These are the freebies we picked up on our 13km walk home from the street festival we were checking out. (The newspaper had the wrong time and we showed up during setup, decided not to stick around for 40 minutes)
a flat with 30 boxes of fruit juice (apple, raspberry, cherry blend)
1 box orzo
2 cans energy drink (bang energy)
2 bottles vitamin enhanced beverage (roar organic)
1 bottle chocolate milk
6 buns for $6.99 is not close to claimed value of $21.
ETA: 2G2G is my fun game/adult loot bag, and this was disappointing given the rating this bakery has. Maybe they do sell the buns for $3.25 a pop? a loaf from them through uber eats is $8, so I think that is unlikely. Plus I was planning on french onion soup, but obviously not with sesame buns.
Today from 2G2G we got one produce bag (5.99) and one prepared food bag (7.99). It was a 75 minute walk each way, so when i had a chance at the second bag i figured why not.
The prepared food is roast vegetables (best before July 28) and scalloped potatoes (best before aug 2), but both had been marked down 50% already. I think because I cook a lot, I devalue the prepared foods. The roast veggies are worth the same for me (maybe less?) as if you just gave me those veggies raw. The scalloped potato perhaps more because it has more complex steps and Iâve never bothered to make it myself.
The produce is 7 bananas (varied levels of bruised), a mango, 3 peppers, a kale salad, sad bagged baby romaine (ETA: I have washed, picked through, spun dry, and really, there is a lot of not sad lettuce here, probably 3 x2 meals wrapped in paper towels so it will now last beyond this evening), broccoli.
I have cooked the kale (the full bowl was daunting raw) and will have half today with soft boiled eggs, pickled red onions, tahini. The rest of the salad will be eaten tomorrow.
Did grocery shopping this morning. Hubby put it all away while I was in an online meeting.
I had Hubby check our July total expenses for groceries and it was approximately $250 CAD. That is very low for us. I reminded him we had been visiting my sister for five days and our company bought Korean food and cooked for us another five days. Plus we ate out a lot when company was here. I suggested we put the dining out budget category under Groceries, so we make sure to catch the total cost of food at the end of the month. Hubby agreed.
Today we made a run to Costco, and one to Superstore. I was totally blown away by the prices. I was going to make pickles, thinking field cucumbers were $6.99 a basket. Instead the cashier rung them in at $1.79 each! No way! I told her that was too much for cucumbers and had her take them out to put back on the shelf. Iâll make zucchini relish instead.
I came home shaking my head. We have some âvery dark, robust maple syrupâ to try. It was a good $5 cheaper than the amber syrup, litre for litre.
Flour was scary. It was $11 for 10 kg at Costco, and $13.99 for 10 kg at Superstore. Iâm a bit concerned about whatâs going to happen this fall. I will probably buy another bag in September. Maybe a bigger one.
Notes on the Costco receipt:
Quick Oats were the big Quaker Oats box.
Listerine was two value paks ( huge bottles).
Cooking spray was 2 containers of canola spray.
Yes, one pound of unsalted butter was $5.29. That $2-3 cheaper than Superstore.
1.1 kg (2 lbs) cheddar cheese, regular fat, was the same price as the crap low fat cheddar at Superstore.
Basse almonds are a 700 gram (1.5 pounds) bag of sliced almonds.
And yes, 1 pound of spinach was $4.49.
Last fall superstore had a sale on butter for 2.88/lb. I got 12 which I am still working through. I think I have 1 or 2 left in the fridge. I keep my eyes on the prices and it is staggering.
2g2g $8 claimed value $24 backed up by the sticker prices. Very carb heavy - the cookies are the most expensive part at $10, and theyâre best before Sept, probably in here because slightly mushed and thus not good as a hostess gift. The discolouration in the white bread is raisins.
Not sure if i can use the coffee or it will require a machine or specialty equipment.
You must be in a large urban centreâŚAlberta, Ontario or BC? I havenât seen butter at that price in Superstore for a looong time nowâŚ.since the pandemic started. Usually it goes on sale around Thanksgiving/Christmas. I plan on keeping an eye on it this year. I do a lot of replacement with oil and other food items, but really, nothing does the job like butter!
I love the idea of combo yorkshire pudding & pancake mix! I wish it was available here, but in the US, youâre lucky if people have any idea what yorkshire pudding is at allâŚ
I managed to blend up the perfect amount of honeydew and cantaloupe for some ice pops. Didnât measure before or after, but ended up with the exact amount for my ice cube tray. Thank you (and to Smacky) for the idea.
I had a hypothesis that surprise bags are better at the beginning of the week and not as great on the weekend. This idea was supported by todayâs pickup. Definitely not helped by the store person taking two small bags of fruit out of my bag just as i was coming up to the desk and not adding any other produce.
It just seems difficult to do much transformation with this. At least we got a good walk out of it. ($8 for claimed $24 value) (ETA grapefruit curd?)
sandwich 13
Pizza 12 (alas olives)
grapefruit juice 7
Bagel unknown value
lettuce removed and made into salad with the last prosciutto end and some of that melon from the last bag, plus the random cherry tomato and single bocconcini ball they put into the sandwich tray. Plus tajin
ETA: have made my first citrus curd with half the grapefruit juice. Other favourite things to do with 1 cup of grapefruit juice will be seriously considered.
Was out getting auction stuff and DH messaged me, could I buy bread? At the time I was in a small, lakeside community. Small town store, probably insanely expensive bread.
I went to the local chain instead. This is the more expensive location for that chain, so I was going to go in, get the bread and get out. (I added ice cream because we were nearly out.) Being the frugal sort I am, I checked the mark downs before I left: Illy coffee beans, white vinegar gallons, and an organic vanilla cake mix, all 1/2 off! ($27.xx)
One of the vinegars fell over as I left the parking lot, so I went to the local big lots store for paper towels. I thought I had a $13 gift card, but Iâd spent $11 of it. I got almond crackers, parchment paper, and the paper towels for $8.xx .Essentiallly, the parchment was free and the rest of it I paid for. Both the crackers & parchment I got frequent shopper coupons, for $.90 off.
My neighbor with a farm has offered to let me pick peaches for free from one overloaded tree. That will happen this morning or tomorrow morning. If Iâd known, I wouldnât have bought a 1/2 bushel from the fruit farm last month!
We had drop biscuits with sliced peaches this morning for breakfast. We picked a colanderâs worth this morning.
I made chunked up chicken with sauteed onions and peach gravy. It was YUMMY! Itâs very, very likely that the end of the colander of peaches will become peach gravy. Both of us wanted to just sit with a spoon and eat the end of the stuff. It was that good.
I cut the sugar in 1/2, I used chicken broth/fat as I have a pot of chicken broth on the stove, I used less mustard, and I donât cook with salt or pepper. (DH likes a lot more pepper than I do and I like a lot more salt than he does. The solution is that we do our own and I donât cook with either.)
ETA: please note, this is a horrible way to do veggie sticks with hummus, I ended up taking out the veggies with tongs, scraping off the hummus, and now Iâm rehydrating the veggies in water. There is less than a cup of hummus in this container, it is stacked two high with veggie sticks. If you planned to serve this to kids, I think youâd be unpleasantly surprised. Very messy if you were planning to eat directly with fingers, and while some kids are ok with dirty hands, in my experience they like having more control over that.
Avocados arenât ripe yet!
ETA2: Iâd been thinking I wanted more cucumber, and then I get cucumber as part of the veggie sticks. Obviously Manifested
Just paid $42 CAD for three big bags of groceries, which is really cheap around here. We went to Superstore. I looked for produce under $2 per pound, bunch, whatever. Precious little to find.
Black kale was supposed to be $1.99 a bunch, but when the clerk rang it in, it registered as $4.99! I made her take it out and off the order. She didnât look impressed, but, whateverâŚ
We ended up with a bunch of fresh radishes, a bunch of fresh green onions, four ears of corn, and thatâs about it for the under $2 stuff. Then there were the 50% off red peppers and bananas. I bought clementines and spinach. Hubby bought apples and ârealâ bananas. We added milk, 2 loaves of bread and cranberry juice.
One thing we noticed is that Asian produce is much cheaper. Napa cabbage, bok choy and daikon were all under $1 per pound. Iâm going to have to expand my Asian recipe repertoire.
