I'm not going to continue blogging every single thing we eat...too much effort. Though I will mention a couple of things. Today we had a small snack of berries from our own yard. Yesterday, I ate a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich; it was REALLY good!! At this point in the journey, I am using up odd items from the cupboards (and freezer). It will be a bit of time before I am seriously into preps. I am also spending a fair bit of time being more imaginative and creative about what I'm fixing. In a SHTF situation, I doubt I'd have the mental energy to be imaginative, which is another good reason to EAT WHAT YOU STORE. I'm also saving all these recipes that I'm developing and posting to my blog. They will be kept close to my stored food.

I still am going to document all grocery items I buy. Today, I pulled 6 rolls of paper towels and a package of bathroom tissue out of long-term storage. I also went to the open-air fruit market and the bakery outlet store. For a total of $9.16, I got two loaves of bread, 15lbs potatoes, 3 onions, 2 tomatoes, a head of garlic and a head of lettuce. I feel like that's pretty good.

But then, I went to the grocery store for sour cream, popcorn (the kind in a bag, that you pop on the stove or in a hot-air popper), and a gallon of milk. I also made a few other purchases: since the sour cream was on sale, I bought two. The date on them is July 20th. Unopened, they'll last that long. The only hotdogs I'll eat have come on sale for the summer. I haven't bought hotdogs since last summer; further if I don't buy them now, dh will buy the expensive fattening ones. I bought Ball Park Smoked White Turkey franks, only 45 calories each, no fat, and my family likes them. I bought four packages, as their date is also mid-July. I picked up a very large container of peanut butter, forgetting that I had just looked at two #10 cans of powdered peanut butter. Maybe I'll take the peanut butter back. I got the least expensive jelly for PB&J's, and splurged on a quart of yogurt for the kids. With my mushy bananas, it will make a great dessert. Total there $32.89, $26.50 if I return the PNB - which I think I'll do.

My total on groceries this week is $40.60. Not as great as I thought it would be, but not bad for the first week.

A word about store-bought bread (which my dh really prefers for his sandwiches). Your basic sliced bread comes in two "styles." One is long and slim, with each bread slice being roughly square. The other is shorter and wider, with each bread slice being roughly rectangular. Both are usually 24oz loaves. However, the long slim loaf gives you more slices of bread. Granted they are smaller slices, but in my family, we could all use smaller portions. For me the long slim loaves are win-win: more sandwiches per loaf, fewer calories per sandwich.

And a word about popcorn that doesn't involve a microwave. My four-pound bag of yellow popcorn cost $2.19. It contains 9 cups of unpopped corn. A 1/4 cup of corn makes 5 cups popped. Assuming that 5 cups popped is approximately equal to a bag of microwave popcorn, my $2.19 will make the equivilent of 36 bags of microwave popcorn. I do spend an inconsequential bit more on "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" spray for the popcorn, but since the popcorn costs me less than 1/10th of microwave, I can afford it! This is also a step toward less dependence upon the grid. Currently, I use a hot-air popper, but I do know how to pop corn in a kettle on a propane stove.