Food

I know I've talked about food before. A Lot. Usually it's me griping about my never ending battle with my weight or my misguided attempts at gardening - and yes I am going to give it another go again this year, thank you for asking. I'm sure you've also noticed the steady creep up in your grocery bill, David and I will often come back from shopping in distress - how can two people spend so much money on food? The answer is not that we're eating all the time - but we are eating very healthy and that, like dating your best friend's boyfriend behind her back is something you're eventually going to pay very dearly for. 

I can buy a ton of Little Debbie Snack Cakes for what I spend on a small bit of fruit, could fill up my trunk with potato chips for the price of all the fresh vegetables I go through. I eat very little processed food because I DO need to know what I'm eating, but it's insane what it costs. So for the past couple of weeks we are trying different things. One thing we are stopping is the weekly trips to Sam's Club - everytime we go we walk out 200 dollars poorer. We don't need giant tubs of anything, there are only two of us and I doubt there will ever be an oatmeal shortage. And I don't know about you but I tend to go off my list about 5 minutes into the store, that does not help. Especially since you are buyng bulk, 3 or 4 extra items can easily run $80. Years ago when then first opened the bulk item stores we had a membership and then took other friends and family members when we went shopping. We'd buy things with the intention of dividing it such as buying two types of cereal and then swapping half.  It worked well.

We've stopped shopping together - we are taking turns doing the shopping and that is starting to cut back. The other benefit is we are spending our weekends having more fun than doing chores. We usually spend Saturday shopping - and the other problem is since we're in the shopping strip we tend to go do more than food shopping. Another trip to Old Navy, the bookstore, Walmart. Then Sunday is just cleaning for me and doing the wash. Last couple of weekends we actually did stuff, last weekend we took the dogs to the gamelands for the morning, they loved it and so did we. And I'm comparison shopping. Trader Joes was surprisingly not too bad on my wallet - Whole foods unsurprisingly WAS. I also did a trip to Aldi's and found the prices were good but the selection was so-so. But all in all, we did get the cost down a good bit this weekend, hopefully it will continue to go down.