First shopping trip

We went to Schnuck's for our first shopping trip. Many items will be able to last us well into the month. We purchased many of the same type of food that we would otherwise purchase - but, now, bought the fatter, frozen, or cheaper version.


Normally, where we would buy something like Amy's organic canned soups for $3.50 each, we instead bought 4 Healthy Choice cans for $5 bucks.  Not a bad deal, and honestly the difference in quality will be close to negligible. 


Fresh veggies and fruit purchased: 1/3 pound of spinach leaves and one head of empty-calorie iceberg lettuce to make salads (instead of getting the organic girl bagged stuff, which we highly recommend); head of cauliflower; 2 large butternut squash; 1 pound of asparagus; and a bunch of bananas (non-fair trade, which bothered me). Future trips will be made to get some apples and oranges (better deals and higher quality at Trader Joe's). 


Our typical cereal: 

We instead bought something strongly resembling dog food for the nearly the same price.  This stuff is going to suck. 

Other notable items purchased were lots of slices of american cheese to make grilled-cheese sandwiches, a lot of dried pasta, a large tub of natural peanut butter, two tubs of yogurt, a giant 3 pound bag of frozen chicken for $9.99 (normally, we would purchase free-range organic chicken breasts at TJ's, where 3 single breasts would be about the same price). Instead of organic health nut bread, we got the cheapest plain white bread in the store.  I'm somewhat disappointed by this choice, as normal white bread isn't very nutritious, but the bread we purchased cost 1/2 as much as our normal bread. I am pretty okay compromising on the chicken, as most chickens raised for slaughter aren't kept in terrible conditions, and the price differential was substantial.  The one item that I will not compromise on quality are eggs -- we will always purchase eggs from cage-free chickens, and at some stores like Trader Joe's, the difference in price between cage-free and non-cage free eggs is pretty small. 


Other notable things entirely eliminated from our usual shopping list: Pizzas, soda, pomegranate juice, fresh deli meats and cheeses, fish, and some sort of beef or steak. I am happy that we did not purchase any frozen dinner entrees. 


Our total grocery bill was $80.27.  We expect that this shopping trip provided enough food for 10 days. Given that we have $254.10 to spend between the both of us, we feel confident that continuing to make similar consumption choices at the grocery store will put us under budget.