Groceries and Menu-First one for June
Two photos this week, since my groceries were hard to arrange in one pile. 😉
The first is mostly protein (not counting the frozen fruit!):
And here's the rest of my stuff.
Because I know you'll wonder, I should explain that I bought all that yogurt because I like to include yogurt in my husband's lunches sometimes, and I still haven't managed to figure out how to make homemade cherry yogurt. I'm working on it, but my attempts so far have been less than satisfactory. And I bought 24 of the cups because by doing that, I got $3 off in addition to receiving the sale price.
Rest assured, though, that the rest of us will be eating homemade yogurt. I did let all the kids have one cup of the Yoplait yogurt when we came home from shopping, though, and they were very tickled to have such a treat. 😉
I spent $66.65 at Aldi and $31.73 at Weis for a total of $98.38. Yikes. That means I'm exactly $18.38 over budget. To get back on track, I'd have to spend only about $60 next week. I'm not sure I'll be able to swing that, but I'm going to try!
Saturday
- A family friend got married today...I played for the wedding, and we all attended, so we ate at the reception. Yay for no cooking! It's always sort of hard to come up with dinner after I play for a wedding, so this was nice.
Sunday
- Buttermilk Waffles
- OJ
- some sort of melon
Monday
- Turkey Sandwiches with Herb Mayo
- Fruit Salad
- raw carrots and cucumbers
Tuesday
- Broiled Tilapia
- Potato Cubes
- Green Salad
Wednesday
- BBQ Chicken Pieces
- Grilled Veggies
- Cheese Bagels
Thursday
- Grilled Chicken/Roasted Red Pepper sandwiches
- not sure on the sides yet-will depend on next week's sales
Friday
- Grilled Pizza
- Green Salad
I love no cooking days! I've had a lot of them this week. 😀
I bought chicken today too. Boneless, skinless breasts were on sale for $1.99/lb. And after seeing your post about cherries, I had been thinking those sounded really good, so I picked some up while they were on sale for $2.99/lb.
Personally I love going to the farmer's market and buying fruit to freeze instead of the bags. You can get a lot more that way and spend a lot less, kinda like making you're own nacho chips (you save 6x the money if you do it by hand). I used to pay $6 for a bag of frozen peaches, now I buy them from a market for $4 and its equivalent to two and a bit bags. So I have my own Buy one get one free :p
It's funny, I keep on seeing your posts on your menu plans and even with big sales, that amount of food would cost me at least $150 here in Alberta, Canada. For instance, a bag of frozen fruit, regular price would be around $12 - $14, the sale price maybe $10. I think that maybe some of your staples and such might be cheaper then what I pay.
Whenever I hear of how much American's pay for groceries I am always amazed. I don't know if we eat more here or just pay more - but I am by far the most frugal person I know and I can't imagine only spending $400 a month on groceries. When my kids were little I spent between $600 - $700, depending on if I ran out of bigger bulk items and what not. Now that my kids are all older (11 - 16 years) my best month is about $850 and worse month over $1000 (yikes!!).
Okay I am really going to pay close attention to your weekly menus. I need to rehabilitate myself from living the way I have.
Can you email me your recipe for grilled chicken.
Christene, I share your pain! Here in New Zealand it's waaay more expensive too. And hardly any coupons to speak of! I'm pretty sure if I bought the same stuff as Kristen here, it would cost more too - especially things like the frozen fruit and meat.
In front of the watermelon ... 😉
America is the land of plenty (or Milk and Honey if you wish to use Biblical references) so our food is a lot cheaper than the rest of the world. Still, it amazes me how some people just toss their money away when it comes to food.
By the way, aren't Aldi's pretzels awesome? I don't care much for their chips (their Frito-like chips are like eating salt tablets) but the pretzels are good and cheap.
Remember these days when store bought yogurt is a luxury to your kids. A Luxury once sampled becomes a future necessity. As a kid soda was a rare treat. As I got older and could afford it soda became a treat I bought myself. Now it's kind of an every day thing for me. I still have to work on that.
Christine, I wonder if Alberta is more expensive than Ontario? I'm always amazed at how much cheaper some produce( that comes from California) is here vs. in MI or California. I routinely shop in MI( I'm only 62miles from the border) because I know there are some things that are much cheaper( cheese, milk, eggs, ice cream) and because there are some things I can't get here in Ontario( Gold medal and King Arthur flour, etc).
As for homemade cherry yogurt - have you tried mixing cherry jam or jelly with the yogurt? Or maybe even pureed pie filling? Brian and I make strawberry yogurt by mixing a little strawberry jam into plain yogurt.
I'm still working on grocery budgeting (diapers, formula and wipes seem to push me over every week!), but I definitely notice that where you live affects prices. For example, here in MN I can buy frozen grass-fed ground beef for $4-$5/lb. Almost anywhere else it seems to be a lot more expensive. I have a friend who doesn't even pay for lemons - she picks them off a tree in her yard, while here they're about $0.30 each. Organic raw sweet potatoes? $1.69/lb in MN. Organic avocadoes? $1.69 each, if they're on sale.
The closer you live to the source, the cheaper the food is, usually! Also, for anyone living outside the US, conventional corn is subsidized here, so anything that uses corn (beef, chicken, etc.) tends to be cheaper than it would be almost anywhere else in the world. If our food was not subsidized, it would be closer in price to the rest of the world. Go figure.
@Randi
My sister lives in Ottawa, ON and when she came down she said things were definitly more expensive! I don't know why, but as Canada's "richest" province, apparently we get to pay more for goods and services!
If you get cherry jelly/jam and mix it into the yogurt before you portion his out into jars/containers, it should work fine. "Hero" brand makes a delicious one (also a delicious guava one).
Jenny, I'll try to get that recipe to you.
Engineer Mom and Allie, I'll give that a try. I know Aldi sells a cherry jam.
Battra, we haven't tried the corn chips, and now we won't! lol