$20 grocery challenge: my shopping trip

As you may recall, yesterday I challenged myself to see if I keep our grocery and household items to $20 or under. Did I succeed? Not entirely. But I don't think I did too shabbily, either!

First, I came up with a list of meals for the week. Some will yield leftovers, so chose 5:

Homemade pizza (for the kids and I tomorrow since my hubby starts a 48-hour shift)
BBQ beef sandwiches
Sesame sirloin
Chicken fajitas
Sweet Asian Chicken

The bottom FOUR meals are already in my freezer – nice huh! I just needed some accompaniments. Here's what I ended up with:

I did one transaction at Walgreens where I got the dish soap and instant coffee for $0.42. I then headed to Winco where I found $1.98 gallons of milk, $0.98 dozen eggs, and avocados for $0.68 each! The Land o' Frost ham was $2.10, and it had a $0.60 off peelie coupon making it just $1.50! While everything I got was individually a great deal…I still ended up spending just under $29 for everything pictured.

What was my downfall? Probably the grapes – they were about $4, and I thought I could weasel them in there and stay under budget. My husband also asked me to pick up some items I hadn't planned on which sort of threw a wrench in the plan too – those items came to over $4 as well. But his items will save him time and money for the next two days – he won't have to eat out at work!

So while I didn't rise fully to the $20 challenge, overall I think I did well. I also was WAY more vigilant about how much everything was costing and had the calculator at the ready. I would do this challenge again.  

Here's one thing that put a smile on my face. When I got home, look what some kind reader had left on my door. (I think  I know who did this…regardless, THANK YOU secret stockpile fairy!). If you don't get why these random items appeared on my doorstep, read my post from yesterday.

Anyone do a better job than me of meeting their challenge? (I hope so!)