Grocery Resolutions

I just wanted to check back in about my new year's resolution to spend less at the grocery store.  I read all of America's Cheapest Family - Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half, and found it to be very helpful.  Our family eats mostly produce and whole grains, so I've been tailoring the suggestions in the book to suit our lifestyle.  (ie. I won't be buying bulk bags of hot dogs or buy one get one free bottles of "Cheese Squeeze".)

My goal is to shop only once a month (gasp) and keep my monthly bill under 400 dollars.  That's it.  How will I do this?  I'm not sure, but menu planning helps as does scouring the weekly ads for grocery sales and knowing what I already have on hand in the house.  Yesterday, I had my first opportunity to shop.  I had a list and an envelope of specific sales I wanted to cash in on.  I also went to three different grocery stores: Aldi, Fiesta Market and Tom Thumb.  I bought all my staples at Aldi.  Then I bought everything we needed that was NOT on sale at Fiesta - a market that caters to the Latino population in Dallas.  I got some incredible prices on produce at Fiesta.  Then I hit the sales at Tom Thumb.  I kept my total bill to 320 dollars.  I also have a 15 dollar basket of produce for pick-up on Saturday through Bountiful Baskets Co-Op.  That brings my total to 335 dollars.

Now, through careful meal planning and strategic freezing, my hope is to save some serious money and time this month.  And, I'll still be able to juice, eat a partly raw diet and feed my family nutritious foods.  To better organize my fridge, I picked up some dollar store baskets for all our produce and labeled them with a Sharpie marker.  Take a look:

And here is a look at my pantry after putting away my groceries last night. 

As you can see, I'm still using the IKEA jars for all my bulk dry goods.