Make sure you read the introduction prior to reading this post.
Sometimes, one word makes all the difference. One word can change your plans, your direction, your outlook. For me, that word is snow. Snow is perhaps the most vile 4 letter word around. And it is the only word that I can think of that envokes more fear than either “fire” or “bomb”.
For reasons that I’ve never quite figured out, snow actually means buy all the bread, milk and toilet paper you can get your hands on because you’ll be trapped in your house for the next 2 months. It’s a frightenting experience to endure the supermarket the day before a snowstorm, especially one that was predicted to drop as much snow as this one did. People are fighting for spots in line, bumping each other out of the way of food items and hoard food like they’re preparing for a feature episode on A&E’s “Hoarders”. It’s actually quite appaling. I was not happy at having to experience this but my daughter was going to run out of milk and juice in the middle of the storm. What we’ll endure for our kids!
As a result of the snow and the fact that I had to do my shopping on a Thursday night instead of my regular Saturday or Sunday meant that I could not go to Aldi this week. The store closes at 8 pm and by the time I was able to leave my house, it was 7:45 pm. So I was stuck going to the supermarket for my entire week’s groceries. Fortunately, I had a list and I stuck to it but after not fully shopping at a grocery store for the past 5 weeks, I was struck by some things:
- Grocery stores are EXPENSIVE. I was stunned by the price of the groceries at the supermarket versus Aldi. For instance, bananas were .79/pound; they are .39/pound at Aldi. That’s a huge difference and definitely adds up.
- The choices at grocery stores are overwhelming. Having spent the last 5 weeks shopping at Aldi, I have gotten used to limited selection and working around them. But the grocery store was filled with all kinds of choices and it’s no wonder that it takes twice the amount of time to get through a supermarket as it does Aldi. Seriously, American cheese is American cheese. Why do we need 18 varieties?
- Due to the cost, the amount of food you can buy at the supermarket is significantly less than what you can buy at Aldi. I spent $76 this week and I bought 36 itmes. Last week, I spent about the same amount of money at Aldi and bought about 50 items. That’s a big difference!
- Shopping off of your schedule has a greater impact on your budget than you would think. I normally go shopping on Saturday or Sunday so just as I’m running out of food, it’s time to go to shopping again. And while it’s not that big of a deal for foods like pasta or cereal, it is a big deal for foods like milk and juice. It’s important to remember to plan for buying extra of those items at either the intial shopping trip or making an extra, on budget trip mid-week.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will tell you that I did do an extra grocery shopping trip today but I did it at Wal-Mart since we needed other items like Pull-ups and air filters. I bought milk, yogurt, confectioner’s sugar, cake mix, taco seasoning and ice cream. However, my savings for the week remains at $24 because we had a $50 gift card that we used to buy the extra groceries. I was fully prepared to use the leftover money but since we were paying for the other items with the gift card, we used it for the groceries, too. I will also tell you that I missed my trip to little Aldi this week. And even though it’s supposed to snow another foot tomorrow, I’m not setting foot in the grocery store until next weekend!
Total saved for 6 weeks: $130. However, we have decided to tack 2 more weeks onto the experiment and with the exception of organic milk, reduced sugar juice and 1 veggie protein substitute, everything must be bought at Aldi. There’s no specific savings goal except the original one of saving as much money as possible. I’m hoping we can get to $200…that will make for a fantastic family adventure!
