Grocery Shopping Adventure

Grocery shopping here is usually an adventure. Daniel used to be the shopper (back when we had the motorcycle), but it always took up a good chunk of his Saturdays. Why? Because we have to make 4 stops- the supermarket (actually, 2 different ones) for the packaged goods (flour, rice, pasta, etc); fruit market for the fruit; vegetable market for the veggies; and meat market for the meat. After the motorcycle was stolen, the amount of time it took Daniel to shop grew. Now that I have more time (not teaching Pre-K), I want to help out with the shopping. If we have a long list, I try to get a ride with someone. Otherwise, I walk. This week's list was shorter, so I thought I'd walk.
Brief interlude
When I make my list, I split the food items into 4 categories:
-Meat
-Veggies
-Fruit
-Supermarket items
These coordinate with the 4 different places.
The longer the produce lists are, and the sorter the other lists are, the happier the budget will be. I really enjoy living in a place where fresh produce is so inexpensive. However, packaged items are much more expensive, and meat is somewhat comparable.
Expensive items here are: oil, milk ($4+ per gallon if you buy skim), milk products, convenience foods, salsa, etc. When I realize that food is comparable, but average income is over 5X less here, it makes me realize why I feel like we spend so much on food. Relatively speaking, it's about 5x more. Which makes me understand why those in poverty here have such a hard time feeding their families (many, who have jobs, have to work more than 1, even if they don't live in poverty). I feel like we do a good job when we spend $40 per week (usually ends up being $150-$200/month) , but when I think about our monthly income being $800 (well, technically this is our budget, we're still raising support to reach it), it doesn't seem quite as good. Ah well, the important thing is that God is providing, and we're eating yummy produce.
end "brief" interlude
So, back to me walking. I strapped Jeremiah into the carrier on my front; took an almost empty diaper back-pack, and walked down the hill to the grocery store (5 min walk) after stopping in at the wood stain store to say hi to a friend. First, I bought some groceries at the first supermarket (I only made it to one in this trip), and filled my diaper back-pack with the items. Then, I walked to the market to buy veggies. I bought a huge bag full of vegetables (which were put all in one bag) and somehow made it back up the hill to my house. Daniel estimated that the bag of groceries weighed at least 20 pounds (he thought closer to 25). Wow, I'm not sure I'm going to want to do that very often. That was my workout for the day. And we still had the meat market, other grocery store, and fruit market to go to. Luckily, I just found out that the meat market delivers for free, so that should help in the future.

Anyway, once we buy all our groceries I'll blog my menu plan and how we did (though I already know we went over our budget- arg!)

Bag of Veggies

Yummy Produce!