February's Food Quest, Week 3: Ready for Shopping Olympics!

Man, I'm good. Usually I'm fairly modest, if I do say so myself, but I'm pretty impressed at how far under budget I was this week.

My back was up against the wall a bit, in terms of bringing the month's grocery bill under budget for February. Though my two previously weekly trips came in on target, two supplemental trips had me a bit over for the month. Usually my weekly trip gets us through the week, but I was fighting a cold mid-week and resorted to a prepared meal from Whole Foods and some other cold-fighting goodies.

Given that I was running slightly over budget with these extra trips, I needed to be at my frugal finest today. One thing on my side was that I still had frozen ground turkey from last week, so tonight I'll use that for a Bolognese sauce. I figured I'd just make one meat purchase to help keep the bill down. Pork chops were on sale again, and I remember wanting to try this Pork Chops with Creamy Cabbage recipe from Food & Wine. The week's menus will be rounded out with a vegetable & bean soup for Monday soup night; and I'll make enough filling for two nights of Black Bean Soft Tacos (to which we can add leftover pork if there is some).

Armed with that plan, I was ready for Whole Foods. I was quickly faced with a difficult dilemma when I passed a display stand with a quart of maple syrup on sale for about $4 less than the usual. We weren't out, but will be soon the way B. has it every day with breakfast. So I hesitantly put it in the cart despite it adding $13 I hadn't planned on. That was the only really unplanned purchase of the week, I stayed focused on the list and...was very excited at checkout when the tally came to $117, well under the $150 weekly target. I've made up for the extra trips, and have $7 to spare going into the final February shopping trip. A good thing, as I'm cooking for extras on Open that Bottle Night...stay tuned!