So last week was a total cluster - 13 people, 1 house, and I had zero control over either shopping or meal planning. So I have zero clue how much was spent (the idea is to "even it up" later), but I know it is going to be ridiculous. Given all of this, I have just decided to write the whole week off to vacation, and then also knock 1/4th off my $600 monthly grocery target.
So this week, alas, Aldi's was closed (the downside of returning to a completely empty fridge just in time for Easter, I guess). So I hit the Asian market instead, which was not awesome -- prices were higher than I recall ($2.99 for a head of lettuce??). So I spent $112 on food and another $4 on household supplies, for a monthly total of $156/21. I also have a large dairy stockup coming later this week, so that'll probably be another $50. Still, that will leave me about $250 left for the last @10 days of the month, so if I pay attention and don't go crazy with Papa John's or something, I should make it this month. Yay.
As a total of-topic rant, last week was *such* a good demonstration that throwing money around is no guarantee of a good time. This was the luxe-luxe-luxe vacation (inlaws), with a fancy house and eating out and even a personal chef to make dinner a few nights. And I had a fucking miserable time and resent how much our "share" of all of that crap is going to be. Don't get me wrong, the guy made some awesome food, but there were too many people and I got stuck in the totally crappy room and the bugs ate me alive and I basically drank my way through the week pretending to have fun so as not to ruin it for my MIL (in whose honor we were all getting together - Stage 4 cancer, so damned if I was going to make her feel bad that my vacation sucked). If I had been smart, I'd have volunteered to be the personal chef for the group and have them pay me instead -- since I didn't exactly feel all relaxed and vacation-ey anyway, I might as well have been making some cash instead of basically lighting my own on fire. FFS.