Costco $16.67
Since the Maine Costco grand opening I told you about last week, I’ve only been back once, and all I bought were a few salad supplies. Which means, I’ve still got it. I’ve still got the willpower to get in and get out and only buy what was on my list.
I remember when we lived back in suburbia and I would pop into Costco for just a gallon of milk and bananas and everytime the cashier was amazed that it was all I had. The key was going in without a cart.
If you can only buy what you can carry, it helps considerably. But once you walk in with that giant cart and get bedazzled by something, then your whole pace gets thrown off and you start to slow down. Suddenly you find yourself pushing that big hunk of metal ever so slowly and then all manner of items start filling up your cart.
Ditching the cart. It works! Well, for me anyway.
Hannaford $8.50
The HH’s big shopping trip. 😉
Fat free milk was $0.79 cheaper, so he bought that for me instead of my usual 1 1/2% or 2% milk. Which made me laugh. I grew up on {watery, gross} fat free milk so I wasn’t expecting the gallon he brought home to be any different. But as it turned out, the Oakhurst fat free milk wasn’t bad at all. I was shocked! What kind of milk do YOU drink? {The HH drinks almond milk.}
Here are most of the meals we ate last week:
Roast chicken, roasted potatoes and corn.
Big salads!
Cheese and crackers with apples and nuts. This totally counts as a meal!
Another big salad.
And those chicken jalapeno cranberry meatballs from Costco? They were fantastic!! I’ve decided to hang on to the last package and serve them for Christmas Eve.
Another night we just had roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts.
And for Thanksgiving this year rather than cooking a turkey and having to deal with a week’s worth of leftovers… We went to Moody’s diner instead. 🙂 This was the first time for us… Not cooking a bird and all the sides.
And you know what? It was actually kind of nice.
We even went home with pie!!
But then I felt sort of guilty for not cooking so I went home and made a batch of snickerdoodle cookies. We ate a few and popped the rest in the freezer for later on.
Cookie season… It has arrived! And I am pretty excited about that!
How about YOU? What did you do for Thanksgiving? Did anyone go out to eat like we did, or are you all still enjoying all those fantastic leftovers? Curious minds want to know.
Happy Monday.
~Mavis
P.S. I received an email from Etsy that there is a $5 off a $30 coupon code CYBER5 for purchases made through midnight tonight {11/27} so be sure and take advantage of that if you have something in your cart! 🙂
Total Spent This Past Week on Groceries $25.17
- Total Spent in November on Groceries $226.19
- Total Spent in October on Groceries $83.81
- Total Spent in September on Groceries $109.49
- Total Spent in August for Groceries $13.04
- Total Spent on Groceries for July $376.89
- Total Spent on Groceries in June $41.56
- Total Spent on Groceries in May $288.51
- Total Spent on Groceries in April $35.36
- Total Spent on Groceries in March $82.28
- Total Spent on Groceries in February $101.14
- Total Spent on Groceries in January $167.33 {this includes buying groceries on Fair Isle}
- Total Spent on Groceries in 2023 $1,522.55 for our $100 a month grocery budget for 2
Mel says
We got a pre-cooked turkey, and then I made pie and mashed potatoes and gravy and Brussels sprouts. I normally go all out, but we are very short on time these days, so I couldn’t. It actually worked out well, and I made turkey noodle soup and some sandwiches and popped the last of the meat in the freezer last night for another time. The turkey itself wasn’t too different, but it yielded like 4 cups of drippings once re-heated, so it was extra easy to make soup this year with that flavor boost.
Lynne says
I bought just the bone-in turkey breast this year, rather than the whole turkey. It actually cost more, but cooked in WAY less time than the full bird, and leftovers were easily collected and a manageable quantity. I began with a fairly big list of sides, but day-of, I pared back to just brussels sprouts, cauliflower and mashed potatoes, with gravy. I’m going to make a turkey shepherd’s pie tonight (using some veggies that didn’t make the Thanksgiving table), and it’s all gone. Less is more, sometimes.
Rosemary says
I shop at Costco every week and just get what I need. I use a cart since I drop things a lot (ha ha) but it doesn’t seem to work against me. The cashiers do look surprised when I only buy a couple of things.
I made Thanksgiving dinner for the 2 of us: 9 lb. turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy and corn souffle. For the pie, I made 14 mini pumpkin pies last week and froze them – I had one on Thanksgiving (they are the size of cupcakes). I took a lot of the turkey meat that was leftover and made turkey pot pies and froze them. We are still working on the rest of the leftovers . . .
Wendy C. says
We found turkeys at 39 cents a pound and smoked them. It’s just as easy to smoke 2 as it is 1. We then chopped up the meat and froze it. We took the carcasses and made 4 gallons of turkey broth which we then canned.
So Thanksgiving day we had nachos instead of the traditional meal.
I’m tempted to see if there’s more turkey at this price and make more for the freezer.
Margo says
My plan was to attend Thanksgiving dinner at family, then buy a small fresh turkey, cut it up and freeze the parts for future dinner for the 2 of us. But my refrigerator broke 2 days before Thanksgiving and we shoved everything we could salvage into our small chest freezer. No room for anything right now. New fridge coming later this week so maybe I’ll see if I can still score a fresh turkey. A couple of years ago I found one after Christmas at Costco. Cost about $10 for a 22 pound bird at that point. They were just trying to get rid of them.
Kristina says
Homemade mac and cheese, homemade chana masala, care of my daughter’s boyfriend, a really good green salad of butter lettuce, orange slices, and a nice balsamic maple vinagrette. Sangria. It was a wonderful feast.
Melonie K. says
We stock up on turkey breasts throughout the year, so they are easy to pull for gatherings or holidays. My husband smoked two – one with a lemon-pepper rub that we had for Thanksgiving and the other with a paleo taco spice that he shreds and I make into enchiladas. We had my folks over and the first breast fed all five of us lunch, plus leftovers for the dinner for everyone & a lunch serving for my mom. The enchiladas fed us two nights, plus two lunches for my stepdad.
All in all, 6lbs of turkey breast fed five of us for six mealsish. The second night of enchiladas, I used up the last of the green beans from Thanksgiving as the side for husband and son. So no fridge clutter or forgotten items for this week!
Diana says
We have decided to have the kids host Thanksgiving alternating between them each year. So we drove 8 hours to San Francisco for a big meal with 30 people! It was so much fun! We had deep fried turkey, twice baked potatoes, huge salad, sourdough rolls, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, green beans, oyster casserole, corn casserole, gravy, deviled eggs, lots of appetizers, and four different pies for dessert. I still did a lot of cooking, but I loved seeing my son hosting the event!
Linda Sand says
We bought a small pre-cooked and sliced turkey breast, a jar of gravy, a can of cranberry sauce, and a frozen pumpkin pie. We already had instant mashed potatoes. We neither like stuffing so we had all the necessities with none of the work. We got three meals for each of us out of that: a plateful of goodies followed by pie, turkey sandwiches with pie, and chopped up turkey and gravy served over bread. All the leftovers are gone now since I ate the last of the cranberry sauce with a salmon cake last night.
Sue says
I love those chicken jalapeno/cranberry meatballs. I’ve made meatball subs with them; toasted Keto hot dog buns spread with mustard and sprinkled with chopped red onion, topped with 3 hot meatballs and dollops of cranberry chutney over all. Super good!
Sue says
PS: Oh, and we did not cook a turkey this year, either. We had grilled steak, baked potatoes, mashed cauliflower, jalapeno cornbread gems, roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli, and berry pie for dessert.
Not sorry to not have to process all that leftover turkey and the carcass!
Pamela Sheppard says
I cooked a 15lb turkey and all the trimmings for just 3 people. Tonight I froze the last small portion of turkey to add to a salad at a future date. I had the full dinner 2 nights in a row then a sandwich the next two nights. It was all great! would not have changed a thing.
Chris says
The 25 year old son came home. He spatchcocked an 11 pd bird and put it on the smoker. Best turkey we’ve ever had. He also smoked a block of cream cheese for an appetizer. It was just the 4 of us. Peas, butternut squash, dressing & cranberries. Just enough.
Gwenn says
We sorta cooked a turkey this year. I made a turkey breast with roasted yukon gold & sweet potatoes with roasted brussels. I did make homemade baguettes, which I call a win. Enough leftovers for a couple of days but not too much. It’s just the HH and I, big meals end up getting wasted or end up in the freezer, which sometimes gets forgotten about.
Jules says
It’s almost a week since Thanksgiving, and we’re just about out of leftovers. Turkey rice soup tonight and then they’ll be gone.
We do not have a Costco card because it never seemed to work with a budget. Maybe someone could tell me how that works. Our family of 7 usually spend $250-$300 every 2 weeks, that’s grocery food and goods.
Stephanie in Utah says
I grew up on 2% and fat free milk. Now I drink whole milk. Mainly because my young kids need the fattening of whole milk and I don’t want to by more than one type of milk (unless it’s chocolate milk)!