Shopping for Groceries

I am finally sitting down at 4:14pm after leaving the house at 11:00am for grocery shopping....yes; grocery shopping has become an all-day event in the Kelehan household. I dread...I mean plan for this day in advance...I have to.

When we decided to try to eat healthier out of conviction as well as necessity for Mike's sake (organic and gluten free), we were alarmed at how much more $ we had to spend to live this way....at least 3x's as much I would say. My thrifty side surfaced and I decided to start cutting coupons, watching for good sales and of course to do this I must shop at minimally 4 different stores.

Today we made it to just three (I skipped Target due to the fear my dream of peeing my pants in public would come true)...first Rainbow, then Cub, (and then back to Rainbow after opening a car door, dropping and splitting open an entire gallon of $6 organic milk), and lastly Valley Natural Foods. Oh did I mention all three kids were with me? So of course we stopped for sandwiches for lunch, nursed Jonny in the car and filled sippy cups with milk repeatedly while popping sugary snacks into the children's mouths to give other shoppers the illusion that the kids were happy to be helping mommy shop.

This is one of the reasons why when Mike asks me in the evenings after the kids are in bed why I must sit on the couch and consume a bowl of ice-cream plus a bag of popcorn, I respond with, "Because....I just need to."

So I am fairly optimistic about the opening of a Costco in Burnsville because I hear they will have a large organic selection and I am hoping at a reasonable rate since they are after all a buy-in-bulk store which is supposed to save you money, right? I am hopeful that it will eliminate the need for at least a couple of the other grocery store stops I make and maybe the frequency of food trips in general!!!

Maybe it's not worth the headache but when I see we saved $85.17 plus have $18.93 off of our next gas purchase, I feel like I am contributing to the family income in a round-about way.

If anyone would think that I am complaining here.....I would have you know that I am very thankful to have the option and means to buy good food.....just pondering why stores have to raise/lower prices instead of just always selling at the best price they can afford...it'd save a lot of time in coupon cutting and traveling to multiple stores for the best deal of the week!