Weekend Shopping

I'm in a little disarray this week as far as organization goes. We were on a trip to California and ended up with cancelled flights trying to get home due to the big snowstorm in the Seattle area. After 5 flight cancellations over the course of three days we made it home to our cold house and empty fridge. I made a quick stop at the grocery store for necessities like milk & fruit immediately.
This was $14.17 at QFC. Definitely not as painful as it could be.

When I had time to look through the ads I made a bigger trip the following day.
I was a little dismayed to realize I had two big food events coming up including a taco bar to feed 7 families at our small group Bible study and turkey pot pies for my freezer meal swap next week. And I just remembered to pull the turkey out of the freezer as I typed that! I hope it defrosts by tomorrow morning since I want to cook it tomorrow and assemble the pies on Friday. Here's what I bought for $74.65.
On the left are the items for the meal swap. Potatoes, frozen veggies, and organic celery. I already have the turkey, carrots, and crusts. Those totaled $8.06.

In the center of the table is the food for the taco bar. 6# of ground turkey, cheese, bell pepper, 30 tortillas, 2 bags of chips, sour cream, green onions. I have salsa and olives in my pantry and a couple pounds of ground beef I'll add to the turkey. Other wives are providing other side items like rice, beans, lettuce, and guacamole. This was a costly meal, mostly because it snuck up on me. All this food totaled $36.14.

I was really disappointed to spend so much because I want to only spend $30/week during the pantry challenge. I figure if I don't count the meal swap or taco bar items I spent $44.62 on food for my family. I decided to try and stretch these groceries for 2 weeks so I bought extra bananas and milk to tide us over. The fruit is enough because we can use the canned fruit in the pantry, too, but I think 3 gallons of milk isn't going to be enough for 2 whole weeks. I'm being stingy with it so we'll see.

Katie