January OAMGS Wrap-Up, Try, Try Again!

So January was our first month attempting to do one large grocery shopping trip at the beginning of the month and staying out of grocery stores the remainder of the month. We failed.

Here is my post about getting prepared.
Here is my post about the initial January shopping that was done.

Overall it wasn't awful - it's not like we did any big trips anywhere else in the middle of the month, but as our pile of receipts attests, there were numerous stops to the grocery store(s) in the month of January.

• 1/3/15 (part of initial OAMGS trips) - Sam's Club (lettuce, eggs, green peppers, baby snacks, dill pickles, minced garlic, bacon, 1% milk, dry ranch mix, roasted almonds, bananas, dry pinto beans)
• 1/5/15 (part of initial OAMGS trips) - Sam's Club (sausage, chicken noodle soup, chicken broth, spaghetti sauce, canned tomatoes, creamer, brown sugar, parsley flakes, sausage, cocoa powder)
• 1/5/15 (part of initial OAMGS trips) - Kroger (soda, canned broth, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, canned corn)
• 1/8/15 - Bananas, monster and whole milk
• 1/15/15 - ice cream, 1% milk, whole milk, frozen vegetables (were on sale)
• 1/21/15 - Whole milk, 1% milk, and grapes
• 1/21/15 - Apples, vinegar, eggs, creamer, bananas, clementines
• 1/23/15 - Soda
• 1/27/15 - Luna bars, soda, bananas, grapes, 1% milk, creamer, avocados 
• 1/28/15 - Monster and baby snacks
• 1/30/15 - Chips and ham

We ran out of the last of the fresh produce a little less than a week before January ended which was to be expected, and seemed reasonable to me (we keep plenty of vegetable options via cans and frozen, so I wasn't worried about that). As you can see by what we actually purchased in January, we were using produce that had been purchased in December (towards the end of the month, so we still had enough that I thought most of it would last through at least close to the end of January - mainly the potatoes, onions, etc.).

Positives this month:

• We used up several items that had fallen to the bottom of the freezer - chicken stock, beef short ribs, etc. I also used some pantry items that have been ignored for awhile - like the tapioca. It was good to make use of items we had already bought but not used in a long time. 
• It made me more conscientious of the items we do eat on a regular basis and the items I should be focusing our meals around.
• I got a little better at figuring out what we actually go through in a one month period of time.
• We drink more milk than I thought we did - and I foresee those weekly trips continuing for bananas / milk / grapes and think that will be the goal, to get shopping down to one initial trip (one to Kroger, one to Sam's Club) and 3 subsequent milk / fruit trips to either Sam's or Kroger, but not both.

I have a long way to go yet, and don't think we'll have it down completely in February, but hopefully it will be better than January!

We'll be finishing up our shopping for February this weekend, and then see how we do for the upcoming month. Fingers crossed!