January Spending Freeze, Day 18: A sort of cheaty shopping trip

Just a little of what we bought.  The mac and cheese comes in super handy for lunch!

We had planned to NOT go on any big shopping trips until the spending freeze was over, buying only what we absolutely needed to complete recipes that would use up what we already had.  Well, on Monday we cheated a little.  We had driven out of town for the day for an appointment, and on our way home we passed right by our favorite discount grocery store.  It's a little over 30 minutes away from home for us, and the store is rather cramped and crowded, so it's really hard for me take the kids there by myself.  Also, you never know what they might have in stock on any given day.  Usually they have a pretty awesome selection of gluten free products, but if you don't go on the right day you might miss out.  So we stopped, telling ourselves we would only buy a certain amount, and not a bunch of junk.

We ended up spending $72.40, a fraction of what we normally spend during a discount store stock-up.  Here is what we got:

24 double rolls of toilet paper
6 pounds of Purina Beyond cat food
6 boxes of Quaker Oats quinoa bars
1 extra large can of Pam olive oil spray
24 boxes of gluten free Horizon mac and cheese
2 pounds shredded mozzarella
2 boxes of Challenge butter
1 pound of sausage
2 small boxes of baking soda
2 ten ounce bags of coffee
4 pounds of basmati rice
3 boxes of quinoa
6 packs of gnocchi
1 pint of whipping cream
3 pounds of powdered sugar
4 boxes of gluten free cake mix
2 boxes Krusteaz gluten free blueberry muffin mix
2 boxes gluten free apple cinnamon muffin mix

While I've learned to be careful what I buy at discount stores, keeping an eye out for expiration dates and cleanliness, it is insane how far our grocery money goes at this place!  The Horizon mac and cheese alone was worth stopping for.  Wal-Mart sells the regular kind for $2.76 a box if you buy a pack of 12.  Gluten free is always more expensive, but the discount store was selling it at the unbelievable price of 3/$1!

Since we only go shopping there every 3-6 months, we usually stock up so much that we are unable to fit it all into our kitchen (we have no pantry).  But this time, even though we went shopping before we meant to, my three weeks of clearing out after Christmas meant that all this food easily fit into our space.

While I know this was technically deviating from our plan, I feel like we made the right choice.  I passed by a lot of things I normally would have bought, such as a great deal on a big bottle of my favorite Bailey's coffee creamer!  I'm still using up the peppermint mocha one I bought before Christmas, and if there's still month left at the end of my creamer, I will just use milk.  I'm hoping that next time we go to the discount store (in a month or two), they have more of my favorite Schar gluten free pancake and baking mix.  We are nearly out!