Healthy Groceries

Got back from Shop-Rite a short while ago.  Very typical bill of about $94.  I place into bags myself, about half mine as reusables, about half their recyclable plastic.  I try to think in terms of menu:  chicken cacciatore for this shabbos so I needed mushrooms, a pepper, and got some parsley, garlic and a high quality spaghetti on sale.  Lasagna is easy to make and lasts a few meals.  Brick cheese on sale, easy to grate with small appliances, lowest price cottage cheese, frozen spinach on sale and I have noodles and pasta sauce.  Good buy on kosher cubed beef, next shabbos.  Eighteen eggs with coupon.  Sweetened cereal went in donation box on my way out.  Cantaloupe for 99 cents.  I cubed the last one, munched on it most of the week.  Better than potato chips, pretzels and cookies.  Oh?  I got those too and a 48 oz carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.  Sometimes shop smart and sometimes shop cheap.  K-cup pods on sale.  Got 24, which is about a week's worth.

What I consciously decided against purchasing sometimes tells a lot.  Great coupon for arborio short grain rice.  No heksher, I've never seen rice without a heksher.  Did not get flavored liquid coffee creamer.  It keeps better than milk, but has a fair amount of sugar.  I have powdered creamer, and usually have milk.  So, despite a decent discount, not into the cart this time.  Space in my freezer is at a premium.  Frozen vegetarian burgers make for a quick meal and frozen vegetarian phony pork and the like offers some creativity.  Quick, easy and different.  When it goes on sale.  No soap, paper, storage bags.  Have enough for a while.  Delegate any cat purchases to my wife.   Low on potatoes but wait for a better price, or even better, not eat them.  Took last quarter of butter from its box.  Got another pound to store in freezer.  And yogurt makes a better snack than potato chips.  And while in the pharmacy department, I got another bottle of flonase and took my blood pressure on their automated cuff.  

For the most part, the purchases were purposeful.  Snacks other than cantaloupe need to be rationed.  Keeping them milchig helps.  I probably did fairly well.  Passover shopping in a few weeks.  I'll try to be more menu focused with that too, but I have a quick hand for those kosher marshmallows that only reach our shelves once a year.