My Shopping Plan

This morning I posted about some really great meat and produce deals at El Rancho and El Rio Grande.  These are two stores that are local to me, and they tend to have some fantastic meat and produce prices.  

I noticed this past year that the prices were awesome during the summer, and the great deals kind of vanished during the winter (still low prices, but not astonishingly so), and then they reappeared at the beginning of summer.

Usually in a week, *if* I think these stores are worth shopping at, I can pick one that is more worth shopping at, but this week, because of several factors, I've decided that I should hit them both.

1)  My freezer is empty.  Yes, still.  Well, to be fair I did freeze a few meals of spaghetti sauce (links to an older post) and soup, but my kids don't even like spaghetti!

2)  The prices are great!!  Lots of meat on sale.  Lots of freezable produce on sale.  I may even end up getting more than I planned.  If I go a little bit into next month's grocery budget, I think that's ok because we are able to do that at the moment (and may not be in a few months) and I think the savings will even it all out in the end.

3)  My daughter starts Kindergarten on Monday (plus my hubby is now working a second evening job), so I want to be prepared and organized so homework/dinner time is not mass chaos at my house.

4) My mother is visiting next week, so I plan to take full advantage of that and get a ton of cooking done and fill up my freezer again!

So I took a small break from posting all the great grocery deals (haven't even looked at the coupon multiplying stores that are having awesome Mega events and 10 for $10 sales yet....those might do the budget in!) and I made a list of all of the things I wanted to buy from the two stores listed above.  

From El Rancho I plan to get:

10lbs Chicken Breast @  $1/lb  = $10

5lbs Pork Stew meat @ $1.09/lb = $5.50

5 lbs Catfish Nuggets @ $1.47/lb = $7.50ish

Bananas                               less than $1

10 Corn                                      =$2

8 Oranges                                  =$1

3 Cucumbers                             =$1

2 Cilantro                                  =$0.50  ??

8 Pears                                     =$2

2 loaves of bread @$0.39 each = $0.78

Total  (no food taxes in TX) roughly $31

From El Rancho I plan to get:

10 lbs Ground Beef @ $1/lb =  $10

10lbs Leg Quarters @ $0.69/lb =$7

8lbs yellow Onions  (chop & freeze)  = $1

5lbs Green Beans (snap& freeze)  = $5

3 lbs of Cabbage (will make my grandma's cabbage rolls) = $1

Watermelon                                =$3 ish

30ct Eggs                                    =$1.99

Total will be roughly   $29

This is going to be a huge stock up shopping day for me, but I can't believe all the stuff I plan to buy for under $60!  I'm going to share my plan with my husband, and he may even wish for me to get more than I'm planned (he usually does).  But with these prices, I don't see how stocking up can be a bad thing!  Plus, this is entirely fresh meat and produce, and I won't be touching a single coupon! LOL.

So tomorrow morning I plan to shop, and *then* I will need to figure out some recipes to make with all this stuff.  I know I'm doing my menu planning a little bit backwards, but with these sales, it works!

I will likely also be visiting the Farmer's market this week (my mom likes to go there), so I would love to know what types of produce you like to freeze as summer comes to an end.  If I see some good prices I want to stock up!