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Our Fitness, Family, & Personal Goals for Fall

Meg’s $130 Publix Shopping Trip + Weekly Menu Plan for 2 People (Plus $30 in Gas Savings!!)

Our Fitness, Family, & Personal Goals for Fall

Since it’s the beginning of a new school year for us, Jesse and I sat down and shared some of our new mid-year goals that we each set for our fitness, family, and personal lives.

If you need a little inspiration to set some new goals or to get back up on the goal-setting wagon if you’ve fallen off since January or are just curious what we are prioritizing for the next few months, be sure to listen to this episode.

In This Episode

[00:34] – Welcome to another episode of The Crystal Paine Show.

[01:56] – We are very much in back-to-school mode here.

[02:39] – My reading update and another five-star book for this year.

[04:53] – I’m loving this water bottle.

[06:43] – Are you ready to talk about goals?

[07:09] – I think when you set a goal, it needs to be something you can measure. So, it’s not a goal if there’s not a finish line.

[07:29] – We’re going to start out with health and fitness goals.

[10:04] – Most of Jesse’s goals could be considered workout goals in some way.

[12:04] – I’m cracking up because mine and Jesse’s goals are the complete opposite.

[17:09] – My biggest priority is a healthy baby and a healthy mom, so I’m giving lots of grace.

[18:13] – We’re also prioritizing relationships and community. We are actively working towards building more community.

[20:46] – In addition to community, consistency with meal-prep and family meals.

[22:34] – For the business goal, I have one book-launch related goal.

Links & Resources

Books
Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World by Jennie Allen
Special Mentions
My Goals for 2022
Simple Modern Water Bottle
My Father’s World preschool
30-day Postpartum Workout Plan
Other Resources
10 Days to Be a Happier Mom
Sign up for the Hot Deals Email List
MoneySavingMom.com
My Instagram account (I’d love for you to follow me there! I usually hop on at least a few times per day and share behind-the-scenes photos and videos, my grocery store hauls, funny stories, or just anything I’m pondering or would like your advice or feedback on!)
Have feedback on the show or suggestions for future episodes or topics? Send me an email: crystal @ moneysavingmom.com

Meg’s $130 Publix Shopping Trip + Weekly Menu Plan for 2 People (Plus $30 in Gas Savings!!)

Meg here! I figured it was time I share one of my grocery trips, since so many of you have been requesting other stores besides Aldi and Kroger.

First, a few things you should know:

I live in Florida and Publix is our main grocery store. Our Aldi in town is not very good (in my opinion) and not worth driving to. I typically shop at Publix 2-4 times per month and Trader Joe’s once per month.
I am a vegetarian and we eat almost entirely meatless meals at our house. My husband does eat turkey sandwiches each day for lunch, has meat when we go out to dinner, or sometimes we make meals that have the option to add meat (like the chili baked potatoes this week). But for the most part, we typically eat dinners together and they’re vegetarian. So you won’t see much meat in my grocery trips and that’s why.
Like the rest of our team, I practice the buy-ahead principle — meaning I plan my meals based upon what I already have on hand and what’s on sale this week. And I often use sales, deals, and coupons to stock up on items to use for the next few months until it goes on sale again.
These grocery trips are just for two people — me and my husband. We don’t have any kids. As you can see, my grocery budget/trips vary greatly from the other ones you’ve seen on this site. I’m often paying double or triple what Crystal, Gretchen, and Brigette are because of where I’m located and what stores I have access to. But I don’t let it get me down and I do the best I can! Let this encourage you to do the best you can, with what you have, right where you are.

My Publix Trip This Week

It was a GREAT week to shop at Publix! If you’re a Publix shopper, then you know some weeks are way better than others.

I was especially excited about the FREE veggie burgers, since we eat those on a regular basis. I bought four boxes and already had several boxes in the freezer from the last time I bought them on sale, so we are stocked up for at least 6 months now! And my husband eats the Perfect Bars every single morning for breakfast, so I was thrilled that those were BOGO this week (something that only happens about 2-3 times per year at Publix!).

And the gas card deal was back! That’s always a favorite of mine, because I use our gas budget to buy those and get rare savings on gas. (We could all use a little savings on gas right now, am I right?!) My grocery total was just over $150 before coupons, so I was able to grab THREE $50 gas cards and get $10 off of each — for a total of $30 in gas savings. WooHoo!

Buy One Get One Free + Coupon Deals:

Note: I live in the land of true BOGO, meaning one item rings up at completely full price and the other item rings up completely free. (Some Publix stores outside of FL ring up each item half price.) That means I have to buy even numbers of the BOGO deals and it sometimes changes the way coupons work.

Dr. Praeger’s Veggie Burgers, 4 Boxes — $5.95 Each
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
Used (4) $2/1 printable coupons
Used (4) $1.50/1 Ibotta offers
= FREE + $2.10 money maker!

Impossible Burger Patties, 2 Packs — $5.99 Each
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
Used $1/1 Publix digital coupon
= $4.99 total (or just $2.50 per pack!)

Blue Diamond Almonds, 2 Huge Bags — $10.19 Each
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
Used (2) $1.50/1 printable coupons
Used (2) $1/1 Ibotta offers
Received 1,000 Fetch Rewards points ($1)
= $4.19 total (or just $2.10 per bag!)

Cheez-It Snacks, 6 Bags/Boxes — $4.61 Each
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
Used $2.50 in printable coupons
Used $5/5 Kellogg’s Products Publix digital coupon
= $6.33 total (or just $1.05 each!)

Perfect Bars, 16 Individual Bars — $2.79 each
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
= $22.32 total (or just $1.40 each!)

Chocolate Chip Bakery Cookies, 2 Packs — $5.35 Each
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
Used $0.10/1 Cookies Ibotta Offer
= $2.63 each!

Blackberries, 2 Packs — $3.99
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
= $2 each!

Mini Babybel Cheese, 2 Packs — $4.59
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
= $2.30 each!

Thomas English Muffins, 2 Packs — $4.99
Buy One, Get One Free Sale
= $2.50 each!

Other Items I Bought:

Cole’s Frozen Garlic Bread — $2.19
Planet Oat Oatmilk — $4.09
Fresh Pineapple — $5.82
Breakstone Sour Cream — $2.71
Dozen Eggs — $4.99
4 Taylor Farms Salad Kits — $3.99 each x 4 = $15.96 total
Red Seedless Grapes — 2.27 lb at $1.99/lb = $4.52
2 Ears Corn On Cob — $1.34
Green Onions — $0.99
1 Can Hormel Chili — $3.19
1 Pack Red Raspberries — $3.99
2 Sweet Potatoes — $1.73
2 Russet Potatoes — $2.70
1 Sweet Onion — $1.39
1 Tomato on the Vine — 0.82
Family Pack Oscar Mayer Oven Roasted Turkey Deli Meat — $10.44

Bonus Gas Savings:

Gas Cards — $150
Used (3) $10/$50 Publix in-ad coupons
Paid $120, Saved $30

Totals:

Grocery Total: $130.52
Total Grocery Savings: $110.10

Gas Cards Total: $120
Total Gas Savings: $30

I spent a total of $250.52 out of pocket combined for my grocery trip and gas cards this week. The gas cards come out of the gas budget, so I spent $130.52 out of our grocery budget this week. This will probably last us 2 weeks or I’ll just have to do a very small trip next week to fill in a couple gaps when I make next week’s menu.

Pro Tip: Always check your receipt to make sure your items rang up correctly and all your coupons came off! I checked mine and noticed the $5/5 Publix digital coupon didn’t come off automatically, so I had to go to customer service and get a $5 refund for that!

Like I said above, I use the buy-ahead principle, so many of these meals are using ingredients I already have on hand from stocking up in past weeks. (Photo above shows many of the items I already had on hand that will help me make a lot of these meals this week!)

Breakfasts:

Perfect Bars, Oatmeal, Egg Breakfast Sandwiches on English Muffins, Cereal, Fruit, Smoothies

Lunches:

Turkey & Cheese Sandwiches, PB&J Sandwiches, Salads, Edamame, “Snacky” Lunch

Snacks:

Boiled Eggs, Carrots & Hummus, Fruit, Almonds, Chips, Cookies, Cheese

Dinners:

Sunday — Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal
(already had everything for this on hand)

Monday — Spaghetti, Salad, Bread
(already had noodles and sauce in the pantry)

Tuesday — Loaded Baked Potatoes with Chili
(I’ll use a vegetarian chili I already had; husband will use bought regular chili from grocery trip)

Wednesday — Frozen Pizza, Salad
(already had pizza in the freezer)

Thursday — Broccoli Rice Surprise
(already had broccoli in freezer, rice in pantry, and cheese in fridge; substituting almonds for walnuts)

Friday — Dinner Out With Friends

Saturday — Veggie Burgers on English Muffins, Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Corn on the Cob
(already had veggie burgers and English muffins on hand, but I stocked up on more this week since they were BOGO)