It's the grocery shopping game
What large families eat, how much they eat, who fixes it, and where the food is procured are questions that are perennial favorites. With that in mind, I thought I would talk about large families, food, and the holidays, specifically Thanksgiving which is pretty heavily food-centered.
It will be all fourteen of us this year as well as another family we are friends with who have seven children. (To be entirely accurate, two of those seven are babies, and won't be eating what's on the table.) They will also be bringing a few of the sides we will be having.
Friday I did the grocery shopping for the week, including all the holiday meals. It also included TM's birthday dinner which we had last night. Am I the only one who really thinks that people should not expect to eat the week leading up to a holiday which involves a major meal? Yet, they do, so I also had to get food for the seven days around Thanksgiving. That would be breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
I usually only have two columns of items on my grocery list, but this week I had three. I knew it was going to be a fairly huge shopping trip. And I was correct. See?
So, take a stab. What was the dreadful total for all of this at the checkout? Some things you will need to know in order to figure accurately. First, I was shopping at Aldi, which made the total about half what it would have been if I had shopped at a major chain grocery store. This does NOT include the two 20 pound turkeys I bought last week. Nor does it include the majority of meat we will be using in dinners for the week. All of that is already in my freezer, having been bought when I found really good sales. It does include quite a bit of dairy... six gallons of milk (usually I buy five, but there will be more of us this week, and there is a lot of baking), three pounds of butter, heavy cream, whipped cream, sour cream... you get the idea. This cart, minus what is already in my pantries and freezers, will feed 13 people three meals a day for eight days, including Thanksgiving dinner.
So, you ready? I'll give the actual total on Monday. Go!
It will be all fourteen of us this year as well as another family we are friends with who have seven children. (To be entirely accurate, two of those seven are babies, and won't be eating what's on the table.) They will also be bringing a few of the sides we will be having.
Friday I did the grocery shopping for the week, including all the holiday meals. It also included TM's birthday dinner which we had last night. Am I the only one who really thinks that people should not expect to eat the week leading up to a holiday which involves a major meal? Yet, they do, so I also had to get food for the seven days around Thanksgiving. That would be breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
I usually only have two columns of items on my grocery list, but this week I had three. I knew it was going to be a fairly huge shopping trip. And I was correct. See?
So, take a stab. What was the dreadful total for all of this at the checkout? Some things you will need to know in order to figure accurately. First, I was shopping at Aldi, which made the total about half what it would have been if I had shopped at a major chain grocery store. This does NOT include the two 20 pound turkeys I bought last week. Nor does it include the majority of meat we will be using in dinners for the week. All of that is already in my freezer, having been bought when I found really good sales. It does include quite a bit of dairy... six gallons of milk (usually I buy five, but there will be more of us this week, and there is a lot of baking), three pounds of butter, heavy cream, whipped cream, sour cream... you get the idea. This cart, minus what is already in my pantries and freezers, will feed 13 people three meals a day for eight days, including Thanksgiving dinner.
So, you ready? I'll give the actual total on Monday. Go!
Comments
Just for fun, I used your average 2012 weekly cost (from April 2012 post), added $100 for the Thanksgiving extras and factored a bit more for inflation over the six intervening years, plus added the "I'm Australian live on an island and I can't believe it could be that cheap factor" :)
That perspective really impacted that widow's life and she talked of that interaction years after.
My guess is $290.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!