This week's grocery/menu examples

On the dinner menu this week we have:
Monday: Biscuits and gravy w/ mixed veggies
Tuesday: Sloppy Joes with green beans (missionaries eat with us that night)
Wednesday: Home made pizza
Thursday: Potato soup, green jell-O
Friday: kids eat boxed mac and cheese, mom and dad eat dinner at church social for adults
Saturday: Chicken veggie stir fry over rice
Sunday: Beef stroganoff, green beans, wheat rolls

Since gas is so expensive now, I'm giving up my end of the week trip to WinCo, and instead I'm spending more on Mondays and making sure to pick up food storage items at that time. I still leave about $10 in the food budget in case I need to run to the store during the week for something.

First I make a list of what I need to make the menu work, then I think about things I want to stock up on. Here's what my list looked like before shopping today. I always estimate before I shop. It was over to $80, but I was assuming the actual cost would be a bit lower on some things.

Milk x2 6.00
Sour cream 3.00
Eggs (18) 3.00
Butter 2.50
Ground sausage 3.00
Buttermilk 3.00
Ground beef (2lbs) 6.00
Burger buns 2.00
canned green beans x2 2.50
tomato sauce x4 2.00
Evaporated milk x2 2.00
green jell-O 1.00
boxed mac' n' cheese x6 3.00
beef steak 4.00

flour x2 6.oo
sugar 5.00
laundry soap 6.00
tuna x4 3.00
corn x2 1.50
pancake mix (10lbs) 7.00
shortening 3.00
salt 1.00
applesauce 5.00

Now they did not have pancake mix in the 10lb bags like they usually do, so I bought peanut butter instead. Other than that and four pieces of bulk chocolate for the kids, I stuck to the menu. Here are the actual prices I paid. (Same quantities as listed above)

Milk 4.67
Sour cream 1.18
eggs 1.85
butter 3.51
ground sausage 2.78
buttermilk 1.86
ground beef (3lbs) 8.00
burger buns 1.96
canned green beans 1.16
tomato sauce 1.92
evap. milk 1.78
green jell-O .35
boxed mac n cheese 2.52
Beef steak 3.31

flour 5.56
sugar 4.42
laundry soap 6.22
tuna 1.92
canned corn 1.16
peanut butter 4.67
shortening 3.64
salt .42
applesauce 2.92

Don't ask me how I was so far off on some things. I was just not thinking straight, but with the two totals here's the difference. My estimate would have cost 80.50 before tax on the laundry soap. My actual cost was 68.82 including tax on the laundry soap and chocolates for the kids. That leaves me with 11.18 left in grocery money for this week, and I got that in exact cash back so there's no chance to over spend. When I get a bit more food stored up, I'm going to try doing this shopping at Safeway or Fred Meyer for a month just to see if it can be done at a conventional grocery store. How do your local prices compare?