Saturday, April 4, 2009

The Grocery Game

One of the biggest parts of my job as a stay-at-home-mom and housewife is to do the weekly grocery shopping. I like to plan our meals for the week, make a list of any ingredients I need from the store as well as any misc. household items we might need and then get all of my shopping done for the week in one fell swoop. I generally buy only what we need for the week and don't keep much in the way of reserves. Come Friday morning, our cupboards and fridge and darn near empty!

So yesterday, I packed up Hannah and Ethan and headed off to the store with my list and coupons for the week. When it came time to pay, I was floored by how much I had spent! Granted, I knew that we were pretty much out of everything from milk to jelly and bread and turkey, on and on. But $190!!!! Wow!

As I loaded the groceries in the car, my stomach was in knots because I knew that there was no good way to break the news to Jeff that I had spent almost $70 over our weekly grocery budget. He wasn't mad but I felt bad. Since I have no way to contribute financially to our household, my contributions come in the way of not making too many deductions, if you follow...

The cost of groceries for a family of five is amazing! The absolute crazy part is that with my coupons and store card, I saved us $45 but was still left with a $190 bill. I do cook about 18 or 19 meals a week for our family. So when you break it down, I guess that $10 per meal for 5 people isn't all that bad but next week I am definately going to have to figure out a new plan.

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