This Month's 2024 Extreme Budget Grocery Spending – July

 

In July I embarked on a pantry challenge in order to use up a bin full of items I had collected as they had been hanging around the house for a while and quite frankly had worn out their welcome.  I was ready to see them go.  In the process I didn’t need to purchase much of anything which allowed me to save up most of my grocery budget and do some stocking up next month for the upcoming winter.  I always like to be well stocked for winter so I don’t need to spend a lot of money on groceries when the heat bills start to roll in and I don’t have to worry about grocery shopping when the weather turns bad and the roads get icy.

 

Boneless skinless chicken breasts - $1.99 a pound

Having more cash on hand allows me to take advantage of bulk buys and stock up on any good sales, both of which save me a lot of money.  Family packs of meat and poultry go on sale and allow me to get more food at a lower price per pound.  Now that I have a Costco membership I’d also like to pick up some of their larger products to add to my freezer and pantry.  I’m pretty excited about that.

 

Last month I picked up a half gallon of cream from Costco for my coffee habit as well as to use in a few recipes I made and plan to make.  It has a best buy date of late August so I will be able to use it well into next month.  At Fred Meyer I picked up two three pound packages of Angus 90% lean ground beef that was on markdown for $9.43 each.  An outstanding deal!

 

I took advantage of the holiday sales

I also picked up just over six pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts that were on sale for $1.99 a pound.  I used a $25 Kroger gift card I had earned from Fetch rewards points I’d saved up to pay for most of that meat purchase leaving me with a balance of only $7.02 out of pocket.  I was pretty darn happy about that.

 

All of this went into long term storage

and this!

With a great sale on buns for 99¢ each I also stocked up on a package of hot dog and one of hamburger buns which I added to the deep freezer as well.  I like to take half of the hotdog and half of the burger buns and place them in the bags so I have four of each stored together.  It is the perfect size for meals here at my house.  Then the bags of buns are slipped into a two gallon Ziploc bag and into the freezer until I need them.  Other than a head of lettuce I picked up at Trader Joes to make salads and use in sandwiches there wasn’t much else I needed to buy last month.

 

I used a gift card and treated myself to a handful of "want" items

Mid month I made a second trip to Costco and picked up a handful of items.  In the midst of a heat wave I decided not to bake my own bread and instead opted instead to purchase a twin pack of whole grain bread.  I also picked up a package of their romaine hearts, a rotisserie chicken and some yogurt.  I admit that I needed none of these items, but since I had a Costco gift card I treated myself.

 

I was able to restock some LTFS supplies

The non food items I purchases were two boxes of canning lids for $2.97 each to replace some of the ones I’d used so far this year.  I also was just about out of quart size vacuum seal bags so I bought a 50 count box of those for $19.99.  I hadn’t bought vacuum bags since 2020 so I expect this box should last me at least for the next four years, if not longer.  These purchases sent me over budget for the year so that part of my 2024 budget challenge is a bust.  I’ll just have to learn to live with that.

 

Hotdogs, potato salad & coleslaw for 4th of July! 😋

My food budget however was way under budget and thanks to those two Kroger gift cards I earned and redeemed I was able to use both of those to offset the majority of the cost of the items I got on sale and markdown as part of my winter stock up plan.  My deep freezer is now fully stocked and even more so with the addition of some hotdogs, Italian sausages, ground beef and chicken.  I even used a digital store coupon to add a FREE jar of mayonnaise to my LTFS.

 

The deep freezer is fully stocked

The pantry challenge was a success.  I even made it through the 4^th of July festivities and created a great meal using up leftover items I already had on hand.  My total spending for food in July came in at $23.07.  I will be taking my rollover amounts from previous months and adding them to my $50 budget for a grand total of $110.42 to work with and to do some more winter stocking up in August as well as to add a few fresh produce items to the refrigerator.  And perhaps another Costco rotisserie chicken, who knows?

 

I didn't buy a lot, but what I did buy made a big impact

Did you find any great buys this past month?  Are you canning anything or doing some shopping ahead for winter?