Monday, March 3, 2025

Shopping with Food Stamps: Week 1

Welcome to my first full week shopping with food stamps!

This week, I really splashed out and went to the "regular" (read: expensive) grocery store to take advantage of some sales and coupons. I bought:

  • Tofutti cream cheese - $4.59
  • Two pints of non-dairy Ben & Jerry's - $4.00 each
  • Morning Star chicken strips - $4.00
  • Morning Star hot dogs - $4.00
  • Morning Star crumbles for tacos - $4.00
  • Red grapes - $1.19
  • 3-pack of razors  - $3.99
  • Four 12-packs of seltzer water (not pictured) - $3.40 each

My pre-promo total was $72.18, which is absolutely ridiculous. Had I purchased the exact same stuff from Walmart (with the exception of the cream cheese being Violife brand instead of Tofutti), my total would have been $53. That's a 26% markup! 

Worry not -- I'm too savvy (and too broke) to pay full price at the fancy-pants grocery store. After all the promos, my total was $30.65. All but $0.30 of that was covered by my EBT account -- I just had to pay tax on the razors. 

After that, I went to Walmart to buy the rest of the items on my list:

  •  Everything bagels - $3.88
  • Taco Shells - $1.54
  • Rigatoni - $0.98
  • Pasta sauce - $1.67
  • Two cans of chickpeas - $0.86 each
  • Two cans of black beans - $0.86 each
  • One jar of salsa - $2.64
  • Plain coconut yogurt - $5.30
  • Frozen spinach - $1.26
  • Cilantro  - $0.83

My total at Walmart was $21.54, making my final grocery cost for the week $52.19, which is $9 below the current national average for a frugal gal my age.

(I'm not making this up, it's on the USDA website: https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/cnpp/usda-food-plans/cost-food-monthly-reports)

 Stay tuned to see what I eat this week!

To see my first attempt at shopping with food stamps, click here.

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