Tuesday is usually the day that I do my grocery shopping. That’s because at 4:00 I drop the carpool off at religious education, and then I have about 90 minutes until the carpool comes back to my home. That’s usually enough time to make my list, check it twice, and get the basics at the supermarket.

This week, though, I’m not going grocery shopping for a number of reasons.

First, we’re still pretty well stocked from last week’s shopping, including everything I need to make packed lunches and dinners for the rest of the week.

Second, because our elementary school participates in the Market Day program, which pick-up was last night, I was able to secure some supplemental groceries in the near term.

But it’s the third reason that really has me hesitating about venturing down the supermarket aisle again any time in the near future: last week I spent more than $300 on groceries, and I didn’t even buy any meat.

When I got to the check out line, I really did a double-take when I saw that number go over the $300 mark. I thought, there must be something wrong here. I thought maybe I’d been double-charged for an item or my “shoppers plus” card didn’t register so I paid a higher price or something.

Nope, it’s just the economy, stupid.

I was just listening to a report on NPR about how this is a perfect storm of price increases right about now–with energy prices up, which makes the price of milk and corn go up, which makes the price of my grocery shopping go up. Is it possible that my small sample of one person’s trip to the supermarket is a microcosm of the pinch the American population is feeling? Could be.

If I look back at some of my past shopping trips, I do see some prices that have gone up but also some that have come down. For example, six months ago a gallon of milk cost $3.29. Last week it was $3.19. Bananas are still $.35 each like they were six months ago, and the price hasn’t changed on my favorite brands of salsa and strawberry preserves. Where I did see a big price jump was in non-essentials like chocolate chips (was $1.99 a package and now cost $2.79), and out -of-season fruits and vegetables, which I know I should know better than to buy. But since I haven’t fully embraced that whole 100-mile diet thing, I’m going to make peace with the fact that I’m buying produce from California, dude.

But revisiting these receipts uncovered what I think is probably the likely culprit behind my $300+ shopping trip: in my one trip last week, I picked up four items that I a) don’t normally buy each week and b) each cost a pretty penny. These included Lactaid pills for my lactose-intolerant kids, vanilla (the baking ingredient), Neutrogena moisturizer, and a mega-container of laundry detergent. All together those four items padded my grocery bill by $50.

So while it would be a neat-and-tidy call-to-arms to equate my increased grocery shopping bill with the failure of our current economy, the reality is I need to do a better job of spreading out those “big” purchases over a few shopping trips, not lumping them into one. Hey, at least I had $10 in coupon savings I could use.

By the way, the one thing this story on NPR did say, that sort of makes the 100-mile diet thing relevant, is that organic farmers, who do not rely on corn to feed their cows, may end up being a shopper’s most economical option in the coming months. I mean, if organic farmers, by their very nature, use less energy and less expensive feed to “grow” their crops, then it would make sense that they would be less expensive overall. Something to think about as spring draws nearer.

When I was working on my green packaging story for Continental Magazine, I discovered a lot of cool information. For example, though lots of different kinds of companies are greening the containers that held their products (the Timberland boxes at right include a “carbon footprint” label designed to look like a nutrition facts label), they were also greening the products themselves.

Nike made big news in January when it announced it would be making its latest version of the Air Jordan shoe to be environmentally sound. (Never mind the shoes’ hefty price tag will probably preclude most shoppers from choosing these shoes.) Then earlier this month Nike announced that its Steve Nash, of the Phoenix Suns’ shoes, would be made from recycled materials found on the factory floor. OK, so that’s pretty cool. Upon digging a little deeper I discovered that this is part of Nike’s ongoing mission to reduce waste through its Nike Grind and Reuse-a-Shoe program.

Reuse-a-Shoe is all about taking worn-out shoes and either recycling them into new shoes or using the rubber to create the protective surface on outdoor playgrounds. If you’re interested in donating your kids or your own worn out shoes, which can be any brand by the way, to Reuse-a-Shoe, click on this link to find donation locations.

Then comes the news that actress Natalie Portman has launched a line of vegan-friendly shoes for Ta Casan to match her vegan-friendly life. She is following in the footsteps of vegan shoes from the likes of Stella McCartney. Only problem is that these kinds of non-leather shoes usually rely on really earth-unfriendly materials like petroleum. Portman has promised, in a recent “Intelligencer” bit in New York magazine, that “for our next collection, we’re looking at a lot of eco-friendly materials. We don’t want to save the animals and poison their environment.”Good girl, Natalie. Can’t wait to see that next collection.

In the meantime I’ll probably limit my sustainable shopping to the stuff I can afford, like the cool screen t-shirts my daughter loves from Kohl’s and which cost about $10. They include clever, eco-friendly messages like “Don’t Be Trashy, Recycle” and “Global Warming Isn’t Cool.” According to the shirt’s hang tag, these shirts from Ross Sportswear, Inc. include a 50-cent donation to the National Wildlife Federation and 50-cent donation to Trees for the Future.

How are you helping the earth with items currently in your closet?