Once a Month Cooking - Shopping Successes and Failures

I want to do a short series about Once a Month Cooking (OAMC). I just decided to start it this month, because cooking every night is something that really wears me out so we eat convenient food a lot. This is really only "sorta cooking" because the meals do need to be pulled out of the freezer and baked nightly ;) Here are my guidelines for shopping:

• Budget: $400 a month (over two paychecks) - $350 for the big trip, $50 for milk and produce the next pay period.
• Enough meals for both pay periods. No eating out, and all meals need to be balanced with a starch and lots of veggies. This pay period is 33 days so I prepared that many main dishes.
• Budget includes every possible household need and Pull-Ups for our little potty trainer. (NOTE: I hate how unfrugal Pull-Ups are and I'm definitely going to blog about that another day!)

I felt like there were some things in the trip that went successfully. 

• I made a really insanely thorough list. This thing took me a week and a half. Every item on the list was categorized by type of grocery so I could have a general idea of which aisle, and had an already filled out target price. I also put a blank space next to the items for actual price to track my savings.
• I bought as much as possible at our local discount store, Aldi's. Other places I know of that aren't in this area but might be in yours are Grocery Outlet, Winco and Giant Eagle.
• I made sure to check the price per unit on every single item. 
• I ate before I left, so I didn't have a single impulse buy because I was hungry. 
• I followed the chart at the link below (click the picture) and it helped me pinpoint ways to save that I hadn't ever thought of. I did  save money this way.
• I was $20 under budget!! 

 Now, for the not so successful parts:

• I didn't think about myself being pregnant before I left, and consequently, my bladder almost died because the first store had no bathroom.
• When I got to the store, I thought I'd remember certain things I thought of that morning as I left. I'm not doing this again! When I think of it, I'm writing it down.
• I didn't organize the categories of the list very well. I had aisles that should be together but weren't, so I was constantly flipping pages. This slowed me down significantly. 
• I decided it would be a fabulous idea to shop/cook on the same day. Never. Again.

 So that's the start of it! Upcoming in the next few days are menus, storage, recipes, and a copy of my shopping list.

Have you ever tried shopping for a month, or for a longer period of time than usual? How did it go?