Wednesday, January 25

When I was a kid my mom used to go to the grocery store once a week.  She drove clear across town for Kroger's, as the only store nearer to us in the 70's were IGA or maybe a Piggly Wiggly or something like that.  Before shopping she would sit down and write out a dinner menu for the next 7 nights, including breakfast and lunch foods.

And she would only buy the items on her list.  She also forced us to stop by some crazy woman's house to buy eggs, who had a little white vicious dog named "Angel" that Sister and I would silently provoke into miniature rages when her back was turned, then snicker and call it "Devil."  I think her daughter had Down's Syndrome, that part was fuzzy.  Oh and she made us go to some chicken factory where she would purchase freshly killed chickens.  It smelled ghastly in there.

We had a garden at home, a huge strawberry patch and all sorts of vegetables in it every summer too.

But that is beside the point.  The point is, she used to always tell us how economical it is to make a menu, buy only those ingredients, eat almost all the food in the house, make a new menu, make a new list, go shopping at Kroger again.  Of course we would roll our eyes, beg her for Frosted Mini Wheats, and think, what's the big deal?  Why can't we just buy stuff we want?

In the past 6-8 months I have noticed our grocery bill creeping up into an area I find distasteful and embarrassing.  Our usual routine is to make one gigantic trip to Montrose about once a month or so, and completely load up and this is clearly not working.

So guess what I am now doing?  Making a menu for the next couple of weeks, not quite so rigid as my mom's, where she even mapped out which meals to have on which days, because our lives are busier and less predictable in a way, but taking the time before we drive to Montrose to go through the cabinets to see what we are out of or low on, list out the meals we want and buy only the food for those meals.

It's so easy when you get to the stores to start piling up foods you know you want, the logic being, let's just buy 8 of them, since we are here.  No more.  I shaved my total grocery cost in half this week by only buying what foods we have planned and not buying 5 of something just because we know it will get eaten in the next 2 months.

So, yes, I am becoming my mother.  Happy birthday mom!