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Safeway & Sobeys Kosher Grocery Haul + Costco

Meat, Grape juice, Ramen, Wacky Mac, Bamba,and kosher shredded cheese are not available at other stores. Superstore has a few of these things, but I only plan to buy chicken there this month, hopefully with a 200 pc pts reward for poultry.

Because of keeping a strict Kosher diet, there are just a few items that I can only get at Sobeys, and while Safeway and Superstore have some of the other things that are unavailable at other stores, I find I definitely need to go to all 3. Really, in Calgary, I find that I save the most money and get the most variety by shopping those 3 stores, plus Costco, PC Wholesale Club, Walmart, H & W Produce and less frequently, Dollar Tree, Dollarama, and Winners. I also get diapers from Amazon. That’s a lot of stores, and it get’s a little bit complicated. I keep a shopping list that includes items by store, and sometimes make a judgement call that saves less money, but avoids going to another store. If I do the planning properly, I only go to Sobeys & Safeway once a month, on the first Tuesday because they give 15% off of orders over $50, and I can buy Kosher Meat and Cheese there. There are a lot of packaged kosher convenience foods, which we avoid almost entirely, but I am stocking up on boxed Macaroni and Cheese and Ramen noodles, because I’m in my last 2 months of pregnancy, and I want to have some backups for tired days or for after the baby comes. I’m also stocking up on cereal deals, and got buy 1 get 1 free family sized boxes.

Sobeys, including 5 bags of shredded cheese, Ramen and Wacky Mac
Safeway, with many 50% off dairy items, Beef, Bananas, Vegan Sausage and Hashbrown patties for my husbands breakfast Croissant sandwiches.

My Costco trip was a little bit overdue, and I spent an extra $105 when I discovered kosher Croissant Dough 204 per case for $65, and Artisan Burger buns 84 per case for $25, and a swiffer mop kit for $10. Everything else was pretty much usual, except the dry figs and mangos, which I bought for Kombucha Brewing.

$372 at Costco, not pictured – 2 more HW cream, 1 more block of cheese, a swiffer kit, a package of Kirkland Salmon, milk, a $65 case of unbaked croissants, a $25 case of artisan burger buns, 1 more strawberry jam, kirkland baby wipes and toilet paper.

My superstore trip was on the 1st, and I spend $172 which included $40 worth of bandaids and hand cream for my husbands blistered hands and a $30 printer. I bought cream, yogurt, a whole chicken, a carton of pineapple juice for flavoring kombucha, a refill of water, taco shells, flour and sugar, a salsa deal and some cereal deals. I also bought bananas, milk and eggs. I will count the first aid supplies in grocery, but the printer is as different spending category.

I also spend about $10 at the dollar store on groceries, plus $15 on craft supplies and kids bandaids (so they won’t use up all the good ones when we sneak them). They had dry alphabet pasta and some snack cookies my kids wanted.

This puts my grocery spending at $807, leaving $333 of my $1140 budget

This puts my grocery spending at $807, leaving $333 of my $1140 budget, for the remaining 3 weeks of this month. I usually do a big haul in the first week of around $500 because of the Sobeys and Safeway meat and cheese expenses and divide the remainder between the remaining 3 weeks. In this case, I am planning a produce haul this next week at H & W, which will probably be between $30-$50 and I’ll need the regulars like milk, eggs and bananas every week or so and 1 box of diapers. I think this a good month and I’ll be watching for deals to stock up on with the rest of my budget.

I made a video of this haul, and I’m going to try to put it up on youtube – but I used my cell phone for the video and it’s a bit bumpy. I got my big camera out today and started trying to figure out the best positions for the tripod etc. It’s going to take a few tries, but I will get this set up and rolling soon. I have been sharing my kombucha brewing on instagram tradmama_chavahreid and would love to have you follow me on there. I can hardly wait to get back into a rhythm with my meal planning and making things like Tempeh. I actually did make a batch of Sauerkrout last week, which turned out so so so much better than any I have ever tried to make, that I actually put it on almost everything this week.

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