My goal this past week was to avoid the grocery stores all together.
And I failed. 🙁
Fred Meyer $3.79
I was lured into Fred Meyer by the Darigold butter that was on sale for $1.99 and the promise of a free chocolate bar and a free V8 drink {both friday freebies}. I gave the HH the chocolate bar for Valentine’s Day and he gobbled it up before I had a chance to ask for a piece. 😉 I guess he liked it. Note to self: Next time you give someone a bar of chocolate, stay in the room and don’t wander off to make a cup of tea.
Main and Vine $4.49
I stopped by the library to pick up some books and decided to check out the deals. Bananas were $0.59 a pound and sumo oranges $0.99 a pound.
Main and Vine $5.00
The real deal at Main and Vine this week though was the Greek God’s Yogurt for $2.50 each. The HH LOVE this stuff and for $2.50 a tub? Hello, I’ll take two.
Zaycon Fresh FREE
I had some Zaycon Fresh credits and decided to spend them on bacon and breakfast sausages this time around.
You can earn Zaycon credits 2 ways:
- Referring people – You receive $5 the first time a person places an order and picks it up at a sales event and $1 every order after that.
- Helping out at a Zaycon event. A friend of mine worked at this particular bacon event in our town and had a great time earning credit towards free meat. I think I might join her next time.
Zaycon Fresh has great prices and I have been buying and cooking with their meat since I discovered them 3 years ago. If you’ve never bought in bulk before, getting together with friends to prepare Freezer Meals is a pretty fun way to “put up” a bunch of meals for busy weeknights.
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Here are some of the meals we ate last week {minus snacks}:
Monday
Breakfast – Strawberry Cream of Wheat
Lunch – 6 slices of Shirley’s Cinnamon Raisin Bread {toasted of course}
Dinner – Split pea soup and crackers
Tuesday
Breakfast – 2 slices cinnamon raisin bread, toasted
Lunch – Panera chicken cobb salad with avocado {gift card}
Dinner – Salmon and brown rice with spinach and mushrooms
Wednesday
Breakfast – Steel cut oats with frozen strawberries and brown sugar
Lunch – Grilled cheese sandwhich
Dinner – Chicken stir fry and brown rice
Thursday
Breakfast – 2 Chocolate chips cookies {Bad Mavis!}
Lunch – Leftover chicken stir fry and brown rice
Dinner – Pigs in a blanket
Friday
Breakfast – Fried egg sandwich with bacon and cheese
Lunch – Split pea soup and toast
Dinner – Pot roast with bacon corn
Saturday
Breakfast – Steel cut oats with frozen berries, banana
Linner – Chicken Nachos
Sunday
Breakfast – Big Breakfast with Valentine heart toast 🙂
Linner – Beef Stew {I used the leftover pot roast} and grilled cheese sandwiches
How about YOU? What did you feed your tribe this past week? Did you find any good deals at the grocery store? I’d love to hear about them.
~Mavis
Total Spent This Week $13.28
Total Spent in February $67.20 {I need to watch it if I’m going to stay on track!}
Total Spent in Janaury $105.36
Freebies we’ve been gifted or were earned in 2016: $200
- $100 gift card to Whole Foods {Christmas gift from my parents}
- $100 gift card to Trader Joe’s {Christmas gift from my parents}
- 22 packets of vegetable seeds
Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.
Kirsten G. says
I wish I had Zaycon in my area. I’m still trying to find a Canadian equivalent.
Marcia says
This was a bad week. I haven’t totaled it. We have visitors. And now u caught my kid’s cold.
Mavis Butterfield says
Guests always tip the budget, don’t feel bad Marcia.
Marcia says
Okay, I totaled it. $156. Ow. Luckily last week was less than half that.
I did enjoy your eats this week. Looks yummy. I love a good stir-fry!
We ate pretty well. Salmon and broccoli, lots of salads with avocado that we bought roadside (along with strawberries), homemade carrot muffins, pasta with cheese, baked chicken legs, pizza (we ordered that), quesadillas, asparagus and goat cheese frittata.
And lots of tea with honey for our sore throats.
Kathy says
At my local Giant Eagle grocery store, a 1 pound bag of Meyer lemons…FREE with store advantage card. Total for last week was roughly $22, which included diced ham for a ham and biscuit with homemade country gravy casserole I forgot to take a picute of. Not sure what the lemons are being used for yet, but it will be something awesome. Just love fresh zest and juice.
Mavis Butterfield says
Free lemons? Nice. I’d make some lemon bars. And then eat them all. 🙂
Kathy says
Think I’ll do just that. Thanks!
Sue says
We picked up steaks and bacon Saturday morning, First time for steaks, both boxes frozen hard as a brick. Bacon has never been frozen before it turns out after talking to a rep at Zaycon it’s was what I ordered. LOL… Oh well, teaches me to read about what I’m ordering next time.
Julie says
We LOVE Zaycon!! So glad you told us about it, we’ve been ordering our chicken since more than a year now from them and it’s so good!
Emily F says
How do you find info about / sign up to help at a Zaycon event?
Julie says
When you order they ask you if you want to help
Mimi says
My local Fred Meyer didn’t have Darigold butter on sale last week and they sometimes don’t offer the Free Friday coupon download I see on your blog. I seem to live in a Fred Meyer zone of weirdness. 🙁
Mavis Butterfield says
I wish all the Fred Meyer ads would be the same. 🙁
Stephanie says
Last week I found brown sugar on sale for $.50 a pound, which was perfect because I was down to only 2 bags in the pantry. We went to a family potluck over the weekend and I cooked up a big ham to free up some freezer space. I also cooked orange chicken one night and a copycat Chipotle recipe another night. It’s not quite the same, but very tasty. It’s also very time consuming! We had a very fancy (not!) Valentine’s Day dinner of homemade mac n cheese.
Jennifer says
Mavis, are you able to compost your butter wrappers? Do you plan to change your shopping choices to accommodate your less-trash lifestyle–for example, do you plan to quit Zaycons or stop buying Ziplock bags? (No judgement. Just inquiring.)
Mavis Butterfield says
The butter wrappers are wax paper, can I recycle wax paper? I was under the impression I coulnd’t, maybe I’m wrong though. Do I plan to stop using Zaycon? No, I actually think there is less packaging buying in bulk. Will I stop using Ziplock bags? Well, I don’t think they are a necessity, so for this year anyway, I won’t be buying any new ones. I’ll just make do with the ones I have. Great questions!