Grocery Shopping

I just read this article on MSN about a woman that is going to go 30 days without going to a grocery store. Basically, she is going to plan a menu for 30 days, she has a $30 budget to spend on the things she can only find at a grocery store, and then will buy everything else local.

Honestly, I don't know if I could do that. I have no idea where a local butcher shop is. And while there are plenty of fruit and veggie stands, most of them are the same or more expensive than Wal-mart. And my last peach that I just got from Wal-mart tasted pretty dang good. And me, plan a 30-day menu? I don't even have 30 meals on my "Successful Meals List" I started after Sean and I got married.

But she does make some really good points. Last Saturday, before we went grocery shopping, I actually thought about what I already had in my fridge and cupboards, what I could potentially make from those things, and what I needed to buy to complete those meals, and made my list. Success! Today when we get our groceries, the only things we need are fruits and veggies, and a few other things that are necessities. Like deodorant. Toilet paper. Shampoo. That kind of thing. Hopefully, over the long run, this shaves $$ off our monthly food spendings.

So goal #1 for me? Make a 2-week menu every two weeks. I can handle this, right? And Pinterest keeps spitting out new, easy recipes that should be easily added to the aforementioned "list".

Goal #2. Shop less at Costco. Whaaaaat?? Costco is almost as cool as Disneyland, and I do believe that spending more on bulk items saves in the long run. I really do. But for a long time, Sean and I were going to Costco every week. That's a lot of Costco. And a lot of money. So we made the goal to only go once a month (unless we need dog food). Again, this will definitely help us spend less money on food every month. 

Also along with shopping at Costco, we try to stock up on something we use all the time. Like one trip we bought a case of black beans because we use them in taco soup, regularly. Things like that. This will hopefully help us build up food storage in addition to the savings. Which brings me to...

Goal #3. Food storage. For the past few years I have wanted to start my food storage and have a year's supply of food. But I have no idea where to start. None! Going out and just buying everything is a HUGE expense, and there is no way we can do that right now. But at the rate I'm going, its going to take me approximately 2000 years to build a years supply of food. How do you figure out how to calculate a years' supply of rice? Flour? Sugar? Granola bars? Such a daunting task. I know it is important though, it's part of becoming self-reliant, which is what the prophets and apostles stress all the time. Apparently I need to do more research on this. Maybe that should be my next goal. Any tips/suggestions would be welcome.

I'm really glad I stumbled upon that article. It really made me start thinking about the way I've grocery shopped in the past (ooh that sounds good imma buy THAT!) versus what I did last week (much smarter and much less stressful knowing what I'm going to cook) and some of the other ways I can save on our food bill. Guess now it is time to put it into practice. Someone follow up with me in a month?

Ready, go!