soon without convenience meals to see if I can really build the stockpile, at the same time. I’m not going to do it next week, though. I’m going to need to stock up on bread and meat, so I’ll be doing a $50 trip on Sunday.

So, this week, I managed to stay under $50 again. I went to ShopRite and Walgreens. (I just can’t describe how happy I am to have a ShopRite near me again!)

At ShopRite, I spent a total of $33.10 and bought:

Photo by Litsa Kouzina/

4 boxes Cheese Nips (reduced fat)

2 jars peaches

1 container sugar/cinnamon mixture

Anisette toast

Raisin bread

2 packs bagels

2 packs chicken nuggets

2 sirloin steaks

Bananas

3 pounds Gala apples

1 pound of butter

3 packs cheese

2 dozen eggs

At Walgreens, I spent $10.30 in cash and $13 in Register Rewards. Without the Register Rewards, I would have been over budget, so I was glad I had them. I bought:

A 24 pack of water

4 Easter eggs and 2 candy bars (We’re doing family baskets this year and all contributing a few things to each kid’s basket instead of each grown up doing six separate baskets. They’re going to be crammed…)

2 33.8 ounce Listerine

2 30 pack trash bags

I also got a $3 Register Reward on my next order and will get a $4 rebate from buying the trash bags.

Did you stick to your grocery budget this week?