Dresses for Random Objects and "Professional" Shoppers

Various things on my mind today. I read this article this morning Fight Rising Grocery Prices with Strategic Shopping and although I agree with some points in the article it just really bothers me on certain levels. I don't clip coupons and rarely "cherry-pick" too much trouble and time. I shop at HEB which is cheaper by far than walmart and I also shop at a store called Food Town. HEB has higher produce prices, but sometimes you can get stuff on sale (5lbs of pears for $5 etc). Food Town has cheap and good produce but not a great selection of other stuff. I shop for groceries and have less than $100 per week for food. Usually about $80. Our household consists of 4 adults and 2 children. I usually try to do meat of some sort every other day. Here is our menu for this week:

Saturday:
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches, chips
D-Lentil stew
Sunday
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches, chips
D-Grilled sausage and mac 'n cheese
Monday
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches (boys' lunch includes single serving chips, apple sauce and a piece of fruit as well as sandwich and capri sun type drink)
D-Courtney cooks and buys the stuff she cooks
Tuesday
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches (leftovers etc)
D-Chicken stirfry
Wednesday
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches
D-Baked Potatoes with chili, sour cream and butter
Thursday
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches
D-Cowboy Stew
Friday
B- Oatmeal
L-Sandwiches
D-Black eyed pea soup

Things I had already:
Dried beans
oatmeal
potatoes
chili in freezer
ranch style beans in freezer
chicken in freezer
ground turkey in freezer
oranges
canned corn

Grocery list:
bread 5 loaves (on sale for $1 each)
Chips (prepacked single servings) $5.49 + store coupon for free bag of tortilla chips
Tortilla chips (4 bags)
Pretzels (1 bag)
Salsa
Peanut butter ($1 1lb jar) x2
2 bags frozen asian vegetables
shredded cheese
no fat sour cream
margarine
caprisun 2 boxes
sausage 4 packages
macaroni and cheese x2 family size boxes
1 gallon fat free milk
Lunch meat x 3 packages
sliced cheese
15oz can of tomatoes
Bananas
plums
pears
flat of ramen
5 6-packs of apple sauce (5 for $5)
2 20oz cokes
box of brownie mix
Soy Sauce
Sweet 'n Sour sauce
__________________
Total $78.25

I don't use coupons. I find they are for things we don't eat. occasionally in the mail I get coupons and there are some good ones, otherwise, I don't spend the $1.50 on a Sunday paper. Anyway. Just an irritation. Cut out most convenience foods and look at recipes to modify from the internets and you're good to go. HillBilly Housewife is awesome.

In other news I finished my dish bottle dress. Its insanely fluffy lol. I started it when we lived in New York so its been a WIP for almost 5 years. Here is the pic for those of you who don't have Ravelry.