Grocery Shopping - First lessons

So what can you purchase for $31.50?  On Saturday night, I went to the Giant to find out.  After talking with a few friends, I had some pretty good strategies for how I was going to do this, or so I thought.  I knew I wouldn't be able to afford much in the way of meat, poultry or fish, and obviously I would need to buy store brand.  One friend, a nutritionist, recommended being careful of loading up too much on carbs and to get frozen fruit and vegetables.  Ok, that makes sense.  I also knew that since I was doing this alone, I would need to repeat meals a lot - I figured I could eat the same cereal every day for breakfast, have a sandwich for lunch and try to have variety for dinner. I also knew that I didn't want to spend all $31.50 at one time, as I was likely to run out of things or need a bit of a change towards the end of the week.

My wife was with me and she also needed a few items for the house - no major items, nothing for a meal, just a few things to fill in some gaps.  Armed with separate carts, off we went.

I stuck to my plan - Cheerios (I got lucky and the brand name was on sale for only $0.50 more then the store brand - I decided this was one place where brand mattered enough to make it worth the difference), a bunch of bananas (filling and relatively cheap) and milk for breakfasts; a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly for lunches; kasha varnishkes (buckwheat and pasta), a bag of lentils (maybe make soup?), a bag of black beans and a bag of rice for dinners, a dozen eggs for filler and variety.  At that point, as I went to go get the frozen vegetables and fruit, I realized that I was already at $24.98.  I decided to skip the frozen fruit and vegetables for now.

In the meantime, my wife's had also finished her shopping -  no junk or waste on her bill, but also nothing that would turn into a meal itself - and her bill came to $27.82.

I usually think of myself as pretty careful to look for the best price and the best deal, but there is a world of difference when your entire food budget for a week is about the same as what you usually use to "pick up just a few things."

But the biggest shock is that with no meat, no cheese, no fish, no yogurts, no snacks, not one item that cost more than $3.50 - there was still only $6 left for the rest of the week.  And this was still with no fruit and no vegetables, and it assumed I would be eating the same thing or close to it every day.

This may be tougher than I thought...