How not to handle grocery shopping/menu planning.
I didn't spend much money this week, but I was quite the opposite of efficient. I went into the week with no plan, which meant I had no grocery list, which meant I didn't go grocery shopping except for two last minute-ish runs.
(Read: we were out of milk. And/or butter.)
And it also meant I spent way too long figuring out what we were going to eat each day.
I spent $9.64 at a local grocery store, $71.88 at Aldi, and $33 on my produce box. So I came in at $114.52.
The running tally for December:
Week 1: $215.55
Week 2: $114.52
Monday
I really didn't want to take time to go grocery shopping, and I knew I had a bunch of ground beef in the freezer, so I was all, "Hmm. What could I make with that?"
So, I made a pan of The Pioneer Woman's BBQ meatballs.
Then I had the bright idea to make a quick batch of buttermilk biscuits and some mashed sweet potatoes to go along with that, which would have been great, buuuuuut....
I'd used up every scrap of butter in the house when we made cookies.
So then I had to run out to the store in the middle of making dinner because you really cannot make biscuits and mashed sweet potatoes with no butter.
At least, I didn't WANT to.
There are times when you can substitute olive oil for butter and there are times you can't, amirite??
Tuesday
I made chipotle chicken kebabs with cilantro lime dipping sauce. Except I had no limes, so it was just cilantro dipping sauce. No one seemed to mind, though.
I didn't have time to make much in the way of side dishes, so I pulled some valtrompia bread tube bread from the freezer, sliced and spread it with garlic butter, and then broiled the slices.
And we had a salad to go along with that.
Also, please know that the kebabs look much more appetizing in real life than they do in the above photo.
See:
Darn winter light....
Wednesday
This is the day where the lack of my grocery shopping/menu planning came to bite me. We were out of milk, so I stopped at Aldi and wandered around the store trying to figure out what to make for dinner.
I bought a somewhat random lot of stuff, and ended up bringing a spiral-cut ham home for dinner.
($12 and it was big enough for several meals. Love Aldi.)
To go with that, we had a green salad and whole wheat rolls.
Thursday
I made Baked Potato Soup, because my produce box gave me Russets this week, and also because I had green onions that needed to be used.
I made no-knead batter rolls to go with it and we had fresh pineapple too.
Which means this meal was kind of lacking in green veggies aside from the green onions. Good thing we had a kale smoothie for breakfast....
Friday
I'm making pizza, as usual, and I'm going to poll my kids to see what they want. Last week I thought for sure they'd vote for deep dish pizza, but they all wanted the regular variety.
I swear I am going to plan a menu for next week because this was pretty not-awesome.
_____________________
How were the eats at your house this week? Hopefully you were more organized than me!
______________________
P.S. Don't forget to pop in this weekend to win $50 to spend at Amani Ya Juu!
My week has been a lot like yours. I have plenty of food in the house but I haven't been organized. I do want to tell you something that saves me when I don't have fresh lemons or limes , True Lemon and True Lime. They are little packets of dried lemon or lime juice. They taste great and are natural. I always have both in the house.
A few years ago I needed an organic lemon, and the store only had them in six packs. I took the five of them that I didn't need for the recipe and I juiced them and zested them. The zest I froze in a little plastic bag. The juice I froze in an ice cube tray. It was so nice having them ready to go.
I keep lemons/limes cut up in the freezer. I love having these on hand! They separate easily so you can use exactly what u need. Last night I baked some frozen salmon and just placed a few frozen lemonhalves right on the pan with the salmon. They get beautifully browned just like the fish and you can squeeze all over the salmon when done cooking. Works great with chicken too! If you find them on sale don't hesitate to get them, so easy to wash, cut, and throw in a freezer bag..
We had that kind of a week too, and it resulted in more food waste than I would like to admit to (tofu, ground almonds, a few specks of chicken). So this morning I have an hour and a half to myself, and I'm going to pickle beets and carrots that are threatening to go bad, then I'll make a plan for this weekend and next week.
I'm afraid the week you had is all too common in our little house. But things are improving lately. I really appreciate your weekly reviews!
A couple of weeks ago, we made and froze a big batch of burritos (breakfast and some for lunches, too). Those burritos have been life-savers when regular planning fails us! I'm fortunate to have a little freezer space at work where I can leave a few, as well.
And we really lucked out yesterday when a friend gave us a pie plate of stuffed pasta shells as a "thank you" for dog-sitting. All we had to do was heat & eat.
Now I'm inspired to set aside a couple of baked pasta meals in our freezer for busy nights!
I think we can all relate to a week like that. Unfortunately, I have a lot of them. But here's what I'm surprised about--going to the store in the middle of dinner to get butter. I think I would have gone without and picked up the butter another time.
(Unless, I had buttermilk biscuits on the mind and really wanted to have them. Then I too would have rushed out to the store for only one item. However when I do that, it usually has something to do with brownies. 🙂 )
This week has been crazy. I basically only made a batch of chili for my husband, then we've been scrounging for me: beanie-weanie, I don't even remember, a loaf of bread that appeared in the mail (a subscription bought as a Christmas present for us) with butter and later as a panini, a sandwich that someone else bought me yesterday (perk of being in the band)... Fruits and vegetables have not made it into the equation easily.
I did discover a new favorite dish: grated radish for hashbrowns instead of potato. Now I'm wondering what other root vegetables I can grate (on a box grater, no processor in our house...) and fry.
Wow, great idea on grating other types of root veggies. Possibilities are endless.
Maybe it wasn't your best week but you still ate at home. Big win!!!
Yes! That's one of my biggest frugal goals each week. It is SO expensive to take six people out to eat, and that means cooking at home is one of the most effective frugal things I can do. Even if other frugal things fall by the wayside on a busy week, I still try really hard to cook at home.
Good point 🙂 Eating at home always saves, even when it's not as smooth as it could be. For us, it really saves time over all. By the time you drive, wait, eat, wait some more (sometimes), drive home- lots of time has passed. Add to that one child with allergies, and it's really not worth doing very often.
Monday we avoided the grocery store by having breakfast for supper--eggs, bacon, and grits.
Tuesday I did make it out so we had bacon and spinach pasta.
Wednesday we also had spiral cut ham, mashed potatoes and string beans.
Thursday night we had breakfast burritos. If you are sensing a breakfast theme here it's because that's our go-to when things are crazy.
On Friday nights my mom gets us a takeout pizza because we hit the road for our weekend house, which is right next to hers. Having to figure out supper right after we come off the road would likely end in take out anyway.
Saturday night my husband will likely make his homemade pizza.
Sunday will be something simple like boxed macaroni or tuna sandwiches and some sort of veggie roasted.
I ~had~ planned the week's meals then life bit me in the tush and it all went out the window. Also my parents were in town so there were several family meals; apparently my parents still think I'm a starving student because they always want to treat. Well, if it makes them feel better...
So kind of you to help them feel better. Heh.
I say bring on that kind of parental attention! Meals out, without me paying? Oh yes.
Just curious what you typically eat for breakfast and lunch? We're a family of 5, and our oldest is only 11.5, but he already eats more (MUCH MORE) than his dad. We struggle to keep the grocery bill at $700 a month. Since you have two teens, I'm curious what you eat for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.
Me, too!
Luckily for me, everyone in my family has a pretty slight build, and I think they've all got fairly slight appetites to go along with that. My two teens do eat more than they used to, but they're not wolfing down everything in sight, and they definitely don't eat as much as, say, a teenage linebacker would!
So, that helps. I mean, I don't ever tell anyone to stop eating in order to save money! My family just happens to not be huge eaters.
For breakfast, Joshua usually drinks a green smoothie with Mr. FG and me. He usually cooks an egg too, and has some bread of some sort. The girls vary...cream of wheat, oatmeal, toast, cereal. Just depends what they're in the mood for.
Lunch also varies. Mr. FG eats leftovers packed for work, and the kids and I sometimes eat leftovers too. Joshua often makes tuna sandwiches, the girls often eat toast/sandwiches, we have smoothies, Sonia sometimes cooks a pot of rice...it's all kind of unpredictable!
Snacks: bananas with peanut butter, nuts, other types of fruit, grape tomatoes (Zoe's snack of choice), crackers, cheese
If your family is just hungrier than mine and requires more food, I don't think you should feel bad about spending more. You can't control how hungry they are, you know?
I have some big eaters, too. They prefer cereal for breakfast, but that adds up fast. We do cereal some, and other times things like eggs, bacon, muffins, oatmeal- it depends on the day. We tend to eat the same things.
For lunches, we'll do sandwiches sometimes, but more often leftovers or soup from the crockpot (at least in cooler weather). I make variations on vegetable soup, with some meat and some beans. It's good for using up little bit of leftovers, and it's just a matter of putting everything in the crockpot in the morning.
Oatmeal for breakfast is always a frugal, healthy, stick-to-your-ribs meal. You can add sweet things, such sugar, syrup, or dried fruit; or savory things such as minced bacom or ham, a fried egg on top, or an egg beaten in.
Fried rice makes a great and frugal breakfast also: leftover rice (it's not good made with fresh rice), eggs, minced veggies, and whatever leftover meat you want to throw in. It can be made in advance and frozen.
We enjoy homemade fried rice, but I hadn't thought of it for breakfast. Thanks for the suggestion!
Happy to help. My opinion is that anything that can be eaten for dinner, can be eaten for breakfast.
I echo everyone before me in their statements...those types of weeks are all too regular for some of us. We had a very sick and grouchy 2 year old on Sunday, so I didn't get much planned for the week at all. Then the bug hit the rest of us so we ate out a few nights this week because we didn't feel up to much of anything. Our food waste showed it too, as we didn't incorporate any of the previous week's leftovers into this week's menu (or lack thereof)
This was NOT awesome? Are you kidding me? I would come eat at your place anytime (if I was not gluten intolerant... Hmmm, that bread!!).
Our week was... weak. The real kind of weak. I can't even recall. Sheperd's pie for 2-3 days, chicken covered with tomatoes sauce/cheese + potatoes, gluten-free pizza.... I can't recall the rest. The thing is : I don't like cooking and I don't really care about eating. I mean, I always try to make a well balance meal for my family (veggies! Proteins!) but if it was just for me I would make a big batch of something and eat it everyday until it gone, then make another something, and so on. Or grab corn chips, cheese, nuts, fruits, and call it a day! I have a "single/childless mind" when it comes to food/cooking.
Have a great day!
We did eat ok...what wasn't awesome was the amount of time I spent trying to come up with things to eat! It takes me so much less time when I just sit down and plan them all at once rather than trying to think of something at the last minute.
If it was just me eating here, I'd definitely put less effort into meal-making. I think I'd have far too many smoothie meals. Ha.
This is my week most weeks, unfortunately--I'm terrible at meal planning...
Monday we had:
Italian mini-meatloaves out of the ATK cookbook
Whole wheat spaghetti
Veggies
Tuesday we had:
Grilled barbecued chicken
Brown rice
Veggies
Wednesday we had:
Apricot glazed salmon
Brown rice pasta
Veggies
Last night we had:
Asian Turkey Burgers
Whole Wheat Noodles w/Parmesan for some of us--Mashed potatoes for one of us
Glazed carrots out of the ATK cookbook (delicious!)
Mixed Vegetables
Hahaha that was meet for weeks at a time. I was in a total "what to make for dinner" rut. I finally switched over to e-meals again and all is well 🙂
Just gotta say, I LOVE your Valtrompia bread tube mini garlic toasts that you made! What a cool use for that bread loaf. It's just so cute!! 🙂 Props to you.
Be forwarned, this week was not very frugal. I usually do a lot better but I think the holidays and working over is throwing me off a bit. One thing that helps is constantly adding to my stash of mark down and sale items so I can make meals at home as often as I can.
Monday-Homemade ground turkey sloppy joes on french bread that was marked down to $.69. Ground turkey I pulled from the freezer which was also marked down to $2.99 when I purchased it.
Tuesday-Not frugal but not horrible either- I had a buy one get one free entree from Panda express so I ate one meal for lunch and my kids and I shared the second meal that night. Hubby ate grilled cheese.
Wednesday- This is admittedly terrible. We ate at Sonic. We ended up working over and my kids wanted to go to the parade so I completely ran out of time to come up with something.. If that wasn't bad enough the kids tanked up on a ton of candy right before bed that they got at the parade. The silver lining is that we all had a great time and made sure the kids brushed their teeth well.
Thursday- Baked salmon from the freezer, mashed potatoes made with super cheap marked down milk, and peas that were $.29 with a coupon. I'm new to freezing milk but I got a whole bunch of it marked down and I am experimenting with that.
Tonite- No idea, still ruminating about it.
We have a stockpile of butter and in case of emergency (or my lactose intolerant sister is over) we have margarine. That said, we've sort of had old Mother Hubbard's cupboard here for a while.
We did an Aldi run which was about $30, and that wasn't too bad. I'm going to pick up a whole pork loin today or tomorrow as they are only $1.50 a lb and the butcher there will cut it into chops for me.
I rummaged around in my freezer, desperately hoping to find a hidden box of butter, but alas, no such luck!
Too bad. I've noticed that the price of butter hasn't dropped this year and I haven't seen coupons for butter either. This used to be the season to stock up. [Rest of holiday food price wins and losses deleted.]
Last week we had a couple meals we didn't use. Once we went to someone's house, and then we ended up with more leftovers, so I pushed one to this week. This week was easier to plan because I already had 2 meals I could do.
Our 3 kids each pick one meal a week, and then help prepare that meal and clean the kitchen afterwards. That takes care of M/W/F, and keeps me on track. Once I have their meals, it's pretty easy to fill in the rest of the week.
It must be the trend this week, b/c I was completely disorganized in the meal department as well!
Monday: Spaghetti with bell peppers, tomato sauce, and whole grain noodles
Tuesday: Hubby picked up a refrigerated pizza from the Wal-Mart deli-this was somewhat frugal, but completely unhealthy 🙁
Wednesday: Hubby ate dinner out with his dad (not sure who paid), and I ate some tamales from the freezer.
Thursday: Shredded chicken/pinto bean tacos w/ avocado, cheese, and sour cream
Friday: Hubby will eat out, and I will eat leftovers from our fridge in a desperate attempt to avoid the food waste that will undoubtedly be a result of this week's meal chaos!
There's something disorganized in the air! (maybe the holidays??)
Bulk cooking & freezing works really well for us..I usually make a lot of meals like chilli con Carni, spaghetti bolognese, stews, curries put them into takeaway dishes & freeze them.. Then when we come home from work all we have to do is cook rice, pasta or potatoes..especially great when life very busy..saves time and money.
As always Kristan the pictures of the food you cook looks delicious, fresh and healthy.
I'm really enjoying your blog! My wife and I are on a journey to pay off almost $200,000 in debt... it's quite hard actually, but blogs like this are really inspiring. I wish we had an Aldis nearby, they're seriously the best way to save money on food. But since we don't we are working on how to make our own foods. We just wrote a post about how you can save over $100 a year by making your own pasta and now we're excited to learn how to make bread! 🙂 Next month we are doing a no spend challenge - because like you, we are bad about wandering into stores for one thing and coming out with more than that (like your ham incident, lol!) Thanks for posting!
http://diyjahn.com/frugal-living-at-its-finest-the-no-spend-challenge/
I did a great job of planning meals - it's life that didn't get on board with my meal plan! We both ended up with a lot of evening meetings/conference calls.
The hubs cooked for us on Tuesday night. My 8-mile drive home took over an hour and a half. He told me he would completely understand if I just stopped somewhere, got a burrito, and waited out the traffic. I won't say I didn't think about it. But it was lovely to get home to hot, homemade soup and my favorite dining companion.
This week will be similar, so I'm making meals-to-go. I know I'm going to eat at the office a few nights, I may as well prepare for it.
Oh my goodness...just traffic? Or an accident? That's a long time to drive 8 miles!
That's just Atlanta at Christmastime. In the morning the drive is about 20 minutes. The drive home can take anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes. Thank goodness for NPR and podcasts!
Let's see...
pork chops, sweet potatoes and a green salad. I just had the sweet potato and salad.
Trader Joes cioppino (I bulk it up with another cup of frozen, mixed seafood) over penne pasta and a green salad.
Chicken in s garlic wine sauce with rice (and the obligatory salad)
Tonight we all had random things- crab cake and Mac and cheese and a random freezer item for me. Oh- and half a large chocolate bar for dessert!
I know how fatiguing it is to decide on dinner prep each day without a plan. Funny how that is...I too feel much better all around when I've spent a little while planning in advance. That hour up front pays dividends for days!!
With that said, it's been a Busy month so far here too. We were away for four days last week on a family 'vacation' and things at work are super busy so I've been trying like heck to keep the food plan simple. I have spent a lot so far but all things considered we've eaten really well and I have a ton of food available at home so hope to only need one more normal shopping this month with milk fill-ins along the way. We really don't eat out so our take away food is whatever I've stashed in the freezer for make ahead meals:)
For the remainder of the month I'll rely on what's in the freezer and what's made in bulk during family shared holiday meals!
Yes! I remember hearing than an hour of planning usually saves multiple hours of work later on and I totally believe it.
I love Aldi a ton and this week they were on sale for $1.49. Whoo hoo! We ended up getting 3 this week... and there are only 3 people in our family, 1 who is not quite 2 years old. 🙂
Pineapples were on sale... oy, what an important word to leave out! What a long week!