Tag Archives: commissary

Reducing my grocery budget

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Right now I am just feeding three people yet I have been having a REALLY hard time spending less money at the grocery store. I’ve been shopping a week at a time (we eat a LOT of produce) and I do add household items and food for the dog in that total as well. I would REALLY like to get back to $100 per week and I’m hoping some of the brilliant minds out there could show me where I can do that.

So here is my most recent grocery trip:

DSC_0055The cold stuff… of the bags of chicken were for the dog and the coffee creamer is non-negotiable!

DSC_0054The junk food… disclaimer: the crackers and cereal were a pretty good price, the cup o’ noodles are getting packed off to my husband and the caprisuns were a one time buy because we were going to have some friends with kids over this weekend.

DSC_0056The produce, already the broccoli, celery, pepper, cuke, and most of the carrots, apples and grapes are gone. Produce gets eaten like it’s going out of style around here.

DSC_0057This is what my fridge looks like pretty well stocked.

Maybe I just have to realize that living in Hawaii with two growing kids (my daughter is almost as tall as I am now) that this is as good as it’s going to get. I do plan on trying some cracker recipes, my kids LOVE homemade granola bites, I can’t keep them on hand!

 

 

 

 

Six More Years…

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This is both something to celebrate and kinda sign over at the same time. My husband reenlisted for six more years in the Navy. Which – yay!- means he has a job for six more years! But also means the Navy owns him for six more years. Or actually, more realistically 10 more because he’ll probably stay in and retire.  The Navy has been good to us over the past 10 years, yeah it was a little tough when we first got in, but now we are comfortable, moving, deployments, all that stuff is just something we got used to as part of his job. It’s part of our life now. I could never have imagined where this decade has led us in the Navy, we kinda figured we would ride out 4 or 6 or 8 years in Norfolk. Staying in for 20 was never really in the cards, neither was living overseas. Now I just have to sit back and see what surprises the next 10 years brings. I am so very, very proud of my sailor and the sacrifices he has made.

Now, onto the reenlistment ceremony!

As cheesy as it is, I really wanted to be at at least ONE ceremony of his! I have never been at a reenlistment or frocking (promotion) ceremony before so I skipped out on a few hours of work to come hang out.

Thankfully I was able to do a quick and easy catering job courtesy of the local commissary!

 

And before you get to reenlist you actually have to get kicked out… Here he is getting an honorable discharge.

For those few seconds between getting kicked out and reenlisting, he was a free man! Pretty much all the jokes have been made, trying to run, jokingly cussing out a superior, etc…

Swearing back in… Why hello PAO, that is a nice ring you have there!

 

Making it official and signing his life away for six. more. years!

So thankful that one of the MC’s got this picture. We have SO few pictures of just the two of us!

Ending the day on a low note…

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This morning I started out positively sad about our pending move. I am ready to dig my heels in and just stay here a little while longer. It didn’t help that it got up to a gorgeous 85 degrees today, nice and sunny with summer right around the corner.

Then…

I have to listen to yet ANOTHER person complaining about how much they hate this base. I am so over it. While we chose to move here there are those people who didn’t have a choice. Or maybe this base just wasn’t what they had in mind. But to LOUDLY complain about practically every aspect of the base, not a good enough selection at the commissary/exchange, not enough for kids to do, not enough child care options, it just annoyed the crap out of me!

We don’t live in America, we live in Spain. There might possibly come a point where you have to pull up your big girl panties and step off base! Amazingly there are stores in Spain that sell food and clothing! Cute clothing in fact! And the complaints you have about having to pay for it in euro? What the hell do you think that COLA is for??? It was just super annoying and I took it personally as I feel like I am a representative of the child care on base and that she was picking on me personally.  Even though she wasn’t, and at this point in time I really don’t care. I think it sad that instead of spending your time enjoying a place that some people save up and vacation to, all you can complain about is how horrible everything is.

And the other day someone told me they hated it here because there was no WalMart. I. Just. Don’t. Get. It. You would rather shop at a trashy big box store (that has a twin here in Spain called Carrefour!!!!) than live here? Is buying stuff, random stuff that you don’t need and are only buying because you are bored, really THAT important to you?

Ending rant now, just had to get that out there. If you are moving to Spain, please be aware that it is a totally different country because apparently there are some people who think it should be ‘little America’. I swear if I hear the phrase “…at our LAST base…” one more time…

On Hoarding Seasonal Creamer…

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I live on a military base in Spain.  As far as grocery stores go, we have the commissary on the base and numerous Spanish grocery stores off base.  While we do shop at groceries stores off base sometimes (the produce, booze and meat selection is better) it starts to get pretty pricey when you have to pay for everything in Euro.

So for the most part we shop at our commissary. The selection is okay as long as you don’t start getting too adventurous in you cooking.  Its nice, we can get our American brands, which is especially nice around the holidays.

One problem is that seasonal items go quickly, REALLY quickly. So when I FINALLY saw the holiday creamers on the shelf yesterday (doing my third ‘one last thing’ Thanksgiving shop) I grabbed 6. Three pumpkin and three sugar cookie.  Plus I have two vanilla toffee that we just started getting in stock. Also three quarts of eggnog.

I have a problem. The family will drink the eggnog no problem, in fact my kids will drink it with lunch if I let them.  However, I am the only coffee drinker in my house and now have a shit load of coffee creamer that isn’t going to last forever.  So I have been doing what any rational person would do, I am drinking about 8 cups of coffee a day.

Should keep me motivated for all that cooking I am about to do today!