Food Spending this week

I'm a little late posting this but my grocery shopping trip last Friday ended up being $162! Ouch. I still don't know why it was so high. I was hoping it would be around $125.  Taking Dd with me (but I love her company!) doesn't help as she always finds things I forget we need or she adds to the list.  I think part of the extra is I'm actually buying for 6-7 dinners for the week, since we are trying not get have fast food more than one night a week. I did buy a few meals that were expensive - Stouffer's family size lasagna (6.84), Tyson chicken wings ($7.44) and a big box of hotpockets for Ds ($11.38), and some cut melon ($6.50 - I really should buy the actual melons and cut them up myself!)

I did come across, the prior week, that Walmart now sells their store brand of bottled water.  I always wondered why they did not have a GreatValue brand of bottled water. Dh drinks water like crazy and I usually spend $4-5 for a case, though lately Albertson's has been having it for $3.50 (I buy 2 cases a week).  The good news is their case price is $2.97 - that's about $106 a year savings!  Though this may change in the near future. Our wonderful (I say this sarcastically) governor is probably going to sign a bill that includes a .01 cent PER OUNCE tax on bottled water.  That would make the $2.97 case cost an extra $4.05!  That is so ridiculous.  When I told dh he mentioned he would be ok with getting a water filter system, if this law passes.  We don't actually drink our tap water too much. We are on a private well, owned by one of our neighbors. It is their responsibility to maintain it and treat the water, but when I checked with the county health department years back, this is more on the honor system.  The county requires them to submit a sample once a year.  When I asked how do you actually know that is where they got the sample from? What if they went to a city water tap and put that in the test bottle? The county's answer was they can't control it.  So....we don't fully trust this as drinking water, especially since dh likes to drink alot of water.

As per usual, we're almost out of milk by today so I picked up 2 more gallons this morning.  I shouldn't have to buy any other grocery items this week.  Dh did splurge for lunch today and went and picked up a fish and chips meal to go from a tavern nearby.  It's one of his favorites and he actually hasn't had it for at least a year, probably closer to 2 years.  They've upped their prices though - it came to $10.30.  But he says he's filled up and won't really need dinner now.

Hopefully next week will be less money.