Trader Joe’s Needs to Pay Me!

With as much as I blog about TJ’s, I think I deserve to see a wee bit of their advertising budget coming my way.  After vacation, we found the cupboards bare.  (Did I just say cupboard?  Is this a Dicken’s novel?)  I knew a big shopping trip was in order, so naturally, I decided to hit up my local TJ’s.  No, it’s not as awesome as the one in Los Angeles, but it’s still pretty darn cool.

I am doing “real food” June.  It’s a silly thing I’m trying, which was very inspired by Lisa Leake at 100 Days of Real Food.  While I think eating real and wholesome foods is not silly, I feel a little silly doing it.  Let me know what you think of them in the comments.  I have pasted the rules below, but please check out Lisa’s blog for more details, recipes, mini challenges, and even her experience completing 100 days of real food on a budget.  (I’m all about the budget!)

The Rules: Things to Avoid

1. No refined grains such as white flour or white rice (items containing wheat must say WHOLE wheat…not just “wheat”)
2. No refined sweeteners such as sugar, any form of corn syrup, cane juice, or the artificial stuff like Splenda
3. Nothing out of a box, can, bag, bottle or package that has more than 5 ingredients listed on the label
4. No deep fried foods
5. No “fast foods”

I’m not so sure I can really do this, but it’ll be fun to try.  I think the rule about “5 ingredients” is particularly silly – only because it’s so subjective.  What if one of the ingredients is terrible for you?  I’m totally reading into this too much.  Try and pick things with ingredients that sound wholesome.  For instance, I just got cheese from TJ’s with five ingredients, but it was the most wholesome cheese I could find.  Speaking of TJ’s, I wanted to blog my experience.

I started out with this.  It is a list of my (and Kevin’s) meals for the week and the respective shopping list.

My List

I then got all this for $78.  Whaaaa?  Yes!  I scored all the loot for two people for a week (no eating out) for $78.  The meat isn’t organic, but it is all-natural and antibiotic-free.  The eggs, quinoa, beans, and a few other things are organic.  I do what I can.  I’m no superhero.

Food, Food, & More Food

I’d like to add that I only had one coupon.  That’s why you see the Morningstar Veggie Burgers in the pic.  I do not consider them a “whole food,” but Kev may want to snack on them at some point this week.  If not, they’ll keep in the freezer until the end of June.

By the way, when you put your groceries in one end of the kitchen and try to put them in the fridge, your cat might do this for attention.

Speed Bump

It’s okay though.  Kitties like it when you shop at TJ’s.

Let the cat outta' the bag.

Tags: cat, kitty, organic, real food, trader joe's