2016 Food & Toiletries Spending.....July Update

* I've closed out the July books a couple of days early as I am done shopping.  Anything bought in the next 2 days will come out of August's funds. *

Onward to July's food spending report.......

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for JULY 2016.

I have posted July's totals on the Total Grocery Savings for 2016 Page located HERE and have updated the Yearly Totals there.  I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in July.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Sum.  My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 5(5 at home this month). No kids under 20.

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BAKERY OUTLET
OOP  $11.93
Value  $35.72
Savings 66.60%

BOYER'S MARKET
OOP  $39.50
Value  $77.17
Saved  $37.67
Savings  48.81%

DOLLAR TREE
OOP  $11.18
Value  $18.18
Savings  38.50%

FOOD LION
OOP  $24.93
Value  $36.55
Saved  $11.62
Savings  31.79%

MAINE SOURCE
OOP  $52.29
Value  $89.46
Savings  41.55%

RITE-AID
OOP  $0.00
Value  $19.29
Saved  $19.29
Savings  100%

SHURSAVE MARKET
OOP  $85.78
Qs/Ads $144.54
Value  $230.32
Savings  62.75%

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $348.96

Qs/Ads  $376.40

Value  $673.94

Savings  55.85%

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My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Rite-Aid at 100%, Bakery Outlet at 66.60% and Shursave Market at 62.75%.  My WORST savings rate was at Food Lion at 31.79%
I shopped at 8 different stores this past month.

TOTAL Out of Pocket..........$574.57

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$489.95

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$1064.50

TOTAL Savings of...................................46.02%

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased w/R-A.....$1082.79
TOTAL Savings including Rite-Aid shopping....46.94%


This closes out the July food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....
I went into July wanting to do a $450 food budget for the month.  I ended up going over by a whooping $124.57.
Ouch.

Again I am still trying to find the spending sweet spot.  Some of my spending in July was due to picking up good deals which we'll use later on in the year and there were many good deals to be had since July 4th was this month.  I picked up more meats/proteins for the freezer than I used in July so the freezer is fuller at the end of the month than it was at the beginning.

At least my savings rate is up again to 46.94%(only a bit of that was due to Rite-Aid shopping)while in June it had dropped to 39.80%.

The monthly food spending savings percentage went up by 7.14% in July to 46.94% compared to June's 39.80% savings average.
I'll take that savings rate all day long!

With 7 months accounted for, I have spent a total of $2379.22 on food/toiletries so far in 2016 which averages out to $339.89 per month spent.  This is $39.11 higher per month than the average in June was.
But then again, I am feeding 2 extra people this year so that increase is not so bad.


LOOKING AHEAD To August 2016.........

I will continue with my usual shopping ways in August....buy loss leaders or great deals which we can use, use a few coupons, cash in points for gift cards or buy discounted gift cards to food stores when possible.
I am going to give myself $500 for August.  Not sure if this amount will work for August as Hubs and I are going away for 9 days and I'll need to leave some cash here for the kids to buy groceries and you know they won't be as careful with their purchases as I am.  ;-)

If you have other ideas or guidelines you follow please leave a comment and share yours with us all.

*  How much did you spend on food/toiletries in July?
*  Do you track your yearly food spending?
*  What was your savings percentage buying on sale and/or with coupons vs. buying at regular retail price last month, if you track that sort of thing?
*  What are your methods for keeping your food spending in check?

Is anyone out there up for tracking expenditures and trying to spend less but still eat well?


Sluggy

So Over These Career Politicians

The full Hillary Clinton story, not the fairy tale glossed over version Bill Clinton delivered in his speech the other night.

HERE

As with everything, take it with a grain of salt but there are large nuggets of truth in this rebuttal.

Why is this country so concerned with voting a POTUS with "darker than white" skin, or this year, a vagina?

Why are we not asking the REAL questions, examining candidates policy stances on real issues such as mass surveillance, fiscal policy or transparency in campaign finance, congressional reform?
You know, the stuff that actually affects us, the people's lives directly?

At least one person, other than the politicians, is making money off our country's horror show......

Vivienne Westwood's new t-shirt speaks the truth, though I'd never pay $180 for the honor on owning this rag.
But if someone gifted me one I'd wear it fiercely! ;-)

Sluggy

More Rite-Aid from My Trip to VA Last Week

Since nobody can copy the deals I did I'll not go into massive detail here.
I still had 2 Mentos BOGOF Qs and a $1/2 Colgate toothpaste to get free stuff so we stopped at a Rite-Aid in Delaware, along the way to Virginia and I got this.......

This particular store only had the spearmint flavor mints so I didn't get them(seeing as a detest spearmint anything).
But I did pick up 2 tubes of toothpaste and with the sale, coupon, points earned they were free.
I gave them to brother and his wife when we got to Virginia.

Then the morning we waited 3 hours for them to return from grocery shopping I went up to a nearby Rite-Aid to see if I could track down an acceptable flavor of Mentos........

They had the Wintergreen variety which I had wanted all along!
I had to add the candy bar to the transaction because of the order in which this cashier did things.

Usually they scan your card, then the register asks if you are using points(I say yes)and then cashier rings up your items and lastly your coupons.
Total after coupons should have been(for just the mentos)$3 + tax and I would have earned $4 back in points(2 x $2 on the Mentos).
Not this time!

The cashier scanned my card, the register asked if I wanted to use points, and then the cashier scanned in my coupons, the both of which rang up as $2.29 off-the regular retail on the Mentos.
She lastly rang in the mints which scanned in on sale at $1.50 each.
So $6-$4.58=$1.52 + tax.
Huh?

Seeing as you can't use Plenti points if the purchase is UNDER $2 I now had to add that candy bar.
If things had been rung up correctly, in the correct order my transaction would have been $6-$3=$3 + tax, and no extra items would have been needed

So I paid .92¢ for the candy bar(20% wellness discount)and my grand total for all was $2.34 + .17 tax=$2.51
Instead of using $3 in Plenti points I used $2.51 but still earned $4 back in PPs.
So this transaction gave me .49¢ more back in points and a free candy bar to boot.  ;-)

I ended up giving the candy bar to my son for his birthday, because I am generous that way.......lolz

Sluggy

In Other News......

Hubs picked the first zucchini of the season 2 days ago........

It went from 5 inches long to 12+ inches in 2 days!
I forgot how fast these babies grow with the optimum weather.

If I am feeling up to it mr. zuke will be starring in a Blueberry Zuke Cake very soon.  8-)

Sluggy

Happenings at Chez Sluggy the Last Month or So

A few not-so boring things happened around here the last month or so.
Grab a cold one and have a sit-down, this may take awhile. ;-)

* Let's start with some crime drama stuff.  At the end of June the Daughter and the BF came into the house after being out shopping or something and said there were two police cars with lights flashing in our cul-de-sac, having pulled over two people in a car.
So we went out to the front porch to "observe".....you know, in case the cops decided to pull some tazer shenanigans or something.
Seems some of our neighbors on the cul de sac also wanted to watch from their porches. ;-)

From what we could hear and see from the porch the car got pulled over for a moving vehicle violation.  The woman driver appeared intoxicated so they did a field sobriety test on her.  While that was being done the other officer saw drug paraphernalia in the car.  At that point they cuffed her and put her into the back of one of the police cars.  They then took the male passenger out and sobriety checked him while the cuffed driver kept screaming from the cruiser, "Stop lying!  Tell them it's your shit!!".
Evidently the passenger was not going to fess up to being the owner of the "shit".
After cuffing the passenger and lots of yadda yadda between the cops and driver, the tow truck arrived to haul the car away and the police took the two to booking(I am assuming.).

Darn it!  I had my camera ready but there was to be no disturbing video to go viral on FB.
This sort of thing has never happened in our neighborhood.  I hope this isn't a portent of things to come around here.

I have been perusing the local newspaper's police blotter and nothing ever showed up on this arrest. But let me tell you, if you need a good laugh, go look at your local paper's crime blotter.  Some of the things people do and get into trouble for are pretty weird and/or stupid.  It's a good thing many of the criminal element in this country are not too bright.....lolz

* Daughter and I decided one day to use one of my restaurant gift cards to go to lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse.
We ordered an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes to share.
The photo from their website........

"Hand breaded and topped with goat cheese and red chili ranch."

Here is what we were served..........

Even before I cut into them you could see through the breading that these were RED TOMATOES!
Ok, to be fair 1 of the 5 slices were from a green tomato......

We called the waitress over and told her this dish was not correct and to send it back.  When I explained that the tomatoes were red not green she tried to give me a line about how cooking the tomatoes makes them turn red.
WTF?!?

That's total bullshit as anybody with half a brain knows, even a Yankee up here in PA.

If you have an idiot prepping in your kitchen or you don't have enough green tomatoes just take that dish off the menu.....geez!

The "chef" came out to apologize and offer to remake the dish but I declined.

Then our steaks arrived..........

You can tell from the scale of the knife behind it that I got a micro-steak.  No way that baby was 6 oz unless it was some super dense beef.
But the bigger problem is the broccoli behind the knife.
It was RAW!
The kitchen help had at the most dunked my broccoli into boiling water for 10 seconds(but I am guessing it was even less than that).
Totally raw and crunchy.

The waitress was taking orders at a large talk of Senior Citizens next to us.
I may have proclaimed in a rather loud voice, "What the F**k!  My Broccoli is raw!!!"
Though the elderly guests next to us didn't hear me(8 of them were wearing hearing aids)the waitress sure did.
She gave me a look that said, "I hear you and I can't believe the kitchen screwed up again.".
A few minutes later the chef brought me out some cooked broccoli(which was still on the crunchy side but at least you could tell it had seen some cooking action)with another apology and a card good for a free appetizer on our next visit.
Yah, I don't think there will be a next visit as we have another steak place here that doesn't screw up the basics.

* Daughter has a new job.  She got hired the same day she applied at her first job she got here working at a franchised sub shop.  The pay was crap but it was convenient and something she could do in her sleep basically.
But the manager there was a disaster.  I believe she was just a worker and the manager left so they made her the manager without any experience, training or the skill set for the position.  The owner has 2 other stores south of here and this shop for some reason can't keep employees so they are constantly having assistant managers from those store come to the local one here to cover shifts.  These employees aren't happy with the arrangement(having to drive 1 hour+ one way), the manager can't manage and employees keep leaving.
As my Daughter described it, "It's a Shit Storm.".
Procedures aren't followed, other employees talk trash and ignore customers and refuse to clean the dining area and lots of other problems but here is the kicker.......

Twice in the span of a week she reported to work on time(and she is ALWAYS on time)and there was no manager there to open the door.  She sat in her car for half an hour the first time it happened waiting to clock in and work.
The second time it happened she was in her car(had waited 15 minutes at this point)and saw the substitute manager go into the store.  When Daughter went up to the door and banged on it to be let in nobody came.  She banged on the door for 10 minutes and the manager never opened the door.

So she got in her car and came home.
6 hours or so later she gets a text asking if she is coming to work today, to which she said, "I came to work.  Nobody let me in so I left.  My shift ends in 1 hour and I am not driving all the way back for that."

What followed was lots of texting between Daughter, substitute manager-of-the-day and her boss(who was on vacation)for the rest of the day.
The owner's wive got involved texting Daughter to call her but neglected to provide a phone number so she couldn't call her.
Daughter texted the boss to ask for owner's wife's cell number and her boss ignored her request and started talking crap to her.
The boss texted her 5 days later before Daughter's next shift asking if she was coming in to work.
They weren't going to fire her for "not coming in" that day they wouldn't open the door but write her up instead.
Daughter said no, this store is a disaster and I won't be returning.
She had already gone out and gotten another job at that point that paid $2 more an hour.

I guess we taught her well to find a new position before you quit the shit storm job. 8-)
She is now a line cook at Cracker Barrel.  A company with some organization and they seem to know what they are doing.  Daughter is happy as a clam there.

* Our July 4th cook-out went well.  Just us and the brother in-law and nephew.  Basic cook-out foods....burgers, dogs, macaroni salad, corn on the cob and an apple pie.

* I smoked those 3 small pork roasts I got on a Buy 1/Get 2 Free Deal the day before the cook-out....

I smoked them 6 hours and threw them into the fridge to rest until later that week.  I finished cooking them off in the crockpot, adding a homemade sauce near the end.  That was some good bbq that we ate off of for 3 days.
I'll probably smoke another bigger pork shoulder in August.

* We took advantage of having Daughter's BF here earlier this month.  We finally bought a new ceiling fan/light and had BF help Hubs install it a couple of weeks ago.....well, really BF installed it and Hubs held the ladder and such.

Ta-Da!

After a mere 5 months I finally have light over the kitchen table again.
Now we need to change the other kitchen light to match this one. lolz

* While Daughter and I were in Virginia last week I noticed I was developing a sore on my breast.  By Sunday it had turned into an abscess.  Three days of hot compresses didn't help(and it was getting red and hot and spreading)so I was off to the doctor.
When I called to make the appointment the person on the phone asked what the problem was, ti which I replied, "It's an abscess on my left breast.".
She responded, "So it's a lump?".

Did she think I couldn't tell the difference between a lump and an abscess?
Lump hard......abscess soft.
I almost responded to that comment with, "It's not a Tumor", done in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. ;-)

As suspected it was a full blown abscess and needed to be drained.  This is something that can happen if you have HS though I've never gotten one there before.
My boob got cut open, drained and packed.  Luckily for you my camera is dead so you don't get to see any gory photos.
It hurts like a son of a bitch but I have nice painkillers for a few days while this thing heals. ;-)
And hopefully it wouldn't keep us from going to Maine soon.

I guess that's about all the highlights from here.  I'll blog about the trip to Virginia at another time.
I need to go take an antibiotic now with a pain pill chaser.

Sluggy