Lots of shopping

  This is the second or third time I started this blog entry. The interface has been eating my entries, whether I hit 'save' or 'publish.' Last time I got as far as about 700 words before losing everything so now I'm typing this in Pages on the iPad with the hope of copying it into Blogger when I take my husband back to his office at one.



The iPad failed as well, so I'm guessing it's a mobile application failure.

Last week (and I suppose today too) was the end of the month. I dread the end of the month. It's the budget make-or-break time. I knew I had spent my allotted budget ($300 on dining and groceries combined) going into the final week, so as long as I didn't spend any money on food we'd hit the goal.

I made it to Thursday. By Thursday, we had eaten close to everything in the house. My plan for dinner was to make a tuna rice casserole. I had broccoli in cheese sauce in the freezer, plenty of rice for the steamer and a big can of tuna. Except I had class until 2:30, had to pick up the child at 3:15, and retrieve the husband from his office at 4:30. So the rice never got steamed. And with 40 minutes to steam the rice and another 40 or so to bake, it looked like the casserole wasn't going to happen unless I wanted to have dinner at 7 pm. I would seriously have a hunger meltdown before then.

We went to Giant. Figured it would be cheaper than eating out. And potentially quicker. I was thinking Crôque Monsieur sandwiches, but then daughter asked for TV dinners. I was astounded.  TV dinners??? We get them about once a year, or maybe every other year. I said okay. I'm apparently crazy.

So, everything in this shopping trip probably qualifies as completely unhealthy, unnecessary and impulsive.

We bought:
- Cool Ranch Doritos, on sale for $3 (did not get opened until Sunday night, watching old episodes of True Blood)
- two packages of microwave popcorn, one butter and one kettle corn, $1 each
- Dole Romaine bagged salad, $2.50 (these were for the tortoise. I should have picked up a second bag because the greens looked so good...)
- Stauffers beef tips in bourbon sauce, $3.29 (this was my dinner. It was edible, but not enjoyable, and the sodium content had me drinking water for hours afterwords.)
- Edwards frozen key lime pie, $5.99 (yum!)
- Hungry Man popcorn chicken dinner, $2.79 (this was what my daughter picked and man did it look like a school lunch.)
- Hungry Man Salisbury steak dinner, $2.79
- black raspberry ice cream, $2.69 (still unopened)
- spinach white pizza, $4.29 (this was our appetizer and our green vegetable component)
- 8 ounce block of Swiss cheese, pepper jack, sharp cheddar and Vermont extra sharp cheddar cheese, 4 @ $1.67 each
- one dozen extra large eggs, $1.79
- sliced Italian bread from the bakery, $1.99 (still gunning for those Crôque Monsieur sandwiches, hence all the cheese too)
Total: $39.79

Saturday, in the middle of our freak snow storm that dumped 10 inches of snow and made the roads a slushy slippery mess, I went to Target for groceries, with my daughter who just got out of dance class and thought the aisles of the store were a great place to practice your jazz routine. I quickly convinced her otherwise.

This sounds more normal for us:

- market pantry diced tomatoes, seasoned, 3 cans at 57 cents each
- market pantry petite diced tomatoes, 2 cans at 53 cents each
- raspberry salsa and summer fruits salsa, one was $2.79 and the other was $2.99
- Barilla whole wheat rotini, three at $1.16 each
- market pantry petit peas, one can at 77 cents
- market pantry unsweetened applesauce in the individual containers, $1.67
- large bottle of canola oil, $3.39
- gold medal unbleached flour, $2.79
- market pantry whole wheat flour, $2.99
- frozen vegetable blends, steam in bags, $1.67, $1.66 and $2.29
- Silk pumpkin spice, 4 at a clearance price of $1.36 each
- horizon heavy whipping cream, $2.49
- horizon organic half and half, $2.99
- archer farms yogurt, 10 at 55 each, minus a 50 cent coupon
- ricotta $1.87 minus a 50 cent coupon
- 2 boxes of Kleenex, one extra soft and one with lotion, $1.59 and $1.57 minus a 75 cent coupon
- 40 pounds of cat litter, $15.59 minus $1.50 coupon
- 2 boxes of Morningstar breakfast patties, $3.49 each
- 3 varieties of Gardein vegetarian products, $3.99 minus $2 coupon
- now I have two mysterious Market Pantry items left, and all I can remember is sweet potato fries of which I bought two bags, they were either $1.97 or $3.09 and what the other item is... Who knows?

Total: $89.74
Minus team member discount: $9.42
Minus red card: $4.02
Tax: 82 cents
Final total: $77.12

But the story doesn't end there. In the tail end of the storm, I had to go to work and my daughter asked for hot chocolate. So my husband drove me in and they bought:

- Archer Farms Peanut butter cup hot chocolate, $3.99
- Archer Farms salted caramel hot chocolate, $3.99
- Silk soy milk, $2.99

Subtotal: $10.97
team member discount: $1.10
Red card discount: 49 cents
Total: $9.38