We didn’t do much shopping at all this week aside from a quick trip to the store for milk and ice cream (the essentials, you know!). Some friends of ours made a trip to a nearby town’s bulk foods store and picked up some unbleached flour, sucanat, and turbinado for us as well. And that was the extent of our shopping.
So all totaled, we spent less than $20 on groceries this week bringing our total spent for the month a little shy of $160.
We’ll be doing a big stock-up trip for our Freezer Cooking Day and I’ll post about that on Monday, along with our Freezer Cooking Day play-by-play.
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Where did you get your bulk sucanat?
I would love to find a bulk food place in my area besides WholeFoods. I remember years ago Giant would have that option. Wegmans has some bulk food items like candy and nuts.
I did a little research just now and I did find in Virginia http://grandmaspantryva.com
This store is several hours away so it would have to be a day trip. The prices are really good a great stockpiling place!
I’m curious of the cost of shipping.
“Sucanat, Natural – priced per Pound” $1.69
Unrefined Sugar – (Demerara) – Priced per Pound $1.39
Occident Flour – Unbleached – Priced per Pound $0.69
Anybody purchased from them before?
I switched to sucanat and local honey last year as an alternative to refined sugars.
For anyone interested, here’s a great guide from The Nourishing Gourmet on natural sweeteners
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2008/12/guide-to-natural-sweeteners_08.html
That is great!!! I am finding that as your family gets bigger it is amazing the amount of food we can go through!!! I have four boys and I used to be able to skip shopping sometimes…..now, we do empty out the fridge it seems like! Of course, I have all boys though and my oldest just turned 12, so we have a ways to go too!
I really wish I could find a place to buy stuff like this in Massachusetts. Maybe I need to look harder!!
Thanks so much for sharing. I really aspire to do as great of a job as you do!
I have completely switched to sucanat, sucanat w/honey (which is now called honey granules I think), and flour from the wheat I grind. I will never buy store bought flour or sugar again unless it is for a craft project or I need to bake a ton of cookies for a church bake sale.
It was a good week. My favorite was the 8 oz bag of Nabisco animal crackers & mini cookies on sale for $1, combined with $1/2 coupons. The best bargain was little bottles of Tabasco on sale for $.78, with a $.75/1 coupon.
Crystal – Is Sucanat more like a Brown Sugar and Turbinado like White Sugar? It looks like Sucanat is less refined, but is there a big taste difference?
Did you move to these versus traditional brown and white sugar since they are less refined? Just curious, haven’t done enough research myself, would like to glean from yours!
Thanks!
Yes, we’re trying to move to non-refined sugars as much as possible. From the research I’ve done, sucanat is better than turbinado, but turbinado is still a big step up from regular white sugar. I personally like using turbinado better if I’m sweetening tea, etc. But sucanat works great in cooking/baking.
love your site Crystal.
This week I found 5 lb bags of Gold Medal unbleached flour on clearance at Target for .74 a bag! I bought 15 bags. I knew it was a good price–but wasn’t sure how good. Then I saw this post, 41 cents a pound for the same stuff in bulk. So at about 15 cents a pound, I got a great deal! I’ll have to check for the sugars now…you’ve got me curious.
Wow! That was definitely a great deal!
Hey, that’s my bulk food store. I had no idea we were close!
Wow, I really wish we had a store like this in the Orlando area. They only place I’m able to purchase food in bulk is our local Whole Foods, and I can guarantee you I wouldn’t pay under $5 for a large bag of turbinado sugar (my favorite). What a find!
Kelley- what have a houseful of adopted pets too: two dogs and six cats. Sadly, I spend more on their food then I do on our food, mostly due to the fact that quality pet food coupons are few in far between. How I wish Petco offered BOGOs on our brands! (I do take advantage of the buy 10, get the 11th bag free loyalty program.) But in my experience, feeding a higher quality food decreases our vet bills dramatically, so in the long run I think it’s worth it. I just shave where I can in other areas. The joy I see in my daughter’s face when she interacts with her pets makes it worth it and I feel good knowing I saved a life.
@Sonjia,
Sonjia,
I am not sure how the prices compare to Whole Foods but this is where I buy my grains and sweeteners. I live near the actual store. They run a coop once a quarter and Orlando is on their delivery stop list. It might be worth looking into.
http://info.breadbeckers.com/coops/
@Reesa, Reesa, thank you VERY much for the information. I’ve just sent my local area an email for more information. You rock!
Where do you live? I only live a couple of miles from Glen’s it’s a great store and the owners are very nice. I plan on telling them that i saw their product on your website, I have never seen products from our community featured on a site before. Thanks for that. Thanks for all the work you do for this site!
Just a curious question but do any of you have pets? Part of my monthly bill is spent on pet food and cat litter. There are just two of us but I find it hard to stay within a $40.00 a week budget. We don’t really buy a lot of meat because my husband hunts and we have lots of venison during the year.
@kelley, We include our dog food and treats into our $50 a week budget which we usually come in a few dollars under. I think it’s great you’re at $40 a week! I wait to buy treats when I can get them free or at least around a dollar with coupons. I also stock up on his food if it is on sale and we have coupons. Also, if you have adopted your dog in the past year, you can go to Pedigree’s site and sign up to get free food for a year.
http://www.pedigree.com/03Adoption/Adopt-A-Dog/Adopt-Free-Food/default.aspx
Good luck!
@Cait, Oops! I made a mistake in the last comment…it’s free food for a month…not year. Wouldn’t that be even better?! Sorry for any confusion.
@kelley,
Hey Kelley,
I run a website called My Pet Savings. Devoted to helping your budget by providing pet freebies, coupons, and deals. Maybe it would be helpful for you. I would love to have you stop by. 🙂
@kelley,
We have two cats, a 3yo DD and I’m pregnant. Our pet food is included in our budget. I stocked up last year at Meijer when they had the $5 off a bag of Purina One cat food. There were mfcs that made it free, and a few times it went on price drop to 5.09, so free to .09 per bag. And this week I got Iams Premium for $.09 a bag – $5 mfc and it was on price drop to $5.09!
Oh man…is it weird that your bulk food store picture makes me feel so happy?! 🙂 I love that store! And bulk health food in big bags? Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Such yummy goodness. 🙂