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Last week I got asked the following question: why don’t you post your weekly grocery purchases? Since this happened I have been thinking a lot about this. Actually, I have been thinking about it for a while since I know there are a few other blog writers who do this on a regular basis. Today I want to talk to you about the reasons I don’t share the details of my weekly grocery trips.
Let me begin by explaining how I do my grocery shopping. I usually shop on Wednesdays and Sundays. Wednesday is the day my grocery store doubles coupons and you will usually find me picking up freebies or cheapies after doubled coupon to feed my stockpile or any other loss leaders they may have on sale. Then on Sunday I shop for our weekly needs at our local Super Walmart. On this shopping trip I usually pick up staples such as OJ, fruit and veggies, bread and milk we need for the week.
Basically I shop twice a week, once to maintain my stockpile and the other for our weekly needs. To illustrate this let me tell you about my shopping last week. I picked up sugar and butter (the loss leaders last week), Chinet plates and Glad Cling Wrap (the freebies after doubled coupon) plus Kraft dressing ($0.16 after coupon to pad my order up to $25) at my grocery store. Then I visited my in-laws in Chicago and saw that Food4Less (Kroger chain) had Hebrew National hot dogs for $2.50 a pack. I used this $1/1 printable coupon to get six packs for $1.50 each. This is the same price I paid last summer to stock up on this and I had already gone through all of them. On Sunday I went to Walmart and bought eggs, milk, bananas, apples, grapes, OJ and a few other things we needed for the week. In average I spend either $10 or $20 at my grocery store depending if I do one or two transactions. But lately I have only been doing one. For my weekly needs I spend around $25-$30 at Walmart.
So, I am not sure looking at my weekly grocery buys will make sense to anyone but me. That’s because you wouldn’t be able to discern our weekly menu from what I buy. This is because we eat from our stockpile. For example, tomorrow night, we will eat steaks I bought almost two months ago. The next day it will be frittata with sweet potatoes I bought on Sunday plus chicken sausage from the freezer and so on. Breakfasts will invariably be oatmeal stockpiled in January and lunches will be PB&J sandwiches or leftovers.
I have a lot of admiration for all bloggers who post their weekly purchases on their blog. If you didn’t know, last year I tracked all of my coupon savings for the entire year and that was a lot of work. Coming home from shopping and taking your purchases out from bags and unto a table to take a picture is also a lot of work. I know I come home from shopping and don’t even want to put away the stuff away on the fridge or pantry. So I couldn’t imagine taking the extra step of arranging it in a pleasant manner to take a picture and THEN put it away. But I know that a lot of bloggers know their savings stories are inspirational to others and an example of what can be achieved.
So there you have it, my shopping habits, how we use our stockpile to feed ourselves and not having the time to arrange food on a table for a picture is what’s keeping me from showing you my weekly grocery purchases. As a blog reader, what do you take away from watching other’s grocery purchases and savings tally?
