It's Over

The Great Grocery Experiment just came to an end. It was fun, made us laugh, and taught us all a few things.

I learned that Jack is perfectly content to eat chips, scrambled eggs, and vanilla wafers for three days. Our conversation last night went about like this:

me: Jack, are you sick of chips yet?
Jack: Nope.
me: A little, maybe?
Jack: Nope. (opening another bag)

Jack's purchases were:
36 bags of chips
one dozen eggs
one box of vanilla wafers
one half gallon of milk

Gable was the one that had the most difficulty. He worried about having enough food and got sick of noodles and carbs promptly. If you recall, his purchases consisted of:
eight cans of Pepsi
one half gallon of chocolate milk
one half gallon of orange juice
two cup-o-noodles
three packs of Ramen noodles
one can of mini Ravioli
one box of spaghetti
one can of Skyline
one box of Cheez-Its

His purchases proved to stretch me as it was part of the challenge to let them buy what they wanted as well as let them consume whatever, however, and whenever they wanted. It drove me crazy to see him consume six cans of Pepsi over the course of one day. It was disturbing to see three cans open at the same time and see him walking around drinking a pop. It drove me a bit batty, but I held my tongue, I did. When I asked Gable what he would have done differently, he said that he would have not have bought all the noodle soups. Instead he would have bought more chocolate milk...I also noticed that after Gable's breakfast of noodle soup today, he decided to not eat until the challenge was over (3:00 today). It was as if he could not stomach any more noodle soup. But he completed the challenge and was glad to have a variation of food just now!

Jonah, as expected, fared the best. He is, of course, the oldest and has been part of the grocery planning for many years. He cruised through the experiment and has plenty of food left over. He really did eat like a king. His purchases were:
one pound of bacon
one load of bread
one dozen eggs
one can of mandarin oranges
five oranges
a half gallon of milk
two cup of noodles
one box of macaroni and cheese
one bag of pizza rolls

Every morning he made a bacon and egg sandwich. His pizza rolls were used for two meals. He had oranges for snacks. He made wise choices and had fun choices at the same time. Show off...

A few items worth noting:
-When we were doing our initial shopping, Jonah said, "You know, I always thought that when I had my own kids, I would buy them all name brands of food, but I don't think that now."
-Jack discovered that the first box of vanilla wafers that he saw (in the produce section) was $3.28. He put it in his cart, but then saw the store brand of vanilla wafers for $1.37 in the cookie aisle. He wanted to know why they had the expensive ones by the bananas and not the cheap ones. There is a very good reason for that, my son...
-The boys were very interested in price matching, even if it just saved them a nickle or a dime. For example, the oranges were .25, but they could price match them for .20. Five cents doesn't seem like a big deal, but when Jonah got five oranges for a dollar instead of four oranges for a dollar, he was quick to notice that he got an entire extra orange, which is a big deal.
-All of the boys came out of the soup aisle with a totally different brand of noodle soup than we normally buy. Again, a few cents difference, but they really valued those few cents.
-Tax was a big downer. After they plotted and planned, to have tax attached to some items seemed very unfair to them, as well as totally beyond their control. I get that...
-Jon and I both noticed how erratic some of their behaviors were when taking in so much sugar, as well as how tired Gable was well before bedtime, possibly from exclusively consuming pop and carbs.

All in all, it was one of the best experiments we've ever done and we plan to do a one-week experiment at a later point.

Jack has already stated that he would simply buy three big boxes of chips, so I'm guessing the three days on chips didn't turn him off to them as Ann hypothesized!