On Saturdays, I share my menu plan for the upcoming week along with a photo of my groceries and a tally of my spending. My goal is to spend $100/week for our food, toiletries, and cleaning products. I’m currently in the midst of trying to buy more local, sustainably-produced food while sticking to my budget. Can it be done? I don’t know, but I’m going to try, and I’ll share what I learn as I go along.
This week, I spent $65.28 at Aldi and $19.28 at Weis for a total of $84.66.
So, it seems like I’m $15 under budget, but I’m actually not. That’s because I bought 100 pounds of wheat (which I will grind into flour and use for baking) for $70.
Normally I start out the month with $400 in my budget, which gives me $100/week. Since I had to take $70 out, though, I’ve only got $82.50 to work with each week.
$84.66 is decently close to that, and if I can manage to keep my spending that low for the rest of the month, I should be good to go. I’m not sure how much local food I’ll be able to buy with that, though!
I don’t have an honest-to-goodness grocery picture for you today. This is mostly because I forgot I’d given my debit card to my husband and only discovered this sad fact when I went to pay at Aldi. Normally I use cash there, but I hadn’t been to the bank yet to withdraw my June grocery money, and since I had no debit card, I couldn’t pay!
So, I had to leave my groceries, pack the kids back into the car, drive across the highway to the bank, unpack the kids, go inside the bank (can’t use the ATM without a debit card!), withdraw cash, put the kids back in the car, drive back to Aldi, unpack the kids and pay for my groceries.
I was a little bit frustrated.
It was a really hot day and by the time we finished at Weis and got home, I was tired and hungry and my groceries were starting to thaw. So, I decided it was more urgent to put them in the fridge/freezer than it was to take a picture.
Anyhow, that’s why I only have a photo of my produce (and some of it’s missing from the picture).
What will we be eating this week?
Well, I made a big batch of banana-chocolate chip muffins yesterday (I decided to take the advice of those who said to puree my avocado and use it with banana), so we’ll eat those for a few breakfast meals. I also still have some homemade granola left, I always have homemade yogurt around, and as you can see, we have some fruit to eat for breakfast as well.
Lunches will be leftovers as necessary, plus sandwiches, fruit, raw veggies, nuts, and yogurt.
And here’s my dinner plan:
Saturday
- It’s my cousin’s wedding today (not the cousin I showed you earlier this week…her younger sister!), so we’ll be having dinner there.
Sunday
- French Toast, because we didn’t end up having it last Sunday
Monday
- I’m going on a date! With my husband! Woot!
I think the kids are going to be eating boxed mac n cheese.;)
Tuesday
- Asian Chicken Pasta Salad
- Cheese Bread
- fruit salad
Wednesday
- BBQ Beef Sandwiches
- homemade buns
- raw veggies
Thursday
- Mandarin Chicken Salad ( a green salad, not a pasta salad)
- Whole Wheat Rolls
Friday
- Club Sandwiches with Basil Mayonnaise
- probably a fruit salad
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Is the Asian Chicken Pasta salad recipe on your site already? If not, I would love to have it! Sounds yummy! Thanks
I make mine based on this recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Chinese-Turkey-Pasta-Salad
But, I use chicken instead of turkey, don’t add the pimientos or water chestnuts, and I add mandarin oranges when I serve the salad.
Thanks! Looks great and I think I have everything I need to make that this week.
I feel for you! That must have been frustrating…
I’m interested in your Asian Chicken Pasta Salad recipe. I’ve been on a mission to find a really good salad like this that uses linguine pasta.
Oh dear ghu – I am so sorry about that shopping trip! Hauling four kids on two extra trips (to the bank, back again). You have my full sympathies. Are all your kids in car seats?
Thank goodness, no! Joshua and Lisey are old enough to sit with just a seatbelt, Sonia is in a booster seat, and Zoe is in a 5-point restraint car seat.
If this had happened to me 4 years ago when I had an infant, a 2 year old, a 5 year old, and a 7 year old, I would probably have burst into tears! At least now it’s just frustrating. =P
I don’t have 4 kids, but I do have a 10 month old and a 2 year old and if something like that happens on a bad day, it can almost be a push into tears sometimes. lol. I always try to remind myself it’s something to laugh about later, and 95% of the time that’s the case.
That happened to me a few weeks ago…only I had my card but it wouldn’t read in the machine. *sigh* No bank nearby so I left my cart with the checker and had to go to a different store and start over.
If you dont mind sharing, what grain mill do you use? I have been looking at them and I’m gathering opinions
Stacy
I have a Whisper Mill that I got back in 1997, but I hear they’re out of business now!
If ever your card doesn’t read in the machine just ask the checker/sales clerk type person to punch the numbers in. I had one card that never worked a particular store and I always had to ask and as much as they huffed and puffed about it,they did it.
I did the same thing yesterday, I left my wallet at home and didnt relize it until I was at the check out with my three kids. So we loaded back up and came all the way home to get my wallet. Reading your post today I realized I could have just used my bank that is located in that perticuar store and just get the money out of my account…O well, live and learn!
This might sound crazy I’m trying to only spend $100.00 a month on food. I don’t have a family so it’s just me. So far I’m getting close to it going over by 10-20 per month. Planted some vegetables – so I hope that will help. Any budget (more budget ) ideas would be appreciated ,Thanks !
I have a question. Is it cost-efficient to buy your wheat that way, or do you do it for other reasons (moral/ethical/enironmental/organic/local-supporting/etc.) How much will that wheat yield in useable flour?
It’s the cheapest way I’ve found to buy whole grain wheat, but it’s definitely more expensive than buying whole wheat flour or white flour.
But the grain I buy is chemical-free, and I think it’s more nutritious when I grind it fresh. I do think this is cheaper than buying organic flour, so I suppose I’m saving money if you look at it that way.
Another advantage is that I can grind whatever kind of wheat flour I want…I have some hard red wheat for more nutty tasting flour and I have the golden wheat that makes a lighter flour.
100 pounds of wheat makes 100 pounds of flour…I just pour the grain into the machine and out comes the flour. There’s no waste or by-product (so it’s not like juicing, where 5 pounds of fruit doesn’t make anywhere near 5 pounds of juice).
Hi! Just found your lovely blog. I am curious if you ever do a Weis’ sale post? I’m not sure where you live but we are in Baltimore area and I shop at Weis’ but rarely see blog posts about how to take advantage of their sales, etc. Just wondering if that was part of your blogging. If not, I would LOVE to see it. I have found Weis to be most inexpensive around here–even though it’s not necessarily my favorite grocery store. I grew up in eastern PA and since Weis is a PA-based store, I can find lots of things from “home” there too!
So today I decided to walk the three miles to my volunteer gig at the library. Duties completed, I headed over to the Farmer’s Market with my trusty stuff sack. I then took a long detour to the grocery store , as I needed to deposit a check. I shimmied under one gate and scrambled over two fences to get there. Finally, in the blessed cool of the grocery store, I stuffed my ATM card into the slot and lo & behold, it’s expired! Gaaaaaack! Fortunately, I wasn’t completely out of cash, so I picked up some yummy cherries and munched them as I ambled toward home in the mid-day heat. As I wandered through the park, I happened upon the Summer Festival, so I rested in the shade of a tree listening to a pretty decent Van Morrison Tribute Band before finally slogging the last leg of the journey home. Seems like seventeen, but was probably about seven miles. Man, I was ready to wail when that ATM card didn’t work. I don’t know how you do it, Kristin!
I keep $100 buried in my wallet. It isn’t counted in the contents as I track my cash. I started doing this years ago. Inevitably, I come up short somewhere, I always have this money to make up the shortfall. As soon as I get more cash from the bank, the shortfall is replaced and all is back to normal.
have fun on your date night
Just found your site last week, love it. We are a family of 5 (12,10, and 6) that tries to spend 125 per week, you are very inspirational!!
Also I made your wheat dinner rolls (froze half) and overnight cinammon rolls yesterday with my 12 year old daughter, so yummy and fun!!