Sweet Savings Sunday: My Shopping Trips for Last Week

Holy COW, it's been six WHOLE DAYS since I blogged last?  Man I feel like a complete slacker!  I've just been super preoccupied I guess.  The house hunting has taken up a huge part of my time (with absolutely no luck so far) and then it's just been busy around here with OT appointments, yearly check ups for various things for the kids, trying to get my house a bit more in order and above all going outside and PLAYING when the weather isn't being a pill.  On top of that my son has hit a stage where his sleeping has actually gotten WORSE (which I never thought possible honestly) where not only does he not sleep for more than 40 minutes at a time, but now he's waking up at 1:00 am pretty much on the nose and then he's up and perky until 7:00 am, takes a one hour nap and than he's golden until he takes a 3 hour nap during the afternoon hours.  He's dealing well with the new schedule, but it is out and out KILLING me.  I feel like I'm the newest member of the zombie squad and trying to think rationally is REALLY hard when you're this exhausted so new recipes, and cooking period this last week, has been not only difficult but in some cases just wasn't going to happen.  My bank account did not appreciate the multiple trips to Red Robin, I'll tell you what (they have allergy friendly fries that my kids can eat).

So, anyway, other than eating out for 3 dinners last week (ouch), here's what I bought for groceries other than I had my husband pick up 6 gallons of milk throughout the week.

I picked up an 18 pack of fresh local duck eggs from Non Essentials in Palmer (we're actually finding we like duck eggs better than chicken eggs and hey they're fresh!).

I also picked up everything you see above.  The candy molds (at least that's what I'm using them for) I picked up at Bishop's Attic for 1.50 for the both of them (score!).

The rest of my shopping I did online.

From Amazon I got:

6 jars of Barney Butter.  I bought the smaller ones for 10.00 for a 3 pack when they were on sale early last week (they were out of the large containers of the creamy style).  This is the only almond butter I can find that is peanut free and it just tastes...ohh man I wish I could give you a taste.  I PREFER it to peanut butter by a long shot and it's all natural and it's seriously the ONLY nut butter I've found on the market that is also soy free.  Great stuff!

6 bottles of Lyle's Golden Syrup.  This is the most universally accepted substitute for corn syrup in baking and I need to try my hand at candy making here so I just ordered it.  It's made from pure cane sugar, no corn, so it's definitely a good thing to have in the house.  I HAD planned on making some, but I've just been too out and out BEAT to do it.  I used some Amazon.com credits for an order that had gotten screwed up a while back and applied it toward the order so I got it for 6.95 for the six pack.

Natural Root Beer Flavor-4 Oz.  I LOVE this line of flavorings on Amazon as they don't contain any artificial colors (thus no worries about artificial caramel coloring containing corn) and are all natural flavorings.  I'd bought a bunch of the fruit flavored ones and such earlier, but realized that I was going to have to make soda syrups too, so I bought this for that purpose.

And I got Spinach Powder.  I'm slowly collecting powders like spinach, beet (got that earlier) and such for use in all natural food colorings (as the ones you can buy online are EXPENSIVE) since food colorings contain corn too (amazing isn't it?).

Wilton Mini Noah's Ark Metal Cookie Cutters to make animal crackers for the kids.

I also purchased Comfrey Leaf,  Astragalus Root, Marshmallow Root and St. John's Wort from the Bulk Herb Store as well.  I'd given away my Astragalus Root to a relative that is fighting ill health (you can use it as you would any vegetable and it's awesome for immune system support), so I needed to replenish my stock.  The St. John's Wort and Comfrey Leaf were running low from making Eczema Creme and the Marshmallow Root I was running low on from making kid friendly tinctures.

So, overall I spent 100.00 (about) on groceries last week including the herbs and candy making/baking supplies.  I thought that was acceptable.

The only thing missing in the pictures was the aforementioned milk.  I was going to count the web shopping earlier, but it just got in during last week, so I figured it could go on last week's budget *laugh*.

So, there you are folks.  My shopping for the week.  Hope yours went well!