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I’ve been thinking that if I’m going to call this blog Real Food for Less Money that I really should share with you not only what we eat but what we spend and where we buy it. Fair warning, these posts might be extremely boring. But I think that I would feel better providing ‘full disclosure’. I also want to mention (in the spirit of full disclosure) that I started the month of December with a fairly full freezer and quite a bit of pantry items. When I did my menu plan for the month the bulk of my dinner meal plans came from food already on hand. What that means for me is that most of the meats that I buy this month will be to add to my stock on hand. We have a side by side fridge/freezer which doesn’t give me very much freezer space but last weekend my sister loaned us an apartment sized fridge/freezer combo (freezer on top) so I’ll be working on filling that up too. I thought about doing an entire post dedicated to showing what’s in my freezer and my pantry but that would be even more boring than looking at my groceries so I’m sparing you that.

I intended to do my big grocery shopping on Monday. Our car needed to go to the shop that day so the plan was to drop it off, drop Joe off at work and then I’d do all the shopping. The car is supposed to stay in the shop the entire week at least, so Monday was the best day for shopping. I made it to one store and then had a phone call from work with an emergency (I work from home as a bookkeeper) so I ended up having to run home (where the computer is) to take care of things.

My one store (Smith’s) shop was good. I found some very good deals on quite a few things in the form of Manager’s Specials. I spent a total of $84.97.

What I brought home:

10 pounds unbleached flour
24 ounces organic sugar
1 package chocolate chips
Olive oil
2 containers Cocoa
6 pounds butter
5 pounds Tillamook Cheddar
3 pounds Colby/Jack mix cheese
2 gallons whole milk (for yogurt, kefir and son-in law who refuses to drink raw milk)
4.67 pounds ripe bananas
3.55 pounds granny smith apples
3.55 pounds Bartlett pears
4.50 pounds gala apples
1 bunch of beets with greens attached
Package of 3 organic Romaine
2 containers organic spinach
2 coyote squash (at least the receipt called them coyote squash)
2 heads of cabbage
4 pounds organic carrots
3 pound bag of onions

Also on Monday, picked up 1 gallon of raw milk (not shown in picture).

Most of my shopping resulted in produce. The store I went to has the best produce in my Wyoming town. With our Farmer’s Market only running for six weeks (end of July to mid September), no produce CSA available, and my lack of a garden I’m happy to at least find semi good quality produce. I did buy a couple of things for holiday baking too. This will not be all I buy for the month so there will be a few more December shopping posts.

Wardeh posted a very fun article the other day called “Where Do You Shop” it was interesting to read peoples responses and the items purchased. I love learning more about what other people trying to eat real, nutrient dense food eat and where they buy it.