the best grocery trip ever.

today is just one of those days where i really feel like complaining. we havent had any hot water for almost two days now, james lost his phone (his 3rd one since weve had sprint), the weathers been gloomy and weird, all the housework is behind schedule because i still feel funny from tuesdays procedure, and i somehow lost the photos i took for the post i was going to do today. but im not going to complain about any of those things. 

because last night, i had a really, really, really great trip to the grocery store. 

first of all i went by myself, which made everything so much faster and easier (seriously, why dont i do that more often?). second this was kind of a light week grocery-wise (we didnt finish all the meals on last weeks meal plan), and i managed to get out of sprouts for only $14. and thats including treating myself to a cider and some spontaneous cashews. 

then i went to vons. heres a picture of my receipt:

see the "total savings value" at the bottom? this is my main way of judging the success of a shopping trip, and 67% is the highest score ive gotten since i started keeping track at the beginning of the year (excluding the trip when i got the sausage for jamess party, but that wasnt really groceries). i really wasnt expecting to get anything exciting, just a few things to fill in the gaps in our meal plan, and lunchmeat for james. 

but then i went to the clearance rack, and what did i find? gluten free treats!

i normally dont buy this kind of thing because it usually costs about twice as much as im willing to pay for it, but at half price it was totally worth the splurge. i havent tried the brownie mix yet ( ill let you what i think about it when i do), but we did eat some of the pecan shortbread cookies last night, and they were certainly adequate. kind of dry and crumbly, definitely not worth the $5 they normally cost, but tasty enough. 

at this point i would have been totally stoked about the trip, but it kept getting better! in the meat section i found some of the sausage on my list in the clearance, which made it negative 26 cents after my coupons. then right next to it was seven packages of lunchmeat, which after all the discounts rang up for about 60 cents each. now james is all stocked up on meats (for a while) and it only cost us $4. 

THEN when i thought things just couldnt get any better, there was no line at the checkout. and the vons i usually go to has the WORST checkout situation, ive never seen more than three registers open. last night there were only two, but in some kind of christmas miracle there was no line at either one. so not only did i have the best grocery run ive had in a LONG time, but i managed to do it in record time too. 

and that was just the kind of thing i needed this week.