Three different stores (Aldi, Meijer, and Hardings in order) later... phew. Still managed it in just two hours, despite dragging Negi and Izzy along. Iz wimped out on us midway through Meijer and to be honest I don't blame him. It was exhausting to put away, too!
BUT. Now I have four weeks worth of planned meals' grocery shopping done, without exhausting the budget. Two weeks examples are in this screenshot-- "Honey" aka peanut butter and "Zombies" aka Lil' Smokies mini hotdogs. I try to plan around our respective work schedules (I usually close Saturday night so something simple that the boys like is good for Eric, while Mondays Eric is at work until 5 so we can have something he doesn't care for in pizza rolls, for example) and add reminders to pack meals for the next day. If you haven't tried Plan to Eat, give it a shot. Seriously, the ability to quickly plan it out and then have a shopping list ready to go (by clicking over to the Shop tab and selecting the date range) is AMAZING. I took the extra five minutes to compare my list to the ads and then sorted it all by which store has the best price on X, and that definitely saved some $$$! Did I mention the first 30 days are free without having to input your card info? :D
I got lucky when planning out this month-- Meijer is having it's $2/bag/block Kraft cheese sale. Stocked uuuuuuup. Sister B refers to the entire shelf on the fridge door as the Cheese Shelf. It's accurate.
Official training phase one will be done at Amazon tonight, which I'm absolutely ecstatic about! Thankful to be working to support our family both at home and outside of it. :)
Izzy has been walking which means we're babyproofing all over again. I plan to move him to the boys' room in a pack'n'play by the end of the month. Cosleeping has been awesome for helping us get sleep, but I think he's outgrown it. Might be a good step toward weaning, too!
Sister A is going to visit in a little over a month. Next grocery trip will need to incorporate supplies for the party we're throwing, hmmm.