Winco Still Keeping Me on Budget
by Katy on April 29, 2025 · 22 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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{ 22 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
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.
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 .)
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.
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!
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.