Winco Still Keeping Me on Budget
by Katy on April 29, 2025 · 51 comments
I keep reading about rising food prices, (and today’s power outages in Western Europe kind of freaked me out) so I thought it might be a good idea to preemptively stock my pantry. Especially shelf stable goods, as a fully stocked freezer doesn’t do diddly squat when there’s no electricity.
Luckily Winco Foods doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo on predatory pricing.
I paid $104.85 for everything here:
Ten-ounce bags of lil’ tomatoes were 98¢ apiece.
Albertson’s (Safeway) sells the same thing for $4.99.
I looked throughout the frozen dessert section, but they didn’t have what I was looking for.
I wasn’t necessarily going to buy them, but I needed to see if these heme forward delicacies had hit the stores yet. I’m thinking they were designed without the benefit of even a single woman’s opinion.
Instead I grabbed a couple tubs of clearance price Easter candy, which was simply regular candy wrapped in pastel packaging.
And not to brag too much, but I also found a penny and a dime near the register. So I guess that brings my total down to $104.74.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
My husband recently found a crisp $2 bill in the grocery store parking lot!
Weird! I never see $2 bills in the wild, much less on the ground!
If I find myself near a Winco, I’ll definitely stop in and get some of those tomatoes.
I found $2 eggs yesterday. Very exciting!
DH had his last day of employment, and while we will get a severance, we will also be paying out of pocket for health care, so we are in full belt tightening mode!
1) Helped dS19 with applications for summer jobs, and now both teens will be gainfully employed.
2) We have somehow managed to eat through all of our freezer dinner leftovers (save for one container of Korean beef). This almost never happens, and speaks to how little cooking we’ve done. Last night involved also getting emergency pizza out of the freezer, because the tacos went so quickly.
3) Cut back a bunch of volunteer lettuce, and used that in salads.
4) Found a dime on the ground.
5) As always, meal planned, did our own yard work & house cleaning, figured out how to wash DS18’s “dry clean” only work uniform at home, and ate a lot of leftovers.
1. Bought a marked down value pack of 20 frozen buttermilk biscuits for $3.
2. Sunday we went to watch my nephew play baseball and afterwards Great Grandma took us all out for pizza.
3. Rented Mickey 17 on prime video using my accumulated slow shipping credits. It’s still in theaters so I saved by having snacks at home instead of theater snacks. (I know it’s not good to shop from Amazon but I use it to shop lower prices deals to stay in my budget) I need suggestions on how to breakaway from Amazon while still staying in my budget.
4. Sold a hot wheels track for $30 that my daughter no longer plays with.
5. We had an 81° day yesterday. My home office is in the basement so I didn’t turn the air on all day. I did turn it on for 20 minutes before bed to cool off our upstairs since I can’t open the windows due to my daughter’s allergies.
Library all the way on my media/entertainment category. Many have options to stream tv and movies but we also like browsing the dvds. True they don’t always have the newest thing available as fast as with paid options, but such an overwhelming amount of media is made nowadays that I can’t keep up with the newest, so there’s always something I’m interested in via the library, and you can beat free/I already paid for this with my taxes.
Check to see if your library supports Hoopla (great additional FREE source for audiobooks and movies/TV). Our library even offered Wicked movie, even as it was still showing in movies.
Thank you! I will add hoopla to my iPad
Those Magnums!!!!! OMG!!!
They need wings.
Whoever made those did not consult any females on the design lol
Is that the maxi size or the light days size?
OMG!! Those maxipads, i mean ice cream bars. WTF?! So crazy that this made it through the testing gauntlet.
All I can think is that it was on purpose to generate attention/publicity!
Mmm, love me some maxipad ice cream! That’s hilarious.
I just spit my drink into my laptop looking at those maxipad bars! I think Katy’s quite right that no female input was involved in the design of these.
That may be first time in my life that the sight of ice cream made me say, “Ugh!”
Somebody needs to have a little talk with the ice cream bar designers at the Magnum company.
Wanna bet they were designed by male(s) who would be mortified to pick up any feminine hygiene products for their partners?
However, you can buy ice cube molds in the shape of a certain male anatomical part so perhaps a quid pro quo ice cream treat is forthcoming?
I am ashamed that here we are, a possible terrorist attack on Europe’s infrastructure, and what I am truly freaked out about is my personal coffee supply.But there you have it.I am gonna go out today and buy a lot of coffee.I cannot endure the zombie apocalypse without a nice dark cuppa.
I am a retired Land D nurse and I think I saw what you saw in that ad/photo for ice cream “delicacies..”
I have a lot of dry garbanzos and dry pintos,still,from covid.. we have a gas stove,I wonder if they will knock out gas if electric goes?We have some propane and a camp stove in garage but cooking dry beans would take a lot of propane,wouldn’t it?
My rice stock is low..time to boot it up?
A little low on canned beans..maybe time to purchase?
WINCO is a great place for stock up and regular shopping.. so grateful for one, just 2 miles from my house.
EVery day a new worry..I keep praying,meditating, reading uplifting stuff, and only reading news once a day.
Netflix and Apple TV. The new Jon Hamm show is a great commentary on vacuous consumption and lives of upper class Americans who “have it all” but have nothing.. I have an APPLE tv subscription as a gift from our son! Lots of exercise videos on there too. (But would not pay for it myself .)
You might want to prioritize using up those dry beans that are now quite old. In my experience, old beans sometimes can’t be tasty or made soft regardless of how you cook them they stay hard and thus ruin whatever recipe you are using them in.
That happened to me recently. I cooked and cooked and boiled the beans and they never softened. I ruined some homemade chicken stock. Now, I write the date on the Winco bulk goods twist tie so I can keep an eye on how old things are getting.
Re your old beans, if you have a pressure CANNER you can feed two birds with one crust – soak the beans overnight, and pressure can them in pint jars. (I soak, rinse, put about 1-1/4 C soaked beans in the jar, pour in boiling water, seal and pressure can for 70 min). that long a pressure cook/can plus the pre-soak will soften the toughest beans. and you will have used currently available gas/electricity to convert the beans into instant food…
Not an approved way to can dried beans.
I second using up the covid-era dry beans now. I just cooked some dry black beans from that vintage and even with an overnight soak took a long time to cook.
I too purchased copious amounts of coffee for the possible zombie Apocalypse.,
I am sorry you are having anxious times, Madeline.
US news says a cyber-terrorist attack on the power grid has been ruled out as a cause.
That’s a great grocery haul! I’m spending some time tonight after work to get my pantry in order. Looking forward to a long summer of easy crockpot meals and grilling!
5 small luxuries:
1) I went to Target in search of an album, and wound up buying chicken that was marked down for clearance because it was 3 days away from freeze/use date. Froze the majority! Found the album, but realize I really wanted the cd.
2) My friend was not feeling well, so made chicken soup with the Target chicken and herbs from my garden, frozen veg from the freezer, plus egg white noodles from the local SE Asian market. What would have easily cost $10 at the supermarket cost about $3 (including energy for the stove). I biked part of the way to deliver the soup. Tip: when making chicken noodle soup to deliver to family/friends, pack the noodles separately.
3) Did a declutter and deep clean of my bathroom- I want to paint it a different color and utilize the closet in there better. I found so many perfume samples, and I still have more than enough bath products- no need for shopping for that. I do WANT new mascara, brow gel and eyeliner- they are now used up!
4) Am still exercising doing a dedicated 10-12K steps a day and easing back into Pilates after months of neglect. (Because of the pnuemonia earlier this year, I have issues with deep breaths and controlled breathing. ) I also want to ease back into strength training . I will have the time to do this because….
5) I have what is now the ultimate luuxry : I was hired for a WFH IT position, with an excellent salary(1.5 of what I was making previously) +benefits, and PTO. My starting time is mid morning, so this gives me time to exercise , tend to the garden and even read.
Congratulations on your new job!
Edie, that sounds like a great gig. Congrats!
It really is a great gig, and I am so very fortunate to have gotten this.
Got the last of my Birthday Month freebies today! There is a Chick Fil A and PDQ right by my office, i got my free Chocolate Chunk cookie from Chick Fil A, and then went across street and got 5 free chicken strips from PDQ! (PDQ drops a $10 coupon in your app, and the 5 free strips comes to $9.29, so was the best bang for my free $10! …I will take them home and chop them up on salads!)
Happy birthday!
There is a PDQ near me, I will have to sign up for their app! Thanks for the tip!
@Ashly Bananas, note you have to have made at least one order in the app in a year to get the reward – but for $10, it was worth it!
Happy Birthday Month!
Those ice cream bars…..wow….lol no thanks
1. I finally hit the threshold for an ibotta withdrawal and came into $20.
2. I did some Shopkick scanning Monday and scored $20 worth of gift cards through their app. I purchased items that would give me points back so I will end up with another 10-20 worth of gift cards.
3. I donated three books to my library today which helps me slowly declutter. I am trying to eliminate a few items a week in different categories. Not sure if it’s the fastest approach, but something is better than nothing.
4. I set up a bio-med screening where I will get a $50 gift card for participating.
5. Not sure I got to number five this week.
A lot of years ago (15?) we had a power outage for most of Southern California and part of Arizona. It turned out to be a mechanical glitch, but it was pretty scary at the time. I’m hoping it was the same for Spain.
For Rose who said I was crazy:
Comparative Table
Metric 1950s Today (2023)
Top Marginal Tax Rate 91% 37%
Effective Tax Rate (Top 1%) 42-45% 26-28%
% of Total Income Taxes Paid (Top 1%) 30-35% ~40%
Number of People Paying Top Rates Fewer than 10,000 households ~1.4 million households
NOT CRAZY just old enough to remember.
I know/knew all that. I meant it would be crazy to implement 80% taxation on income over $1 million. There are many more ways to hide money now.
In the 1950s, the top 0.1 percent of households faced average effective income tax rates of 21.0 percent, versus 20.7 percent as of 2014.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/income-taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
Katy, speaking of ice cream, Reese’s peanut butter cups of all the various kinds are gluten- free, but the Reese’s ice cream pops are not. My husband was very disappointed at that when we last bought ice cream as a treat and he could not have the Reese’s.
The frugal at my house:
Roasted a marked-down organic chicken on a bed of carrots, sweet onions and sliced apples, and it’s about the best thing I have ever eaten. Will feed us for several days.
Shopped at Aldi and saved a bunch of money because I just buy ingredients. Aldi has some awesome junk food, but it’s not in the budget. Bought two cans of the Aldi cat food to try out on my chunky kitty, and she loves it.
Wrote a meal plan for May based on what’s in the freezer, which is stuffed right now. Pantry also is in good shape.
Stopped at the big Goodwill on my way to a medical appointment and bought a summer shirt for $3.14. It looks like it’s never been worn or laundered. The size is wrong on it — the label says XS but it’s so large it will need to be taken in to fit my medium-size frame — so it probably it was donated after being received as a gift.
The holiday shape ones arent gluten free though, which I know from a celiac friend. You bought a Pi shirt. (3.14)
Oh, excellent point about the holiday Reeses. I just never buy those and had not checked the label.
My favorite cleance store has all the cool yet odd options like the ones with potato chips and pretzels added — so yummy! — and those are GF.
This shirt is big enough to smuggle a pie while wearing it. It needs four inches taken in on each side! But it’s otherwise lovely and the fabric is perfect for our horrible summers.
On a recent trip to Winco I learned that even before clearance all of the holiday versions of candy— kisses, peanut butter cups, etc are cheaper than the non-holiday. I was like absolutely I’ll buy the kisses with the pastel foil— it all tastes the same!
1. Yes I took the leftover steak from my fancy dinner out and heated it up with cooked peppers, onions, and salsa. Served it over rice.
2.Today I stirred the rice into the topping, added an egg and had fried rice. There is enough left over for tomorrow.
3.My grandson left me gift (unintentional) in my car — almost a whole serving of leftover French fries! Tomorrow I’ll use them in a breakfast scramble. (He would be horrified by this if he knew — he thinks I just throw his leftovers away!)
4. Oh, he also left me a penny. My rule is, if he doesn’t pick it up, it’s mine.
5. Stopped at a Little Free Library on my way to the gym — took home three books! I generally only take one, or none, but there were actually three that looked interesting. I don’t know if this is really frugality, since I use the library, and never buy books anyway, but thought it was worth mentioning.
That was supposed to be “yesterday”, not yes.
1. Anticipating higher prices via tariff when new shipments arrive, I bought my favorite stud earrings at Walmart (a card of 50 pair for $9.99). Got more than one package; the way I lose earrings, I will go through them in a few months. These are likely the cheapest pierced earrings on the planet and I get lots of compliments on them. They come in many colors on that one card, and I try to match the earrings to what I’m wearing that day. When I wear a white pair, people think they are real pearls; they would be surprised to learn they are just painted plastic balls!
2. While browsing, saw that the small WM laundry baskets I bought for $1.39, then later for $1.60 are now $1.99. These are the ones that fit inside my built-in laundry cabinets.)Did not buy any today, but the price has gone up yet again.
3. The other day I bought a “pre-owned” step-on trash can from Goodwill, a small one to use in the bathroom. I paid under $5, possible just 2 0r 3 $, for it. (I think I mentioned it either here or at Frugal Girl’s blog.) Just for fun, I went to that section to see what WM has them for. The exact same can is $17 if bought new at Walmart. So let’s hear it for Hippie Christmas, when the college students discard perfectly good stuff and we get ’em free or cheap!
4. Returned book borrowed from the teacher’s workroom little free bookshelf.
5. I got complimented on my outfit that I wore today. A teacher remarked upon it and then a lady at the store stopped and told me she liked it. The blouse came from Goodwill (aka the GW Boutique), and the pants….well, they’re so old, I forget where I got ’em. The sandals were from another thrift store, brand new ones (factory seconds) I got for ten bucks. And the matching earrings were some I bought long ago from Walmart (see above). Who says you have to spend much money to look/feel like a million bucks?
1. Ground up all the egg shells I’ve saved to feed back to my hens. Got a full pint!
2. Was given a medium sized plant pot from a friend who had too many.
3. Daughter requested chimichangas for dinner. Used up two big tortillas and 4 small ones, 1 or two cups of shredded rotisserie chicken from my Costco chicken, 2 cups of shredded cheese, 1/2 a can of refried beans (75 cents) and half a can of enchilada sauce (the can was a fifty cent clearance can), the last of the sour cream and some salsa. Super cheap and filling dinner for us 3 with 2 small ones leftover for lunch tomorrow.
3. Fed guinea pigs (6 of them) clover and dandelions from our untreated yard in addition to their hay and pellets.
4. Did a load of laundry on the shirt cycle, cold water and hung them out to dry. Bonus points for bringing them in before the rain came through.
5. Uploaded my receipts to Proctor & Gamble for $20 in rebates and also cashed in my points for a $5 coupon in any P&G product. I love the P& G website!
Was the cat included in the total? If so, I’d say you got a bargain.
Market Basket, a New England chain, is what keeps me on track. No BOGOs, no double coupons, but their prices are consistently low compared to all other grocery stores with the exception of Aldi’s where the prices are comparable. Market Basket is a family run business and from what I hear the president is a really great guy. Shopping here has enabled me to keep on track with my budget. I almost always buy their store brand, if available. A couple of “for instances”…the gallons of milk are 2.59, many of the loaves of bread are 2.00, cans of tuna are 3/5.00,pork chops recently went up to 2.29 lb. but had been 1.99 for ages. Still a good buy. I feel an affection for the owners, the DeMoula family, although I’ve never met any of them. They keep their prices very low and enable so many families to feed themselves well.
How much did you get the cat for on this grocery haul??
I presume the feline in the picture was not a Winco purchase!