We ended up spending a total of $635 for the month for food. I'm very satisfied with that number, because I feel like I'm doing a great job of shopping smarter, and I can see the difference in our bank account. We only dipped into the red one time this month, and then were back out within a day or two. We used to hit the red within the first week of the month, and we pretty much stayed there all month long. So scary.
I'm also lucky that we didn't host Thanksgiving, so while I spent $25 on supplies for dessert I brought to the meal, and we spent another $35 on ingredients to cook my parents a meal while we were visiting, it's still probably less than we would have spent for the entire holiday meal. This price also includes a frozen turkey that I picked up for $3 the day after Thanksgiving, to use for Christmas which we WILL be hosting.
All in all, I'm very happy with the stockpile I'm building, and the prices I'm learning to pay for food and other items we use around here. I organized our bathroom stockpile and we have 3 bottles of body wash, 5 men's deodorant, 3 adult toothpastes, 2 kids' toothpastes, 1 bottle of shampoo, and some other odds & ends piled up for the future. I liked seeing it all together, and knowing that nobody would run out of body wash for a long, long time!
