Yes. I actually went. If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I don’t cook at home very much. I can, but I don’t. In an effort to be more frugal, I went to the grocery store, ostensibly to buy some cans of Coke to keep at the office under my desk. (I can’t drink 20 ozs. I usually walk the cube farm until I can find someone to share one with me. Otherwise I will drink the whole thing and over-caffeinate. Not pretty.)
I bought about 20 items today. Only two things were not on sale, bag salad mix and chicken buillon. I only like to buy what is on sale when I go. I restocked my soup shelf and got a good deal on Dole Mandarin Oranges in the large plastic jars. (I love it! Resealable and reusable jars! People do re-use jars right? Because that’s the frugal thing to do.)
It kind of limits your menu if you only eat what’s on sale, but since I dine out enough, I generally still get a good variety of food.
Oh, and today, I used my filled-out cafeteria punch card and paid only $1.63 for lunch, which was the price of coffee. (Today’s high in DC was about 20 degrees, so,”Take that, Dave Ramsey! I’m paying for hot coffee when I’m freezing!”) The card deal is that you pay for 8 meals over $4 each and it turns into a $5 coupon. I’m getting so good at weighing out the food in the cafeteria that I dished out exactly $5.01 of food. I don’t always use the punch cards, but my boss and I figured out that you can get 9 meals for $32 dollars. That’s about $3.56 a meal, making it really cost effective. I usually spend about $6-8 per meal, so it’s about $48.00-64.00 to fill the punch card ($5.33-7.11 per meal). That’s still cheaper than going out to a local restaurant for lunch and only a little more expensive than packing lunch/leftovers. I’m pretty sure I’m never going to pack my lunch again ever. The Chicken Cordon Bleu on Mondays is really tasty.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I have no grocery shopped for about 2 weeks. I have no idea what to buy, my last trip was like $150. Besides it’s freezing outside, I’ve been a bad bro and ordering delivery
I am eating hamburger helper at work for lunch. I made three packages of it saturday and divided it into 8 portions.
When I eat at the local deli or McFood, it’s usually $7 to $11. I actually tried to make a food budget at one point, it seems $30 a day is not enough for eating 3 square meals out.
Congrats on making a concerted effort to grocery shop. My boyfriend and I recently moved in together and our grocery bill averages $400 a month. I cook dinner six nights a week (meal planning is a CHORE, and I wish someone could enlighten me on an easier solution), and our treat is going to dinner on Saturday night. We also pack lunches for our respective jobs four days a week, and although I cannot stand packing a lunch every day I do it because since we moved to a new city three months ago I am temping while I pursue permanent employment and every penny I save counts. I have to go out to lunch at least once a week, otherwise I get major cabin fever and I don’t like to deprive myself. Great blog, BTW. I love it!