This Month's 2025 Grocery Spending – March

 

I am just going to address the elephant in the room straight away.  I went way over budget this month.  I had received my tax refund at the end of February and I had the funds to invest in extra groceries so I made a second trip to Costco and did some investing.  I feel really good about it too.

This was a really good deal!

As was this!

At the beginning of the month I had made my first trip to Costco for a couple of items on my list and resisted the rotisserie chicken since I was still using up items I had squirreled away in my refrigerator and freezer.  I picked up a couple items for my LTFS while in there mainly shopping for clothing this time.

 

I was able to restock the freezer with steaks and add more salmon

At the beginning of the month a really good sale on sirloin steaks at Albertson's compelled me to go in there and purchase two large packages of their good quality meat.  I also picked up a package of salmon fillets.

 

Trader Joes on the left, Winco on the right 😊
I used a gift card I got for Christmas to cover TJs

Winco and Trader Joes allowed me to do a nice shopping trip to pick up items on my list to replace some things I had pulled from my LTFS where I shopped my shelves during the month of February.  I also stocked up on some dairy items as well as some fresh produce.  With that we were back in business.

 

A little rewards certificate to help lower the cost on my trip to Costco

Beef stew meat for a home canning project I had planned

My next trip to Costco was for the sole purpose of picking up some beef stew meat I had checked out on my last trip in as well as a rotisserie chicken.  This time I did not resist temptation and enjoyed every bite of chicken.  That chicken carcass wasn’t wasted as it was added to a bag of veggie scraps I had in the freezer and made into a delicious broth which I canned and was able to restock my LTFS shelf.  I also canned all of that wonderful stew meat which allowed me to add fourteen pints and one half pint of beautifully cooked and seasoned beef to my LTFS.  I have no regrets about that!

 

This deal was an unexpected, but happy surprise!

I was able to score a really good deal on a case of Libby’s green beans at Walmart.com and they even delivered them for FREE!  I added them to an order I placed for canning jars as my local store was out of the ones I wanted so I had to order them.  The green beans were $6.92 making them less than 58¢ a can.  I have used up quite a few cans from my LTFS over the past year and I had a bit of an overstock at the time, but now I will be able to replace some of the ones I used and be properly stocked moving forward.  While I was in Wal-Mart I was able to pick up two jars of ground ginger as Winco was completely out of it when I was there.  I put one in my spice cabinet and one in my LTFS.

 

I had good luck this time at the markdown produce bin

My last trip to the store this month was to pick up some more milk and a couple avocados to go with a couple dinners I had planned.  While I was there I perused the produce markdown bin and found a nice bag of oranges for $1 and a bag of bell peppers for $1.  Perfect!

 

My nonfood purchases this month were for canning supplies.  I had run low on lids and I had used up all of my jars.  This year I am working to expand my LTFS so I decided to invest some of my non food budget into two more flats of pint jars and another flat of half pint jars so I am ready for future canning projects.  I also restocked my canning lids, both regular mouth and wide.

 

This month I spent a total of $186.08 on food!  I used up all of the rollover funds I had from the beginning of the year and went over by $44.79 leaving me with a deficit going into April.  I’m completely fine with that.  I will be starting the month of April with a budget of $55.21.  All in all, I am quite pleased with how my month turned out and I wouldn’t change a thing.  Did you score any great deals on food this month?  Are you stocking up on anything?