Parade magazine had a small article last Sunday about grocery store waste.  It estimated that $20 billion was thrown away every year.  This is disgusting, and undoubtedly true.  I was in charge of buying punch for an event, and what we did not used, and was clearly still sealed, I returned to Meijer.  They cheerfully refunded my money, and then slapped on big orange stickers that said not to restock or resell.  When I asked the clerk why they could not be donated, she said that it was too big of a risk because it might have been contaminated. 

The article went on to say that total American food waste was $48 billion.  So, I pulled out my calculator.  The 2007 census estimated there were  111,162,259 households in the US.  Divide that by the $28 billion left after the grocery store waste, and that means that all of us are pitching out $431 worth of food every year. 

Can this be?  In an earlier post I talked about using up stuff in our freezer (which made the husband uber happy).  We do our best to have a leftover day every week, but some stuff inevitably gets pitched (does it count as waste if the dog eats it?)  Over the weekend my friend and I helped our other friend move, and we probably pitched $100 worth of freezer burned food out of her freezer and half used bottles of lost stuff from the back of her 'fridge.   Hmmm.  Maybe I should plan a week around the contents of my 'fridge....

I"m feeling particularly challenged this week because one of the cool new bikes at the health club has a tv right on it.  I've been watching commercials.  John McEnroe is pushing the 10 day fiber challenge, Jamie Lee Curtis is pushing the 2 week Activa challenge.  And to Food Network every other thing appears to be a challenge. 

In my reality, the challenge is getting out of the grocery store under $100 dollars.  That does not allow for the $5.65 box box of Fiber One, or the Activa 4 pack at $3.25.  It's tough enough to swallow that a whole grain bread costs twice as much as its air and water counterpart, and that the sugar laden and fiber free barely-passes-for-cereal that my kids covet is almost free compared to a serious granola type cereal.  It's the same thing down every aisle, the baked chips are $3.69 compared to the regular chips that can be had for $0.99, you can pick up soda for far less than milk, and the more fat you're willing to accept in your beef the less you pay.

There's the challenge!  Is it possible to buy a week's worth of healthy, whole or organic foods for less than $100?  Let's find out...

Yesterday the boys and I went grocery shopping.  It was a very enlightening experience for them.  We shopped from the list generated from my plan - no extras.  It was not a very ambitious plan this week.  Partly because of the holiday, and partly, honestly, because I'm a little burned out.   But $221.22?  That was an all time high for just everyday eating.

My receipt was long because darn near everything was on sale, but sale prices or no, prices have risen.  And, to be clear, I don't shop at the upscale grocer.  I shop at Meijer.  We walked around the store comparing prices.  The boys were quick to point out that the things that were on sale were in short supply, and even noticed that some things weren't discounted, but were being promoted as such.  "That's cheap!" remarked Brian, "Not really, it's actually 20 cents more" remarked Kevin.  At least someone has a sense of humor.  It's not just at the grocery store, we get our milk and eggs delivered, and the price of delivery has gone up 50 cents (almost a 50% increase) since January, as well as the price of eggs by 30 cents and the milk by 20 cents per gallon. 

All the talk of rising prices and cost cutting can be confusing to children.  While we've always tried to make our boys conscious of conserving energy and water, now we're talking about combining trips that require the car.  Pinching pennies at the grocery store is a whole other matter.  Saying "we can't afford it" seems to make them nervous, so I explained it like this:  We have so much money to spend every month on groceries.  If we spend less than that, you get extras, if we spend more than that, we have to spend less on the fun stuff like movies and the other things you ask for.  That made them feel better, but I'm still mighty disgruntled about $212.22...