I had big shopping plans last week, but they were quickly abandoned during the holiday chaos!

Thanksgiving

Total spent: $9.67. NO COUPONS!!!
View receipt

Got:

1 gallon of milk
1 tub of whipped topping
1 dozen cage free eggs
3 foil pie pans

Wow. This one trip cost almost as much as my whole month’s budget for September! My original plan had been to hit up Walgreens, because they had some good overage deals going on that week. But with everything that was going on that day, I realized that there was no way that I’d have enough time to make the 30 minute drive to Walgreens, and still get back in time to make enough Pumpkin Pie for 13 people. So I axed that plan and just went to Safeway, since it’s so close to me, even though the sales there have been pretty nonexistent this past month. I needed the cool whip, eggs, and foil plates in order to make my pies – I only have one pie plate, and I was making three pies. I had originally planned to go to another store and buy a real pie plate, but the stores were so crammed that I ended up just grabbing some foil plates at Safeway so that I could go home! Also, we were out of milk, so I picked that up while I was there.

Grandma always hosts Thanksgiving at her house, so she cooked the main course and I brought the Pumpkin Pies for dessert:

I made my oil crust and used this recipe for homemade pumpkin pie filling. I still have a bunch of homemade pumpkin puree in my freezer from Halloween, so this worked out well.

Black Friday

I thought I’d have time for Walgreens on Friday, but it just wasn’t happening. However, I still wanted to pick up some things for dinner, so I just made this quick trip to Safeway:

Total spent: $10.16
Total before coupons: $13.66
View receipt

Got:

1 can of mushrooms – I wanted fresh mushrooms, but Safeway’s produce department was completely sold out of them. Weird!
2 Ragu pouches – on sale for $1, used two .50/1 coupons that I received in the mail. Free after doubles!
1 tub of Parmesan cheese
1 bottle of Coffee Mate – on sale for $3.79, used a $1/1 printable coupon, which doubled. (I was able to get another copy of this coupon by printing it from my laptop, in case you’re wondering how I got it.)
.81 pounds of bananas
.85 pounds of apples
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1 bag of sun dried tomatoes

If you look closely at my receipts for Thursday and Friday, you may notice that my gas rewards suddenly jumped up to 5. That’s because on Friday, there was a person standing in front of me in line who couldn’t find his club card. He tried to bring it up by punching in his phone number, but it didn’t work, so he just shrugged and said, “Oh well.” I asked if he wanted to use my card, so he did – he was very happy for the savings (you have to have a club card to get any of the sale prices, so you’d pay a lot more without one), and I got the credit towards my fuel discount, so everybody wins!

I had a houseful of guests all week, and I always have a blast making big meals – if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I love to cook! So here’s Friday’s dinner:

Spaghetti, salad, and homemade garlic bread. I made good use of my free pasta and pasta sauce, and added mushrooms, artichokes, green olives, onion, and garlic. For the salad, I used the red leaf lettuce, crispy onion toppings, sun dried tomatoes, and homemade croutons that I made using this recipe – these are SO good, you have to try them!