Kaylee's not-a-blog » Human stuff » Frugality » mega thrifty Food Haul #1

It appears that "food haul" content is popular, so after a particular thrifty recent supply run, I decided to try one. :)
These probably will be intermittent, and my goal is to show real world examples of how vandwellers can stock up. :)

Most of these items were bought at a local grocery store (a regional Midwest chain), which was running a huge $0.99 sale, including many long-life pantry staples. I ended up buying moderately more than I had originally planned (the online ads had some vague descriptions).
The biggest surprise was two types of whole wheat pastas (spaghetti, rotini), which I hadn't expected (Walmart recently bumped up their price on ww pastas by about 50% Grrr!Argh!). Whole grain is one of the things I've (mostly) "given up" to reduce costs, so I bought 7 boxes. :) Would have bought more, but they were almost out, and I didn't feel right buying it all.

They had spices among the sale items, and I ended up buying "basil leaves" (am almost out), "lemon pepper" (first time for me), and "imitation vanilla flavoring" (hadn't expected that - will use in French Toast, among others). :)

Also bought a bunch of healthy stuff:
4x avocados, bananas, baby carrots, 2 bags of pre-washed salad, and a 24oz bag of walnuts (my single most expensive item of this year). :)
The walnuts were the only item not on sale, but it was within 2 cent/oz of Walmart, so it was an acceptable (to me) semi-splurge.
A previous sale haul had included 8 boxes of brownie mix ($0.77/each), which will now be (mostly) guilt-free with healthy nuts. :)

• I chose to do this run on a Saturday, so I could get some core staples at Dollar General using their regular Saturday "$5 off $25" coupon.
• Dollar Tree for a few "regular" items
• Kwik Trip gas station, which normally has some food loss leaders (e.g. yellow onions for $0.49/lb) and often has a few staples at better-than-grocery-store prices, including:  eggs, milk, bread, potatoes.
  Pro Tip: investigate your area's regional gas station and pharmacy chains, as several have similar thrifty food lures.

Numbers:

Bought 40.1 woman-days (based on 1700 cal/day) of food for $74.50
for a cost per calorie-day of $1.86 which is kickass even by my standards. :)

Picture:

Main/pantry long-life staples:

• 3 boxes pancake mix (32oz,907g/each)
• 4 boxes whole wheat penne pasta (16oz,454g)
• 2 boxes corn muffin mix (7.5oz,213g)
• 3 boxes whole wheat spaghetti (16oz,454g)
• 3 cans of whole kernel corn
• 3 cans of green beans
• apple juice
• 4 boxes cake mix (carrot, marble, german-chocolate, devil's food) (16.5oz,468g)
• bag of sundries (pancake syrup, 2 spices, imitation vanilla, long-grain brown rice, 3 Musketeers "fun" sized bars)
• 3 bags potato chips (2 "kettle" style, 1 ripple (only because the "deal" required a purchase of 3 and they were out of types I preferred))
• 1 bag corn tortilla chips

Fruits & Vegetables:

• 2 bags of pre-washed salad mixes (iceberg, cabbage mix)
• bananas
• 4 avocados (medium)
• baby carrots

Cooler items (mostly dairy and 1 frozen veg):

• mini pack of "thin sliced beef" (2oz)
• cottage cheese (16oz,454g)
• milk, whole (1/2gal)
• 2x cheese singles (12oz,340g)
• frozen veg California-mix (12oz)

• walnuts (24oz,680g)
• Banquet salisbury steak pot pie (7oz,198g)
• Banquet apple pie (7oz,198g)  (impulse buy / treat)

• vegetable oil (48fl-oz,1.42L)  (I had been down to about an ounce for a couple of weeks, so this was on my must-buy list)
• ramen, beef (5-count)  (a vanlife staple, plus it bumped me above the $25 level for DG's key $5 off coupon)
• Pepsi, wild cherry (2L)  (I had wanted Code Red, however they were hidden/lost, so I settled for this)
• 2x MountainDew (2L)

• English muffins (12oz,340g)
• corn tortillas (22-count; 14.60oz,413.9g)
• flour tortillas (12-count; 16oz,453g)
• rice, long grain white jasmine (16oz,.45kg)  (my first ever purchase of jasmine - over the summer, I made crockpot rice a few times, however it was "short" grain which clumps when crocked, so I bought this and the brown rice to experiment with making non-mushy rice)
• nacho cheese dip (9oz,255g)  (for making knockoff Crunchwrap Supremes)
• 4 types of ultra cheap cookies, 2 of them new-to-me (for reviews, of course) :)

• 2 yellow onions ($0.49/lb)
• eggs, dozen ($2.99)

In addition to all the food, I had been watching Dollar General sales & coupons for both toilet paper and laundry detergent, and both had modest coupons ($1/each) plus the usual Saturday $5 off coupon, so I restocked both at reasonable final prices.
Had been down to only 4 rolls (of the 1000-sheet single ply which usually lasts me one full month per roll), so am now back to a one year supply, which feels good. :]
I have to use scent-free laundry detergent, so it was great to find a non-huge container of a brand that I'm used to. :)

• my most thrifty of the year
• plugged several key supply holes
• provided unusually high quality nutrition
• nicely balanced out my pantry with items to make some particularly morale raising meals
• provided a few frugal treats