My journey has started!

So as I told you in my last post I'm taking on the challenge of once a month cooking! I'm doing it with my two friends Terry an Jen! We are super excited! Today I did the shopping (in the middle of a winter storm warning mind you) Jen an Terry couldn't shop with me so I shopped for all three families!
I started my adventure two weeks ago by planning out the meals. 19 of them! Pretty bold for a newbie! Then last week I went with my list to Aldis to get an estimated price for my big shopping day! Without meat it totaled $50 per lady so $150 all together. I have a beef in my freezer so I asked each lady to provide 10pounds of ground anything an bring it cooking day.
Since my list had been made for two weeks shopping went very smooth! I ended up only spending $117 at Aldis! I did however decided not to get my spaghetti noodles or frozen mixed veggies there because I knew they'd be cheaper at SAMs club. So away to SAMs me an Teagan go! (It's starting to snow by this point) at SAMs I decided to go ahead an buy a roast for pulled pork it was a good price per pound roast, spaghetti noodles, mixed veggies and 30 foil pans to freeze things in for $48 (I got a 15lb roast that's why my total is to high). *Detour to pick Caleb up from school early snows coming down hard an school is 45 minutes from our house* back on the road again I need some chicken so I head over to the Simmons Chicken Store they sale wholesale to the public pick up 6 pounds of leg quarters an 5lbs of fajita meat for $17. I realized I forgot BBQ sauce ketchup,velveeta and freezer bags so I run to the dollar store spending $15. Making my grand total for the day $197 or, $65 per family! Not bad at all! I was very close to my $50 per family which was a non meat total so adding another $15 for roast an chicken is pretty amazing!
Just in case you missed it that's $197 spent in total providing a months worth of meals for not one but THREE families!!! Amazing! I've spent $197 on my one family of 4 for one weeks worth of meals.
Give Aldis a try there food is great priced an taste great too! Also stick to a list! An only shop at SAMs when you KNOW it's cheaper buying I'm bulk doesn't always save you money an if the other items in SAMs are tempting skip it all together! Also if you have a chicken plant, pork or beef plant in your area they are likely to open a few days of week to the public take advantage of this it's cheap meat that taste great!
Tomorrows cooking day an its still snowing with a chance of ice tonight. I might find myself cooking alone. Either way I'm so excited to share my outcome with you!

I'm posting a picture of my van full of food! It was so fun shopping g with a purpose!