I told myself I would be posting more frequently in April than I did in March and here it is already April 3rd and I have done nothing, so I decided that I should get back into more of my old habits.  I did my payday report last week and now I need to get back into my tracking my groceries.  This will be from a store trip on April 1st.  I bought mostly organic produce, but my goodness it was not that much higher than conventional.  We're talking .25 to .50 difference in almost every case.

In looking over my receipt, I noticed that my cashier overcharged me, too.  He rang up both my sweet onions and my yellow onions as sweet onions.  I even told him when he tried to weigh them all at the same time that they weren't the same type of onion.  I saw him take them off the computer and I watched him weigh one bag and then went back to talking to my husband figuring he had it, but apparently not.  I'll have to go back to the store and talk to customer service.

I haven't used the yellow onions yet so I can go back with them and have them redo it.  I don't know which ones were heavier so having them to weigh will be better than just guessing.  It is the difference of about $2 or $3.  Why do I care when I'm willing to spend extra on organic produce if I lose $2 or $3?  Because I am willing to spend money on better food, but I am not willing to lose money on it.

I am trying out a new type of ketchup for me because the type we've been getting for years has been tasting too sweet to me for the past few months and I wanted to see if I can find one that isn't as sweet, so that is why there are two ketchups listed.  The price on the bell peppers hurt, but they are on the dirty dozen list and the conventional were almost the same price.

Anyway here goes:

$4.49 Bob's Red Mill Gluetne Free Cornbread Mix

$7.79 Krusteaz Gluten Free Brownie Mix (upcoming birthday)

$9.98 2 bottles of O Organics 32 ounce Ketchups

$6.59 1 24 oz bottle of Annie's Homegrown Ketchup

$5.69 1 32 oz container of Zoi plain Greek yogurt

$11.98 2 bags Seattle International Greek Pitas

$2.00 1 organic orange bell pepper

$2.00 1 organic yellow bell pepper

$5.00 5 cucumbers

$23.98 4 pounds of organic strawberries (first from Cali)

$7.97 3.2 pound purple cabbage (was cheaper than conventional)

$3.69 1 lb garden salad kit

$6.99 1 lb Ceasar salad kit

$3.29 Fresh organic dill (cheaper than conventional)

$7.49 Litehouse Thousand Island Dressing (ouch)

$3.29 Garlic Butter Croutons

$2.03 1 large organic red onion (ouch)

$3.42 .68 lb of organic celery

$6.07 Onions sweet or yellow, who knows

$9.36 Onions, also who knows

$0.40 bag fee

$9.98 2 packs of Crockpot Liners

$0.93 9% Sales tax for non-food items

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$143.61 Total Spending

-_10.38 Non-grocery spending

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$133.23 Total Grocery Spending

So, of my $400 biweekly grocery budget I have $266.77 left to spend.  Tomorrow marks the one week period, with one more week to go until payday. so I have well more than half to get through until next week.  I may go to the restaurant supply store and get a boneless beef tri-tip.  They are approximately15 pounds on sale for $4.59/lb so it would come to $68.85 or thereabouts.  My meat slicer could make some nice half inch steaks out of that.

I think in the future I might just pick up a gallon of the Litehouse Thousand Island Dressing when we run out at that store, too.  It seems like a lot, but DH goes through dressing really, really fast and I try to have a salad every day at this time of year.  The price would work out to $5 per one of the bottles we bought in the list above.  But could we get through it before it spoiled.  That's the real question.

They also have Roma tomatoes on for $24.99 for a box that is 25 pounds.  I could get two boxes and make some pasta sauce and can it.  And it will be so much easier now that I have my electric canner and don't have to use the stove up in the big kitchen.  I can can at night after Mom's gone to bed and not worry about disturbing her.  She's hard of hearing during the day, but at night she can hear every little thing.  Some things never change.

They have Angus boneless beef chuck roll on this week, 23 pounds for $4.79/lb which would be $110.17.  I am down to one chuck roast, and that is the lowest price they go down to, usually it is $5.49 on sale, so this is the best sale price.  Let's see,  if I add those up it would be $229.  Hmm...that is close and I still have to buy bottled water to replace the preps we used up when they shut down the water for 24 hours to do sewer repairs, but that would still come in under what I have left and I don't have to buy anything else, we have enough produce to get through the week for sure.

I've been slacking off on the meal planning, but I have been cooking.  I made a delicious chicken schwarma for dinner last night with tzatziki sauce using the sweet yellow onions in the schwarma, and he yogurt, a cucumber, and the dill in the sauce and the pita to wrap it in and some of the red cabbage to top it with.  And some corn on the cob from an earlier shopping trip.  We had leftovers tonight because I made a ton.  Sneaky me, didn't want to cook tonight.

I should really figure out what I want to make for the rest of the week, though and for next week, too.  I have the energy to cook and I'm well so I need to get my brain super focused and use it to my advantage.  Not let it be lazy and wander off into the attention deficit part of my ADHD.