Grocery Cart Challenge - Failure

I love Gayle's Grocery Cart Challenge Blog, but I think I belong in the hall of shame. Our budget is exceedingly tight, and has gotten even tighter as I have been trying to save money in order to afford the trip to WV that we are hoping to make in May. It is just no use. She manages to spend only $50 a week, and I can't manage to stay under $100. I checked my pantry first, and then made a list and menu to see how little damage I might do, and hoped to stay under $100.
Applesauce - $1.68
3 pkgs. Jiffy corn muffin mix - $.36 each
Pepper Jack cheese slices - $2.28
1 lb. lean ground beef - $3.54
1 gallon Foremost milk (no antibiotics or hormones) - $5.22
1 pint half & half - $1.32
2 jugs of drinking water - $.68 each
American cheese - $3.68
1 lb. butter - $2.28
10 lb bag sugar - $4.22
rump roast - $10.90
large 36 pkg. of eggs - $4.66
Mustard - $.67
Flour - $2.44
Bananas - 2.51 lbs @ $.64/lb - $1.61
Plums - 1.60 lbs @ $1.50/lb - $2.40
2 tomatoes - $1.46
12 pk. hamburger patties - $6.27
Sliced chicken lunch meat - $2.98
Chicken breasts - $6.97
Sliced ham lunch meat - $3.98
1 pkg. 10 tortillas - $4.22
Grapes - $3.70
Dried red beans - $1.08
Tomato sauce - $.78
2 boxes pop-tarts - $2.92 each
Refried beans - $1.54
Cumin - $1.96
Vanilla yogurt - $1.76
1 can diced tomatoes - $.52
1 can green chiles - $.78
Brown rice - $.98

Suave Shampoo - $1.97
Suave Conditioner $1.97
Glass cleaner - $.97
Trash bags - $2.94
Fine point Sharpie markers - $1.42 (needed for Science projects)
Pencils - $1.50 (on clearance)
Pens - $.92
3 handsoap pumps - $.88 each
Dawn - $2.47 (I don't compromise on this)
2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste - $2.88 each
Our one luxury item - 2 liter Pepsi - $1.38

My meals for the week consist of:
Hamburgers and fried potatoes (I already have them)
Salmon patties (I already have the salmon - and I'll use bread crumbs from stale bread)
Minestrone soup
Pot roast and potoatoes
Chicken tortilla bake
Taco ring made with homemade crescent rolls
At least one night of leftovers - or a soup, sandwich, quesadilla, cereal, pancake, whatever night!

I also have to feed five breakfast and lunch to five people. My husband's standby is poptarts for the morning, and other than eggs I didn't get any "breakfast"foods. I do have extra hamburger patties for a lunch one day, and a couple of Ramen noodles and mac & cheese in the pantry for some other lunches. I am also partial to egg salad - which is great on toasted bread. All of the food here will be consumed in a week. My groceries totalled $120.80.
I will likely have to go back to the store mid-week for flour as Kaitlyn accidentally baked my crescent roll dough that was rising with the bread I asked her to put in the oven. (Ugh!) I am also hoping that the 4 rolls of toilet paper that we have in the closet will last the week. Maybe we can just run to the corner store to use their restroom if we run out! I am just going to refuse to go back to the store no matter what. That is another big money drain - you walk into Walmart and magically walk out $20 - 30 lighter.
I really, really want to get it down below $100. I need some suggestions on how to do that. The bottom half of the list is technically "household" items and not grocery and it adds up to about $20 - but I would still like to keep that under the budget.
Meatless meals aren't an option for hubby. He is also a big eater, and I'm not telling a hungry man that he can't eat until he is full. Fresh produce is not optional. I know I could save $2 automatically if I just bought the hormone and antibiotic laden milk, but I just can't. We haven't gotten away from the meat yet, but we're working on that also. So here's what I'm dealing with, and I'm so frustrated because I can't seem to balance healthy and frugal.

The Best Laid Plans

You've heard that pride goes before a fall..... well today I planned out our dinner menu for the next week, complete with detailed grocery list. All the blanks were filled out in that little section of my planner. I was feeling pretty dang good about myself, thinking myself an organizational genius. The shopping trip which I dread went off without a hitch and all items for the coming week's meals were procured. Life was good.
Then we got home.
At our house when mom pulls up with groceries, everybody comes to help carry them in. Travis got the bag with the eggs - a large pack of 2 1/2 dozen. He took them inside and set them on the edge of the island. As he walked away I heard a splat.
Sixteen eggs were broken.
I had other "plans" for tonight's dinner, but not wanting those cracked eggs to go to waste, we improvised and had breakfast for dinner.
I think I'll learn to keep my plans written in pencil.

$96.72 for What???

I was telling my husband earlier today how much groceries cost. Actually I was telling him how the prices have soared in the last year or so. It is crazy. I am spending close to $150-200 a week depending on what we eat. This particular week, I thought I'd save us some money and empty out the pantry - using up all the canned goods, etc. that we have in there and finding recipes to utilize these ingredients. The picture to the right shows what I bought. If you'll notice - I did not buy any meats except lunch meat. I buy organic milk and some name brand items, but for the most part, I buy store brands. I also bought some Tootsie Pops to have on Friday to and from the concert for a treat (instead of stopping at convenience stores for junk!) and some card stock that is actually for co-op tomorrow. The total came to $96.72. I almost fainted.
Here is a list of what I bought:
2 - 1/2 gal. organic milk $3.68 each -Clorox bleach $1.88/gal - men's deodorant $2.07 - women's deodorant $2.74 (explain to me why mine is higher than hubby's???) - Toothpaste $3.47 -gallon sized freezer storage bags $1.12 - Card stock $3.88 - Apple Jacks $2.74 (a treat) - 1 pint sour cream $1.34 - 1 can navy beans $.64 (these were advertised on the shelf for 50 cents - so I was overcharged) - Saltines - $.87 - Coffee $4.96 - Butter $2.28 - 2 pkgs lunch meat $2.98 each - Tootsie pops $4.88 - Wisk $9.48 (have to buy HE detergent for the front loading washer that is supposed to be saving me money in electricity) - Downy $4.97 - Macaroni noodles $.50 - Chicken broth $1.00 - 1 can diced tomatoes $.54 - 1 pkg pop tarts $2.42 - Lipton tea bags $2.12 - Flour $1.58 - 2 pkgs oysters at $1.17 - Pepper jack cheese $2.12 - Shampoo and conditioner (good stuff - we have bad hair) $5.84 ea - Roma tomatoes - $.56 - Grapes $2.57

These things without what is already in my pantry would NOT feed us for the week - these are just the odds and ends.
Oh and on a bit of a homeschooler rant - while we were at Wally World - there was a local elementary school class there on a "field trip"!!!! Do NOT get me started here - but why on earth do elementary school students in rural America need to go on a field trip to Walmart?? Most of them practically live there. Their families spend their whole paychecks there. It defines their culture. They are all wearing the same clothes because everybody shops at Walmart. And they were not being instructed in any way whatsoever, they were descending on the store like a plague of grasshoppers, running everywhere, knocking over merchandise and blocking aisles. Oh brother.

Afternoon Delight

It is Friday afternoon and I'm here at my computer with a hot cup of coffee with Irish Creamer and life is good. It was a yucky day in which I had to do huge, major grocery shopping, but hey - I was finished before noon before Billy Bob and all of his cousin's get their paychecks and head over in pickups brimming over the sides with kinfolk to the Wally-world. Thank heavens.
It was a traumatic experience - grocery shopping. I really hate this task. I love to cook though, and my family won't stop eating even though I tell them how terribly inconsiderate it is, which means we need supplies. I try to only go every other week - but money is tight right now (could it be TWO formal gowns and a 3 week trip to WV?) and alas, I shall have to go again next week.
It is also traumatic looking at the carts of passers-by (should that be passer-bys?). The amounts of processed food that people consume scares me! I had a moment where I started to reach for the hot dogs and Little Debbies in the cart of an unsuspecting woman with the words, "You can't eat THAT!" on my lips when the Lord gently reminds me that I fed my kid SPAM yesterday. It just scares me. There are advantages to buying processed foods - they fit in the cart nice and neatly - all the square little boxes standing neatly in a row.
Grocery shopping completed, and heading in mini van full of plastic sacks, in a torrential downpour, my son and I spy what appears to be a MASSIVE tornado to the west. Ugh. I'm in a van no less, and I'm thinking of sacks of flour flying around in my van as it is sucked up into the vortex - MORE than I am thinking about our safety. Then I decide it doesn't really matter because the van is already covered with about 10 pounds of sand from the beach excursion. Oh and yes, I finally put a bra on to go grocery shopping and I finally got the whole sixties "burn your bra" thing - I mean who invented this twisted torture device? Anyway - it was apparently NOT a tornado. The weather - not the undergarments.
All this to say that it is Friday afternoon - I'm having a hot cup 'a joe, and blogging without a whole lot of demands to meet at this very moment. Ah! I'm thinking that maybe afternoon coffee is not such a good thing for me as I scan back over this post! Anyway - what's in your coffee?