It’s Friday night, the kids are asleep and Chandler just got home from Chicago. You know what that means, right? Time to check the stockpile!
Surveying the pile
I just spent half an hour in my pantry and in the basement, perusing my ever-growing array of non-perishable food. This helps me cross off two important things from my list:
1. Replenish my pantry with food from the basement stockpile. I rotate food so the items I use most often are within arms’ reach instead of downstairs in our cold, dark basement. This includes items such as canned tomatoes, cereal, canned beans, granola bars, etc.
2. Add to the grocery list. My rummaging around also tells me what I’m running low on, what I have enough of, and what I need to replenish this week or next.
Adding to the list
This second item is the important one for today. After I see what’s in my stockpile, I cross-reference that list with what’s on sale for the next week so I can shop accordingly.
Pretzels and kleenex are on sale this week, and my stash is running a little low, so I might pick up some of that next Wednesday. Everything else looks pretty well stocked.
There are some good deals this week (Purex comes to mind), but I might skip it. I have several (like, six) bottles downstairs. I don’t think we’ll run out anytime soon and that stuff goes on sale pretty regularly.
The dreaded no-sale zone
As much as I hate to buy things that aren’t on sale or don’t have a coupon, there are times that I need to buy something at full price. It really bugs me, but it does occasionally happen. Today it looks like I might need coconut milk, since I used two of my three cans in last night’s chicken curry.
Yet, I’m probably not going to buy any coconut milk this week. I’ll put it on my long-term shopping list and wait ’til I see a sale or find a coupon — or, better yet, both.
But this also tells me that it’s time to hit the Asian market on 35th and National in Milwaukee sometime soon. They often have the best prices on coconut milk and other Asian staples.
Even though it’s a long drive for us, our girls love going there to check out the bizarre foods, like frozen eels and piranha-type fish. We also buy our jasmine rice in 25-pound bags, and we stock up on any other Asian goodies we can’t get anywhere else, like fried garlic, fish sauce and these great little rice roll-up thingies that I fell in love with in Thailand.
Revise the list
Now that I know what I have and what I need, I can revise my grocery list that I made yesterday. With these changes, it’s a little shorter:
- Yoplait yogurt
- Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers
- Roundy’s organic cereal
- Kashi TLC crackers
- Roundy’s bagels
- Northland juice blends
- Emerald almonds
- Roundy’s pretzels
- Scottie’s facial tissue
- Turkey tenderloins
- Roundy’s whole fresh chicken
- Jennie-O ground turkey
- Beneful dog food
- Bell peppers
- Braeburn apples
- Bananas
- Organic milk
- Half and half
- Butter
There are still a few things that I’m thinking about — I put those in italics. I’m waiting to see what kinds of coupons I can find for these items. If I get good ones, they’ll stay on the list. If not, they’ll go.
Next up: Coupon day! It’s almost as good as Christmas morning.