Seven pages will cost $1705.24

Grocery shopping. I despise going to the store. The mister does our shopping. He follows the list very well, thank you. However, the Alaska shopping list fell to me. How does one plan for four people to eat for three to four months at a time? Well, we're working on that one.

We have struggled for months with making out menus, planning every morsel and then we also thought about just buying by going down the aisles. I've looked at a couple of online grocery places and compared and such. We finally decided on Spansalesalaska.com. I even made "purchases" just to see how much it was going to cost. I would put things in the cart but then skip out. It gave me a sense of what to expect. Today we made it all the way to the checkout. I cannot begin to say how many hours I've put into this project. For me personally, it was a huge event. And apparently my stomach knew it. For the last week or so I have just plain hurt. I finally pushed the button today and now I don't hurt. Stress.

So how much do groceries cost in Alaska? Today I got seven pages for $1705.24. That does not include meat or dairy. Here's a little taste of what we got:

C&H sugar #25 $29.89
Dr. Pepper 24/12 oz cans $19.99
Chef Boyardee Pizza Mix 12/16.6 oz $42.31
Flavorite Mushroom pieces 24/4 oz $26.31
Tide Mt. Spring 4/87 oz $55.93
Cottonelle Bath Tissue 8/12 roll $58.30
Prego Sauce 12/28 oz $49.78
Pinto Beans 12/1 lb $20.31
Carnation Milk (dry) 12/25.6oz $105.70

Basically, we've discovered that if you'll pay for it, you can get it. Most of our groceries will be bought by the caseload. We will still have to hit WalMart for items we would only need 1 or 2 of -- such as jelly --- I can't imagine buying a case of jam! We can buy and check out at the Bush Counter and they will package it up and mail it for us from WalMart.

So... this is taken care of. It's a relief. We can relax and enjoy our day or 2 in Anchorage. Maybe next year we'll try the guerilla shopping experience with all the other incoming teachers to Alaska.