Kathrynne and I had a fun Mommy-Daughter Date shopping this morning. She loves to go shopping–especially when it's just with me. And I feel like I'm on vacation just taking one little one with me to the store. 🙂
We hit Dillons, the health food store, and Aldi. We mostly just bought the sale items and mark-downs at Dillons and then got some staple items and produce at Aldi.
Since we had the time, we stopped in at the health food store to pick up a few sale items, and was I ever glad we did! Unbeknownst to us, the health food store was having a special "Customer Appreciation Party" today and there were samples galore, freebies, and a 10% discount on everything in the store. We had quite a fun time going around to booth after booth and sampling all sorts of yummy and healthful goodies–all for free!
Here's what we ended up buying for this week:
All totaled we spent $61.45–and I'm still under our $60/week budget allotment for this month. I'm so thrilled to be stocking up our pantry and freezer in preparation for the baby all the while staying under budget. Who knows? We might just go a number of weeks after the baby comes without even so much as stepping foot in the store except for milk, produce, and eggs. We'll see!
joy says
I freeze any extra bananas I can get too! The best way to do it is to peel them and then stick them, cut in half or in smaller pieces, in a freezer zip bag. If you freeze them just in their peel I’ve found that it is super hard to peel them when they’re frozen, and then they turn to “mush” if you let them defrost the whole way. I usually use them frozen to put in my green smoothies, but if I was going to use it for baking I would puree it first and then freeze them in ice cube trays like baby food. They seem to defrost better that way. Hope this helps! Joy
Cherlene says
How long do you usually keep your bananas frozen? I was wrapping whole over-ripe bananas in saran wrap and throwing them in the freezer, but when I thawed a couple out, they became brown mush. Is there a time limit? Thanks!
Rebecca says
How do you freeze bananas? Or really, how do you defrost them? How long do they keep? All that talk above has be craving bananas now… yum!
kristi says
How much do you pay for the ice cream? Do you have coupons for that?
Emily Schneider says
Can you use coupons at Aldi’s? Do you really think their prices are better than say Kroger? I’m just asking b/c I haven’t been and I wanted to check it out.
Thanks-
Emily
Lee says
so jealous of the produce markdowns…our store just lets them rot full price…
Kristine says
Just curious how you freeze bananas? Do you just stick the whole thing in the freezer or do you wrap in plastic/foil? Do you cut them up and put in freezer bags? My kids are banana obsessed!
Sorry if you have answered this already!
Thanks!
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Money Saving Mom here: You can peel and stick the whole bananas in freezer bags and freeze. Or you can peel and slice on a cookie sheet and flash freeze and then stick into a freezer bag. Either way works well.
Rochelle says
Look at all those grapes, again!
No, I’m just joking! Last time you posted your picture I thought you had a whole bunch of grapes and come to find out, I don’t think you had any. Even though Aldi’s did have grapes on sale this week in our area (89 cents/lb)
Rochelle
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Money Saving Mom here: Was the lighting better this time?! I took it during the day so it hopefully wasn’t so dark and fuzzy like last time. 🙂
Oh and I so wanted to get some of those grapes at Aldi, but our Aldi was all out of them. Oh well!
Jules says
Just a heads up that I went to Dillons and noticed their Sarah Lee Whole Grain White bread was on sale for $1.99 and most of the loaves had a $1 peelie coupon on them. This makes them a $0.99 each which is a good price for bread, especially such good quality bread.
Vinny says
Can you family go through that many bananas before they go bad or are you planning on freezing some for later?
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Money Saving Mom here: We could, if they weren’t the red-taped bananas (which are the ones which are already quite ripe and reduced). We’ll likely eat what we can before they get really ripe and then I’ll make some banana bread (been craving it!) and freeze the rest.
Finding marked-down bananas is a sort of hit and miss thing at our Dillons so I always try to pick up as many as I can when I find them marked down because we love bananas, banana bread, banana smoothies, banana muffins… you get the picture! 🙂
Chris from St. Mary's says
How are you planning to incorporate your limes and lemons into your menu planning?
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Money Saving Mom here: Those are for a few gallons of lemonade, limeade, and lemon water I’m making up since I’m trying to make sure and drink enough liquids as I’m nearing the end of my pregnancy. For some reason, it’s easier for me to down more water if it has some lemon or lime in it so I grabbed up those for $1 and $1.49/bag!
Suz says
You do so well. Looks like you shop a lot like me… mostly at the grocery, but to Aldi’s for some of the the produce & other hard to find on sale items.
Love it!