Grocery Shopping Is No Fun

I've been spoiled.  So far Mj and I have always done our major grocery shopping trip together.  We are miserably low on food since we haven't done a major trip in almost 3 months!  He's been out of town for work all week and will be again next weekend.  He'd be too tired tomorrow.  There isn't time to drag him along this time so I had to go solo.

Going to the commissary on base saves us money on sales tax and lower prices but it is does not necessarily save us on time since it's about 16 miles away.   Like going to Walmart on a Saturday you have to mentally prepare yourself for it.  The aisles are ridiculously crowded so you have to maneuver your way through that but they actually hire enough people to work there so they get you checked out pretty quick.  Because it's not so close we do our big grocery shopping trip there then run down the street to Ralph's or Sprout's for anything else we need in between.  Which has been quite a bit because we haven't done the greatest job of planning our shopping around specific recipes so when it comes time to cook we never have everything we need.  This time was different!  I went alone AND I was armed with a shopping list that includes grocery items for 4, count 'em FOUR recipes.

Grocery shopping is this exhausting process of transferring items from one place to another over and over again.  You put the items from the shelf into your cart and push it around as it gets heavier and heavier.  Then you load it onto the check out counter.  Then, the baggers put it all right back into your cart.  You get to take the stuff out of the cart for the second time and load it into the car.  Then, finally after all of that you get to stock your shelves at home.  Not fun and so much easier to do with two.  At least I don't have to lug them through a gate and up a flight of stairs from street parking anymore like when I lived in the condo.

My single gal fridge in 2006

What a difference 4 years makes.  This was the normal state of my fridge when I lived alone.  I didn't have too many visitors but when I did they always marveled at just how little I had in my fridge.  That turned to down right shock when they insisted that I must eat out all the time and found out that I did not.  Everything I needed was actually right there and in two small cabinets.  Needless to say my diet was pretty minimal.  There was no cooking and dinner was mostly canned soup or a deli sandwich.  Every single day.  Oh, and lots of pretzels.  And that was just normal for me.  Not only was it great for my waistline it was definitely easy on the budget.  I think I only spent about $45 per month max on groceries!

Our fully stocked fridge

Mj isn't exactly down for that.  Like most people he needs a little bit more variety and quantity so this is what our fridge looks like now and the pantry is full.  I spent about $160 but that will probably last us for close to 2 months aside from little things here and there.  When it comes time to cook we will actually have the ingredients to do it and there are plenty of healthy snacks to munch on.  Mj got lucky this time.  He got to skip the shopping trip AND I plan to have dinner on the table for him when he gets back home tomorrow.  I've spent this entire 3 day weekend alone.  No plans, no nothing.  Just me.  Relaxing, sleeping in and getting some errands done.  I'm definitely ready for some company tomorrow.