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Crystal’s $29 Local Farm purchases + $69 Kroger Shopping Trip (and what we ate)

If you’re new here, I practice the Buy Ahead Principle — which means that what we buy each week is often for future weeks. We stock up on the best deals and markdowns each week and that means that we then have a variety of items from previous shopping trips to use to plan a menu from.

With the increase in grocery prices, I’ve decided to raise our grocery budget to $100 a week because I’ve not been having enough wiggle room to stock up like I’d want to. This amount will still challenge me to be creative while also giving me enough breathing room to stock up and continue to practice the Buy Ahead Principle.

In addition to practicing the Buy Ahead Principle, I Reverse Meal Plan. This means that I plan based upon what we have on hand plus what good sales/markdowns I found at the stores. (Read more about Reverse Meal-Planning here.)

{Follow me on Instagram stories for real-time videos on what I’m buying if you don’t want to have to wait for me to get the post written up for the blog!}

I’m a little late in getting this posted — as I bought all of this last Friday! — but hey, better late than never, right?!

We have been loving getting fresh eggs and milk! I’m so excited to have finally found some good sources for these! This week, we bought two dozen eggs from our friends who have chickens ($5/dozen) + we went to the local farm to pick up milk ($5/gallon) and they also had fresh eegs for $3/dozen (!!!) and ground sausage from a local farm for $3/pound.

At Kroger, my biggest score was 11 packages of uncured ham marked down to $1/package (regularly $4.69!). I stuck these in the freezer to use for sandwiches, homemade hot pockets and more!