The Price of Food

We went grocery shopping with the girls yesterday. I made a menu plan for the next two weeks and worked up a shopping list from that. We have plenty of meat from our summer order but I'll need to add fresh dairy and produce. The total for this "spree"?

$316.45

To which Aba exclaims, "if this feeds our family for two weeks, this family needs to go on a diet!" 

I actually was quite pleased with how we did. Our pantry was so bare our dinner option was rice and beans cooked only with an onion because I had no other veggies and I have no idea what breakfast would have been.

I'll likely spend another $100 on the dairy and produce depending on guests for Shabbat. So say I underestimated supplies and we end up spending $500 for two weeks. Is that really high? Am I off base or is Aba out-of-touch with reality?

Shopping Spree

Since the girls have been little, I've moved my love of office supplies over to learning supplies. I love the back-to-school sales (and the gentle irony of buying for homeschool at these sales) and tend to go overboard. So this year I've given myself a $100 budget for new stuff. I'll fill out with art supplies as we use up what we have but I'm hoping this will last through the end of 2011.

I visited Target, Staples, the 99c Store and Lakeshore Learning.

• $3 for 3 x Pencil Boxes
• $1.50 for 3 x Pencil Sharpeners
• $3.00 for 3 x Boxes of Crayons
• $3.00 for 3 x Boxes of Colored Pencils
• $1.50 for Box of Pencil Grips
• $1.50 for Box of Pencils
• $1.99 for Package of Glue Sticks
• $5.69 for Package of 1" Lined Paper
• $1.50 for 3 x Clipboards

Total is: $22.68

There are still so many things I want to get, but I'm holding off to see where the girls' learning leads us. 

Mushroom growing kit, more caterpillars, outdoor thermometer, magnifying glasses, books, books, books!

I'm also making some materials during these last couple of weeks of camp. Most important for us is movable alphabets. Also on my list are beads for bead activities, popsicle sticks for spindles and 3-part cards of a wide variety (letter sounds, sorting and parts of animals, insects, flowers, human, etc.)

Perhaps I need to up my budget?

What's on your list for back-to-school shopping?