Here’s another round of grocery motivation for you $100/month grocery haters. 😉
As a reminder, Brian and I budget $100 per month per person. This is our second shop of the month, so I took out $100 to spend. Here’s what we got for almost exactly $50:
Photo Credit: Original photo by D Sharon Pruitt http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/sets/72157610551917961/
First we hit up Shoppers Drug Mart (a retail chain which sells groceries, pharmaceuticals and health products) for a total of $10.03:
- butter – $3.49
- eggs – $2.29
- organic maple syrup – $4.99
- McCain frozen juice – $0.79
- (various personal items)
- Optimum points (minus $10)
The Optimum points basically paid for the personal items and I used grocery money for the remainder.
From T&T (a large supermarket chain specializing in Asian foods), a total of $31.47:
- chicken marinade – $3.29
- instant noodles x6 – $4
- BBQ pork bun (part of CF’s personal allocation) – $1.50
- 1.7kg pork side ribs (cut into ribs and sides by the butcher!) – $7
- 4 chicken drumsticks – $1.80
- leafy Asian greens (for soup, stir fry, etc) – $1.70
- mushrooms – $1.50
- 4 bananas – $0.67
- bean sprouts – $0.18
- 2lbs carrots – $1.49
- 1L milk – $2.59
- frozen shrimp dumplings – $2.79
- 2L soy milk – $3.79
- parking ticket (minus $1)
As you can see, we got a good mix of fresh veggies and fruit, general goods and snacks. Having a grocery budget doesn’t meant that you can’t splurge on the occasional pork bun. 🙂 I was especially pleased with the side ribs. The butcher cut them for us, essentially giving us proper BBQ style ribs and sides (great for soup!) at a price that was less than half the cost of regular ribs. Score!
Next, we visited Chinatown, for a total of $7:
- 1/2lb BBQ pork – $3
- assorted butcher items $3
- BBQ pork bun – $0.80 (Brian got jealous of mine and insisted on getting one as well…)
Finally, we stopped at Kin’s Farm Market (a local produce chain) for a total of $3:
- 2 cucumbers – $1
- bag of potatoes – $1
- onion – $0.23
The take home message I like to emphasize is that $100/month per person is doable, healthy and enjoyable. This whole shopping trip took us less than 2 hours. We got a variety of meats, veggies, fruit and even a few snacks. And we still have $50 left over for buying more fruits and veggies, milk, eggs and yogurt as needed for the remainder of the month.
