Weekly Shopping Trips | One Hundred Dollars a Month

Food Waste In America – Saving Fruits and Vegetables From the Dumpster

May 21, 2013 10 Comments

It was another fantastic week gleaning from the free chicken scrap boxes.

Lucy discovered she likes watermelon!

There were so many strawberries to go through this week it was crazy! We made a few smoothies and ended up freezing the rest to use later in the year. If I remember correctly this is around the time we start to see a lot of those giant California strawberries start to hit the stores.

Lucky for us they have a pretty short shelf life so we are able to fill our freezer up all summer long with “seconds” to enjoy during the winter months.

Spotted bananas. Who wants to buy those? No one apparently. But we love them. Here is a recipe for banana pancakes. Make a stack of those and they’ll fill you up until lunch.

Check out the corn. We pulled the husks back and a few of them looked great.

Others, not so much.

This is the food we kept for ourselves and the rest went to the chickens. The hens will pretty much eat anything but they really love pecking and the corn and lettuce.

What a bounty and all for free thanks to Mr. Produce Guy.

If I had to guess, I’d save that’s about $30 of fresh fruits and vegetables for free. What do you think?

~Mavis

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.

Filed Under: Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: Food Waste in America, how to find free food, Mavis, one hundred dollars a month, Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips

Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

May 20, 2013 5 Comments

I stopped by Albertsons twice this week to grab some deals. I’ll admit it, one of the things I miss about Extreme Couponing and Albertsons Double Coupons {do you think they’ll ever come back?} is being able to stock up on boatloads of stuff in one shopping trip.

Even though it was a lot of work to gather all the coupons, calculate the deals and wait in line, it was kind of fun to come home with a car load of food for under $5. But them again, we are eating a lot healthier now and growing more of our own fruits and vegetables so there is really a lot less to buy.

I only had 2 shopping trips this week:

Albertsons – $2.39

English muffins were only $0.50 a bag so I grabbed two of them plus some sour cream for the Asparagus Salad I made the other day.

Albertsons – $13.77

I can explain. Ha!

I picked up 30 {yes 30!} boxes of cake mix and 9 boxes of brownie mix for a committee event. I have a $100 budget to provide dessert for 600 people and Albertsons had a deal that if you bought particular items in sets of 10, you could get them for only $.49 a box.

Now, you and I both know cupcakes and brownies taste better from scratch, but if you had to provide dessert for 600 people would you make them from scratch, or go the boxed route. Hmmm. It’s a tough one, I know.

Because I am being reimbursed for the items I buy for the dessert I am not including them in my total.

I paid $13.77 for 2 gallons of milk, 20 boxes of pasta {I think I’ve got enough now to last me the rest of the year} mustard for $0.19 and a free jar of pickles {Vlasic coupon NLA}.

Mr. Produce Guy – Free

Last week I hit the jackpot. There was a little of everything. Bananas for power smoothies, broccoli for stir-fry and broccoli salad, plenty of fruit for breakfast, corn for the grill lot’s of other goodness. Between the garden, Mr. Produce Guy and my bulk purchases, I rarely have to buy anything these days.

Total Spent This Week $16.16

Total Spent This Year $962.06

Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $893.99 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 16 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil. I also picked up a boatload of heirloom tomato plants at the Seattle Tilth sale.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

Filed Under: Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: Mavis, mavis butterfield, mondays with mavis, one hundred dollars a month

Food Waste in America – What Does it Look Like

May 14, 2013 16 Comments

If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past year from picking up free chicken scraps at our local grocery store, it’s that you never know what, or how much produce you are going to go home with on any given week.

We picked up 3 boxes of produce that was headed for the dumpster and were thrilled with what we found. Hiding under the heads of organic lettuce and asparagus were quite a few treasures.

Is it me, or does Lucy look like a stuffed dog right here? The dog will eat anything I tell you. Anything. She even ate fennel for Pete’s sake! Lucy is totally nuts.

At the bottom of one of the boxes was a bunch of corn. As I was pulling back the husks to see if any of them were keepers, I started to wonder where the corn came from. What state/country has corn in season right now? Does anyone know?

Clearly, no one was going to buy this mutant ear of corn.

Holy crack. Look at all the goodness. Chard, asparagus, corn, broccoli, melon, pineapple, carrots, lettuce, peppers, radishes, cabbage and beets. I’m not sure what the retail value on all this is, but since it was going to be thrown out, I’m glad we were able to save it.

And the chickens were happy with their boxes of scraps this week too.

Thank you Mr. Produce Guy!

What do YOU think about all this food waste? If your local market gave away their scraps would you take them?

~Mavis

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.

Filed Under: Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: Food Waste in America, how to find free food, Mavis, one hundred dollars a month, Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips

Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

May 13, 2013 6 Comments

Oroweat Bakery Outlet – $8

With 5 weeks of school left I’m hoping this will be enough bread and bagels to get us through to the end of the school year. If you have never shopped at a bakery outlet before, check around in your area, it’s a great way to save. Anytime I can get good bread and bagels for $1 a bag I like to stock up. Find out how I keep our bread fresh.

Target – $5.28

I’m not sure what else we purchased at Target last week but while we were there we grabbed 2 gallons of milk.

Amazon – FREE

My hottie of a UPS man delivered some peanut butter crackers for Monkey Boy and a jar of Nutella for The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird after I cashed in some of my Swagbucks for a free Amazon.com gift card.

Local Produce Stand – $6.22

Our local produce stand had broccoli on sale last week for $.99 a pound, Fuji apples for $0.69 a pound and cucumbers for $0.50 each. Each week they have 2 or 3 really good deals so I always try and stop in and pick them up when I’m nearby.

We also harvested salad greens, basil, spinach, radishes, and sprouts this week.

How did YOU do with your grocery budget over the past 7 days?

Do you have a garden? Are you looking forward to “grocery shopping” from your garden pretty soon? I know I am.

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $19.50

Total Spent This Year $945.90

Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $862.57 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 16 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil. I also picked up a boatload of heirloom tomato plants at the Seattle Tilth sale.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

Filed Under: Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: Mavis, mavis butterfield, mondays with mavis, one hundred dollars a month

One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure

May 7, 2013 19 Comments

I went up to Girly Girls house to borrow some pine nuts for my Spinach and Basil Pesto Farfalle recipe and noticed another neighbors trash was overflowing in to the street.

Our neighbor had these 3 fake Cinderella pumpkins sitting alongside her trash can waiting for Mr. Garbage Guy to pick them up.

Oh I don’t think so!

After a quick 3 second inspection all I could find wrong with them was a little damage to one of the ribs on a pumpkin. Nothing a little glue and paint can’t fix.

Wahoooo!

I love it when other people throw away good stuff!

What do you think?

Trash, or treasure? Would you have swooped these babies up off the side of the road or would you have kept driving by?

~Mavis

Filed Under: Frugal Living, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: frugal living, One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure, pumpkins

Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

May 6, 2013 10 Comments

Well, it was another major snoozefest in the grocery department this week. All I purchased was 2 gallons of milk, some bananas for some Spinach Power Smoothies and 2 containers of organic baby spinach and baby kale that was on sale for $1 each at my local produce market.

Thanks to a major stock up trip I made at Winco, Costco and the Oroweat Bakery Outlet 2 weeks ago and some freebie snacks last week, I didn’t have to buy much.

I’ve been photographing the meals I’ve been feeding my family over the past week and and will be showing you those soon.

Do you do a super stock up trip on every few months too? I’m beginning to think it might be the way to go.

How did you do this past week? Did you come across any rockin’ grocery deals?

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $8.35
Total Spent This Year $926.4
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $862.57 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 16 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil. I also picked up a boatload of heirloom tomato plants at the Seattle Tilth sale.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

Filed Under: Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: Mavis, mavis butterfield, mondays with mavis, one hundred dollars a month

Food Waste in America – This Little Piggy Saved None

April 30, 2013 6 Comments

Mr. Produce Guy had 2 boxes of reclaimed produce waiting for us when we stopped by the local market this week. There was more lettuce than you could imagine along with grapes, pears and corn.

Inspector Lucy learned she lives celery.

As for the rest of the produce, well, we decided to sit this one out. If would have had the extra time, I could have cut out the good parts out of the corn and froze it. But I didn’t.

I also didn’t bother with the pears {too mushy} or the grapes.

It’s kind of weird in a way how we’ve become accustomed to getting so much great produce over the past year. If we were truly needy, or this were the depression era or even if I was living in The Glass Castle, I would have saved every ounce of the produce.

And now after looking at these pictures again, I feel bad The Girl and I didn’t pick through the boxes and save any of the fruits and vegetables.

It’s pretty rare around here that all the free produce goes to the chickens, but this week, they got it all.

~Mavis

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.

Filed Under: Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: how to find free food, Mavis, one hundred dollars a month, Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips

Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

April 29, 2013 13 Comments

Hello Monday!

If you are still in your pajamas, it’s OKAY. So am I!

Laurie sent in some gnome pajamas for me to wear for the Send in the Gnomes fundraiser, how cool was that? How did she even know I like pajamas? I’ll have to break them in before I pack up the pj’s for the road trip to St. Jude this summer.

As far as grocery shopping went, it was a pretty slow week around here due to my splurge and Costco and Winco last week.

Some weeks you buy a ton of food and others you get by with just milk.

Here is what I purchased:

Target $7.18

All I really needed this past week was milk. I was walking by an end cap and spotted Alfredo sauce for a $1 a jar so I grabbed two of them. Has anyone tried this brand? Is it any good?

I have a recipe I’ve been wanting to try and it calls for Alfredo sauce, which is not something I normally buy so hopefully the Market Pantry brand will taste okay.

Vitacost – FREE

I had some Vitacost credit and then shopped through ebates to score a 6% rebate on my purchase.

If you’ve never made a purchase from Vitacost before you can get a $10 credit just for signing up, plus earn a $10 credit each time you refer a friend and they make a purchase. Plus, right now Ebates is offering a 6% rebate on any Vitacost purchase so it’s like double dipping. Pretty cool if you ask me. Also if you are new to Ebates, you can score a $10 gift card for signing up to their website as well.

Mr. Produce Guy – FREE

Thanks to Mr. Produce Guy we had free watermelon coming out of our ears last week. The best part about the reclaimed produce we pick up every week is we never know what is going to be in those boxes. It’s kind of like a treasure hunt.

Only having to go the grocery store for milk this past week was pretty rad. Let’s hope I can have a few more weeks like that to keep my budget in check.

How did YOU do this past week? Did you score any super awesome deals?

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $7.18
Total Spent This Year $918.05
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $805.57 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 16 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

Filed Under: Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: Mavis, mavis butterfield, mondays with mavis, one hundred dollars a month

Food Waste in America – What Am I Suppose to Do with All this Watermelon?

April 23, 2013 39 Comments

This week there were only 2 boxes of free produce from our local grocery store. I just about fell over when I saw all the watermelon. I mean really, we can only eat so much.

Has anyone ever tried freezing watermelon? Can it be done? If so I’m thinking a few chunks of watermelon might go nicely in a smoothie or something. I’ve dehydrated watermelon before, but I don’t think I have tried to freeze it.

We kept 5 giant tubs of melon {so far we have polished off 3 tubs} and a small bowl of strawberries for ourselves and gave the rest of the reclaimed produce to our flock of backyard chickens.

No matter how you look at it, free is free. And even though the pickings this week were slim, we are still happy to have them.

Peace Out Girl Scouts, have a great day.

~Mavis

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.

Filed Under: Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips Tagged With: how to find free food, Mavis, one hundred dollars a month, Reclaimed Food, Weekly Shopping Trips

Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

April 22, 2013 50 Comments

A strange thing happened at the Boston airport {besides the part about the HH deciding we had to be there 6 hours before our flight was due to take off}. I made a grocery list. A really, really long grocery list.

Idle hands, and sleep deprivation do not go well together.

Here are the groceries we purchased when we came home from our vacation to Boston.

Safeway – $5.38

Our flight from Boston arrived around 10pm and on the way home the HH pulled into Safeway and grabbed 2 gallons of milk for the next morning.

Winco – $88.33

Winco sent out $10 off a $50 purchase postcard coupons last week to Washington and Oregon residents with Winco stores in their area. Plus there was an additional $10 off $50 coupon available to print on the Winco website as well.

Here is a close up of all the goodness. In case you don’t know already, Winco has a great bulk foods section and their deals on produce are pretty good too. Earlier in the year we stocked up on bulk spices and oats so this time around we bough mostly fruits and vegetables and a couple of canned goods.

Orowaet Bakery Outlet – $10

Our next stop was to the Oroweat Bakery Outlet. If you’ve never been to a bakery outlet, you should totally find one in your area and stop by. We picked up 5 packages of bagels, 3 loaves of bread, 2 bags of rolls, English muffins and a box of dounuts for Monkey Boy all for $10. Not to shabby if you ask me!

Costco – $159.61

Holy crap. What is wrong with Mavis?

We went to Costco. I have no excuse. We needed stuff.

So, as you can see, clearly I’ve lost my mind. We spent $263.32 this past week and we stocked not only the refrigerator with yummyness, but the pantry and freezer as well.

Sometimes you just have to live it up. Will we make it to the end of the year on a grocery budget of $100 a month? Hmm. That would work out to $1.14 a day for a family of four for the rest of the year. So, not likely. But you know what? Life is short, and I don’t want to waste anymore of it clipping coupons for products we don’t want to eat.

I’m not sure what our grocery tally will look like at the end of the year, but I will continue to save where I can.

Peace Out Girl Scouts, wake up everyday and make it count!

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $263.32
Total Spent This Year $910.87
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $781.98 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 15 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil.