Thanksgiving Edition -- Sort Of...

This was somewhat of a frustrating trip. First of all, by the time we finally made it to the grocery store, it was 9 o'clock. I had been going strong since roughly 5:15. I didn't realize how tired I REALLY was until we got there. Thankfully, my husband got off work early and was able to take the baby for me. I probably would have had to turn around and head back home had that not worked out in my favor. My only other real frustration is that I just did not have as many coupons to match with the sales as I would have liked. As a result, I ended up spending more than I really wanted to, so I could pick up more than 1 of the things that were on a super good sale.

Here is what we got --

1 dozen eggs
1 bag of Reames noodles (which appear to have not rung up correctly)
2 bags of broccoli steamers
1 bag of C&H brown sugar
4 Chex seasoning mix (free, will donate)
1 Hy-Vee taco seasoning
1 can of Hy-Vee pumpkin
1 lb of Hy-Vee walnuts (more DHA love)
3 boxes of Jello pudding
2 boxes of Jello
1 box of Keebler grahams
1 box of brown Minute rice
1 loaf of 110% whole wheat bread
1 really big jar of Musselman's unsweetened applesauce
2 cans of whole berry cranberry sauce
5 bags of Hy-Vee cheese
2 1/2 gallons of organic whole milk
2 Kraft cheddar cheese bricks
3 bricks of Philadelphia cream cheese
1 pineapple

My pre-tax total was $38.00. I saved around $7.00 with coupons -- not so impressive!

Plus, the bad news is that I still hadn't been able to nail down what I was taking for sure for Thanskgiving dinner. I am in fact taking apple crisp, double-spiced pumpkin pie and green bean casserole. If I have enough time, I may treat everyone to the Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake too. I'm short some (more like SEVERAL) ingredients for the pumpkin pie and green bean casserole, so I will have to make yet another trip, which will put me even further over budget. I may not cover that trip due to time purposes, but you can be sure it will have to happen! I've been trying to wonder what I did for Thanksgiving last year. I'm pretty sure last year I took a $50.00 bonus for Thanksgiving. I didn't really want to do that last year, but I think if I am going to plan to take advantage of the sales and buy staples like cream cheese, cranberry sauce, pumpkin, etc. when it's dirt cheap, I am going to have to that again.

I did not really end up with the things to make a single complete meal from either of these trips. What a bummer! I'm going to make a cavatini for dinner and red hot Jello for dessert tonight. Those leftovers will serve us well. We had baked potato bowls for lunch, and we will be able to have sweet potato bowls later this week for lunch. We'll be able to make it through to Thanksgiving easily on things like grilled cheese, frozen chicken Anytizers, breakfast for dinner, etc. I think I'll trade my leftover Thanksgiving desserts for turkey and stuffing, which will get us through until NEXT Friday. Thankfully, Friday always seems to roll around pretty quickly!

See this week's other shopping trip here.

See also beingfrugal.net, www.orgjunkie.com and chachingonashoestring.com.