Cooking Baby Steps - Part IV

Tuesday night, before Thanksgiving, is NOT the time for grocery shopping especially for someone, like me, who hates grocery shopping.

Yesterday, I left work early to do some pre-Thanksgiving charitable work.  Nothing helps one be thankful for one's financial stability like helping to hand out groceries to working families in need.  Then, even though I didn't want to go, I made myself go to the grocery store.

Rather than head to my local Publix, which is smallish, I went to the extra big Publix one town over.  Even though I do my best to avoid grocery shopping I'm familiar enough with the big Publix to know my way around.

I arrived about 6:30 p.m. and went directly to the bakery section because I had a birthday cake to buy.  But, since I'm a novice grocery shopper I didn't realize I could put in an icing order.  So I snooped around the bakery for 5 minutes before deciding to come back at the end of my shopping.

I utilized my Publix shopping list which I created on the Publix web site.  I found the list helpful but, as I mentioned before, I'd like it better if I could designate brands.  I did

Overall I spent $189 so the list didn't help me save money.  The spendy items on my list were:  (1) 12 pack Corona Light at $12.99; (2) the birthday cake at $16.99; (3) Gruyere cheese at $12.50; (4) salmon at $15.96; (5) white wine at $9.59.   So, $68.03 in extra spendy items.  Corona light is actually a staple for us, we buy it regularly.  The other items were triggered by guests coming into town, the birthday cake, wine and the salmon (to be used on Friday for a birthday dinner).  The pricey cheese is for the Thanksgiving casserole I'm making for our group dinner.

But, I also recognize that I did save money by purchasing the birthday dinner supplies at the grocery store rather than footing the bill for dining out which would have reached at least $100.  The salmon was actually on special and I "saved" $8.

I'm thinking of noting the prices in my saved Publix shopping list so I can get better at figuring out what is or is not a good price.