Today is Day Six of the Snap/Food Stamp Challenge and I spent a bit of time at Safeway.
It may just be a local promotion, but every Friday, Safeway promotes special $5 sales. They tend to be items like take-and-bake pizza and soda, so I normally ignore them, but yesterday they had 32 ounce bag of frozen swai fish that caught my eye. (Get it, caught? Nuyk, nyuk. Oh, never mind . . . ) I like to keep frozen white fish fillets in the freezer, so I knew that this was a great deal. Luckily, there’s a Safeway very close to my house, so it was no big deal to swing by and pick it up. I took the time to look through Safeway’s Just for U online coupon center page to load e-coupons onto my Safeway club card. Yes, this step is a pain in the tuchus, but I did find a 50¢-off coupon for milk. I also had a paper coupon for a free bag of whole grain pita chips from the newspaper.
Here’s what I bought:
- Half-gallon of whole milk (for my husband’s coffee) — 99¢
- Two Luna bars (for my husband’s work lunches) — $1.98
- 32-ounce bag of frozen Swai fillets — $5.00
- Bag of pita chips — Free!
Total = $7.47
I was going to buy mayonnaise for my husband ‘s work sandwiches, but it was just too expensive, plus I hated the plastic jars. I’ll pick some up at Trader Joe’s instead.
Dinner last night was the red lentil soup plus grilled cheese sandwiches. I had a small amount of tuna salad leftover in the fridge, so two of the sandwiches ended up as tuna melts. My sandwich included thick slabs of fresh tomato, and the bread was from the Bob’s Killer Bread Outlet, so you know they were heavenly.
I’m not sure what tonight’s dinner will be, but I suspect it will involve cobbling together a variety of leftovers. And since it’s Saturday, we’ll be having dessert. (Every Saturday is dessert night at casa Wolk-Stanley!) I saw this Plum Cake on Frugal Living NW, and think I’ll assemble one tonight using the free plums from the other day.
Here’s how much we’ve spent so far:
- Day One — $0
- Day Two — $15.66
- Day Three — $6.77
- Day Four — $41.48
- Day Five — $15.87
- Day Six — $7.47
Total for week – $87.35, which means we still have $24.65 left to last us thought Sunday.
I still want to make homemade yogurt, as well as homemade mozzarella, but we’ll see how the weekend goes. My sons both have soccer games, plus I’m the queen of procrastination. However, it is amazing how I can procrastinate making yogurt, yet it’s no big deal to get right on that plum cake. I wonder why that is? 😉
Click HERE to read Day One.
Click HERE to read Day Two.
Click HERE to read Day Three.
Click HERE to read Day Four.
Click HERE to read Day Five.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
The pita chips were super dry and bland-o, yet they still got gobbled faster than Usain Bolt chasing an endorsement deal. 😉
Katy
My husband is out of town, so my son (11) and I had an assortment of leftovers for dinner last night. After my kid was properly fed, I ended up eating the crumbled bits of pita chips at the bottom of the bag mixed with some hummus that needed to be used up. It was kinda weird, but not too unhealthy and it served its purpose of 1) filling me up 2) using up orphan food bits before they go bad. I also had a somewhat sad avocado plus some super yummy tortilla chips and salsa. I just realized I jumped around continents a bit there, but let’s call that “exciting” instead of “sad”!
Hmm, plum cake vs. homemade yogurt. Could it be special vs. ordinary? Happy Baking!
Wow, your husband must drink a lot of coffee!
Red lentil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches sounds DELICIOUS. So does plum cake.
Two cups per day. Of course, those cups are BIG!
Katy
This has been a very interesting week. I learned a lot too. I wish you would have this feature in all your posts. Continue the SNAP report! What you bought, what you spent, what you ate, etc. Maybe recipes, family’s reaction. I loved it all!
Thank you
joan
yum, homemade mozzarella. I would love to have that recipe
Me too! My husband and I got on a cheese making kick but failed at every batch!
It’s a kit, so we’ll see how it goes.
Katy
Wow Katy… one thing I never noticed before is how frequently you go to the grocery store. This is totally not a criticism… just an observation. Just thinking about going to a grocery store almost every day exhausts me. Is that because I have a toddler and a baby? Maybe? 🙂
I think my best money-saving strategy when it comes to groceries is to shop no more than once a week. If I forget something, I make do. It forces me to use stuff that is in the house and plan better the next week.
I live just a few few blocks from two different grocery stores. And this week wasn’t typical for me.
Katy
Your not alone Margaret. I do the same thing. I think having a menu is a life saver. If not grilled cheese and tomato soup work just fine. I also have 45 minute drive to store. I feed a family of six plus two dogs and a cat for 150.00 a week. (about 18.00 under snap!) I keep a note book with me a write the price of everything down and add it up as I go. That way if I am over budget I can remove whatever grocery’s we don’t need or can wait until next week.
gotta love that killer bread and bob’s are so close in proximity, it’s like a double whammy of wholesome goodness when we stop by both places 🙂 what’s your favorite bread?
I like the yellow or pink one, but my kids go for the Nature Bake whole wheat without all the wonderful texture.
And of course, there’s the Sin Dawgs.
Katy
I wound up having to do a reset on this week because the math involved in figuring out serving cost from what I’d already bought was taking up a huge amount of time. So I went to Aldi armed with a meal plan and figured out I could eat a good healthy diet for a week on $35. It wouldn’t have meat, but there would be milk, cheese, yogurt and peanut butter for protein.
The week gave me a lot of food for thought about how fortunate we are to have good, lower cost sources of groceries nearby, easy transportation to get there and haul stuff home, and even things we don’t think about twice, like a proper kitchen and freezer space.
luna bars and the like are so expensive. would be hard to work into a snap diet regularly. what i have been doing is making a modifiyed pound cake–less sugar, whole wheat pastry flour, dried fruits and local hazelnuts. i bake it in a loaf pan that is a little large so that when sliced it is a rectangle rather than a square. i also bake it just a couple minutes extra so it is a bit drier and firmer than standard. when cool, i slice and wrap the slices in the paperlined foil that chocolate bars come in.i freeze themin a large bag, and pop one in dh’s lunch bag as needed.
i actually have friends save these foils for me as i use them in a few diff ways. (like wrapping around baking potatoes and around slit tp tubes to make slug-resistant collars for young veggie plants.) isn’t it nice that i have friends who are willing to make the big sacrifice of eating chocolate bars for me? 😀
Have you found online how to make a homemade mock-up of Luna Bars? It really doesn’t look that hard, it’s cheaper, and you avoid all the stupid plastic waste. The one I saw was basically just almonds and dates mixed in a food processor. Both of those items can easily be found in the bulk goods section and are so much cheaper!