The world has turned upside down in the time since I made this grocery shopping trip and when I’m posting it. When I made this shopping trip I had no idea that a week and a half later store shelves would be cleared of food and basic household products because of the coronavirus.
Needless to say, I’m thankful that monthly grocery shopping is the norm for us. After this shopping trip, our pantry was replenished with most things.
While we are promised that the supply chain is strong and that stores will continue to stock shelves with food, I’m glad that we have a pantry of food. While it is guaranteed to be pretty boring after a month, it will sustain us whether we go to the store or not.
If you’re new here, you should know that I don’t shop from a pre-planned menu. I make my grocery list accoreing to what pantry ingredients we’re low on. We cook most meals from scratch, so as long as we have our basic ingredients, we can make our normal meals.
As usual, you can either watch or listen to me go through everything we bought in the quick video below, or you can just check out the items and complete price list below the video.
Winco Grocery Haul– $173
- Strawberries (1 lb) $1.98 x 2 = $3.96
- Roma Tomatoes $.98/lb x 3.4 lb = $3.34
- Bell peppers $.48 x 2 = $.96
- Yams $1.28/lb x 5.5 lb = $7.10
- Granny Smith Apples #.68/lb x 6.78 lb = $4.61
- Green Cabbage $.68/lb x 2.4 lb = $1.63
- Asparagus $.98/lb x 1..01 = $.99
- Baby Carrots (3 lb) $2.98
- Sunflower Seeds $1.67/lb x .6 lb = $1.02
- Pumpkin Seeds $$3.78/lb x .47 lb = $1.78
- Almonds $5.48/lb x .7 lb = $3.89
- Dried Cranberries $2.48/lb x .82 lb = $2.03
- Egg Roll Wrappers $2.48
- Frozen Blueberries (16 oz) $1.88 x 2 = $3.76
- Frozen Peas (32 oz) $2.27 x 2 = $4.54
- Tater Tots (2 lb) $1.60 x 4 = $6.40
- Bagels (1 dozen) $4.98
- Whole Wheat Bread $1.68 x 14 = $23.52
- French Bread $.78 x 4 = $3.12
- Canola Oil (1 gal) $4.86
- Winco Vanilla wafers $1.54 x 3 = $4.62
- Winco Oreos $1.63 x 4 = $6.52
- Noodles $1.12 x 2= $2.24
- Garden Rotini $1.07 x 3 = $3.21
- Spaghetti (3 lb) $2.26 x 3 = $6.78
- Macaroni (3 lb) $2.26 x 2 = $4.52
- ABC pasta (7 oz) $.35 x 3 = $1.05
- Flour Tortillas $2.79 x 4 = $11.16
- Whole Wheat Tortillas $1.68 x 3 = $5.04
- Sugar (25 lb) $11.98
- White Rice (20 lb) $9.48
- Brownie Mix $.98 x 6 = $5.88
- Pretzels $1.88 x 2 =$3.76
- Tortilla Chips $1.62 x 2 = $3.24
- Green Chilies $.60 x 3 = $1.80
- Salsa $1.98
Sam’s Club Grocery Haul– $129
- Bananas (3 lb) $1.23 x 6 = $7.38
- Flour (25 lb) $6.48 x 2 = $12.96
- Brown Sugar (7 lb) $4.88 x 2 = $9.76
- Peanut Butter (Two 40 oz jars) $6.98 x 2 = $13.96
- Shredded Cheese (5 lb) $12.98
- String Cheese (48 ct) $9.48 = $18.96
- Ritz Crackers $6.27
- Sour Cream (3 lb) $4.42
- Spinach (16 oz) $3.28
- Spring Mix (16 oz) $3.28
- Romaine Hearts $2.88
- Sausage (2 lb) $5.58
- Pork Stew Meat $5.79
- Butter (4 lb) $9.46
- Milk $2.92 x 2 = $5.84
- Ice Cream (1.25 gal) $5.98
So in total we spent just over $300 on our monthly grocery shopping which leaves us about $150 for additionalfood purchases during the month. In fact, if you want to see the great deals we got at Grocery Outlet on a trip early in the month, here is a video of that haul.
If you have any questions about how we handle grocery shopping or our food budget, I am happy to answer them in the comments or even make a video on the topic. Just let me know in the comments.
How is your family’s grocery situation right now? Is your pantry stocked or have you had to brave the store? What else has changed for you in light of the coronavirus?
I was actually surprised to realize how much we had stocked. We live in a small apartment with close to zero storage space (like, we have one cupboard in our kitchen…one) but when I inventoried it last week, I was surprised. Meals would get super boring, super fast but we’re doing OK.
Always impressed with the amount you can get for the price you spend! Wish we had more options here.
On a random note, I feel like you should know your mock lasagna is one of the meals I’ve identified as something we can pretty easily make in the event we can’t get to the grocery store 🙂 We had it this week and it was awesome.
Stay safe!
That’s always great to realize you have more than you thought! I’m so glad you like the mock lasagna! It’s a favorite around here too! Take care Tara! 🙂
I went shopping on the 2nd of this month to do my usual monthly grocery haul (we do our grocery shopping similar to how you do), and the coronavirus stockup was just starting then—I got one of the last packages of TP (they only had the most expensive kind), but now I’m glad I just picked up everything that day rather than waiting to buy it until stuff was restocked later (which was my original plan in the store).
Thanks to us basically not leaving the house, this could very well be one of our lowest grocery month budgets in months!
Congrats on scoring that TP! Glad you picked it up when you did! Had I known how things would turn out, I probably would have stocked up a bit more on this monthly shopping trip. Still we should be fine with our long term food storage, though it might be more boring and require more effort. Stay healthy especially with that sweet new baby!! 🙂
Toilet Paper is scarce here but it can be found depending on the time of day you go to the store. Check you local meat markets for meat. Ours has an abundance. While you might have to pay a little more at least you would have some meat. Grateful we did a huge stock up before all this happened. Found some TP this morning online so I am shipping it to myself.
The price you paid for the Granny Smith Apples is AMAZING!! I wish I could find them that cheap! I would stock up for a couple weeks. We go through a ton of fresh fruit and veggies each week. I eat at least 5 different types of fruit and veggies per day. I was able to restock from the local Sprouts (They had an abundance of fruit/veggies but no meat). We snack on the fruits and vegetables instead of chips and crackers.
Glad you found toilet paper. Good job eating lots of different fruits and veggies. Glad you were able to find some! 🙂
It’s crazy, isn’t it? The plan was to stock up the pantry, and then continue to shop normally until it was no longer possible. Well, it’s no longer possible. When I went to the shops on Monday there was hardly any meat – no ground beef at all – no flour or sugar – very little bread – only gluten-free pasta – no rice – no pantry-stable or powdered milk – very few frozen veggies – almost nothing in the dairy section – a dwindling number of cans and no cheap tomatoes or corn. The next day my husband reported no eggs, no fresh milk. Neither one of us has seen toilet paper in the shops for weeks now. Yesterday someone delivered the White Pages to every house on the street – it’s the first one we’ve seen in probably 15 years – and I immediately put it aside for emergency TP, just in case! We are pretty well-stocked for everything at the moment (including toilet paper) but I’m worried about how the shops will look next month. Here, we are being told to prepare for six months of chaos. The major supermarkets are all introducing limits of 2 per item on everything across the board, which means more people will have to go to the shops more often, which seems counter-intuitive for cutting down on crowds. They’ve also cancelled their delivery and pick-up services, which, again, seems like exactly the wrong move. But we’re better off than many.
That’s a great idea for emergency TP! Just don’t flush it or you’ll have a bigger problem! Stores here have limits too, though my friends who have gone shopping are saying some stores are doing well at being stocked (though like you explained before the hiccups in the supply chain may hit later, depending on the product and where it is produced). We’ve decided to just eat from our food storage. That’s the whole point of it after all. We’re going to look at it as a challenge to see how we manage and what things we wish we had stored. I’ll be explaining more about it soon. Take care!
There are certain things I buy in bulk from Amazon like toilet paper and paper towels. Luckily I had just received my toilet paper before the run on it took place. I had also cleaned out the closet where I keep our extra supplies. I found enough toothpaste to last us a year. I have plenty of eggs and flour. No problems here.
Glad to hear you have what you need Linda! Hooray for the toothpaste stash! 🙂
I can’t find toilet paper here. They were out of eggs and other things at our Winco yesterday.
I hear eggs have been hard to find! Good luck Gen!