Grocery Report and Menu Plan | in slightly more detail than usual
For a change this week, I divided my groceries into piles, and took pictures of each. A lot of you have asked for more detail about my shopping, so I'll explain a little bit about why I bought the items in each picture.
First up, the cold stuff. All of it is from Aldi except the Yoplait. The milk is for cereal and baking purposes, the heavy cream will top our oatmeal, the butter is for baking and using on bread, the cheese is for some dinner meals, the cottage cheese is for lunch (my kids think it's a big treat!). The OJ is for my kids to drink at breakfast. We usually need more than this, but we had some left from last week. Lastly, the Yoplait is a treat I bought for my husband's lunches.
Here's the meat. I bought the leg quarters for $.59/pound. We'll BBQ some of them, and I de-boned some of the chicken thighs for a future teriyaki chicken meal. The sausage is for a pot of Tortellini Soup and it was not on sale...I like it so much better than other sausage, though, I'm willing to pay for it. The ground beef was on sale for $1.79/pound. I'll use half to make hamburgers this week and half will go into some other future meal. The deli meat is from Aldi, where it's SO much cheaper than at the deli counter. I sometimes keep a package around for those days when I don't happen to have leftovers to send in my husband's lunch.
This is my produce...not much explanation needed. Most of it is from Aldi. I have some greens left from last week, so I didn't buy any lettuce or spinach, which is unusual. None is organic except for the carrots and tomatoes.
And here's the rest of my stuff. I'll just mention the noteworthy things. Bulls Eye BBQ sauce was on sale, but this flavor was on closeout, so it was even cheaper: $1.12. The canisters of oatmeal were $.66 apiece after a coupon, and the cereal was a sale/coupon deal I paid $4 for the 4 boxes of General Mills cereal, and I paid $5 for the 4 boxes of Kellogg's cereal (so $9 total). Given how little cereal we are eating these days, these 8 boxes should last us for a while.
Interestingly enough, the cereal would have cost $31.74 instead of $9 had I paid full price and not had coupons. Yikes. Several of those boxes are normally $4.19, and considering that price gets you less than a pound of cereal, it's not anything close to a bargain.
(In case you're interested, I got two of my cereal coupons from the paper and two from Coupons.com
. The coupons.com ones were the best...$1.50/2 boxes).
How much did I spend altogether?
My Aldi groceries cost $45.95 and my Weis groceries cost $39.03.
So, my total for this week is $84.98, and I'm quite pleased with that.
Breakfasts this week will be typical...yogurt, bananas, muffins, toast, and oatmeal. Lunches will be homemade yogurt, yogurt smoothies, fruit, sandwiches, and leftovers as necessary.
Dinner plans are as follows (recipes that are currently posted on my blog are hyperlinked).
Saturday
- Usually I make pizza on Saturday nights, but tonight we are going to do something unusual and pick up a pizza. Of course, we will have root beer (which we will not be buying at the pizza place because it's crazy expensive there!).
Sunday
- French Toast
- OJ
- fried eggs for anyone who wants one (usually Lisey and me)
Monday
- Glazed Chicken Breasts
- English Muffins
- green salad
Tuesday
- Grilled Hamburgers
- homemade buns
- grapefruit halves
- potato chips
Wednesday
Thursday
- BBQ Chicken Pieces
- grilled vegetables
- Cheddar Twists (a new roll recipe I'm trying)
Friday
- Broiled Tilapia
- green salad
- Garlic Pull-Apart bread
As always, you did well. Menu sounds good. Hoping the cheese twist bread recipe turns out well and you'll be sharing it with us. Enjoy the weekend!
I took your Sat. pizza and made ours Friday night. On Friday evenings the family usually sees the chiropractor and by the time we get home it isn't possible to have another type of meal on the table by 6pm.
Last night I made gluten-free dough before we left. When we got home my husband was able to lay it out, sauce, and top it. For son and myself I nabbed some Red Barron pizzas for $3.33. We popped both in and 20 min. later we were eating.
I loved how simple it was.
You did good this week. On a side note how long does your Aldi produce last? I find my onions start growing quickly and other veggies have become food waste very quickly.
(Although, I have noticed meat products at my store are better than others Aldi stores. Not sure why that is.)
do you store potatoes near your onions? if so, move them. for some reason potatoes and onions don't do well near each other, the potatoes make onions spoil quicker - probably some gas they give off or something. i'm no food scientist.
I do have them in the same area. They aren't stored together but are close. I will change that and see if that makes a difference.
Ya kno? Everyone says don't store onions in the fridge nor near potatoes but I've done both for all my life (usually in the same drawer even) and not had a problem. I shall have to consult the venerable Corriher and the sainted McGee to find out why.
I haven't had trouble with my Aldi produce at all. In fact, the produce there is almost always better than the produce at Weis. Maybe this varies from store to store?
It must or maybe the travel from whatever location the produce is coming out of. I hate buying the grapes or tomatoes and then discovering the middle is already spoiled. I haven't complained too much because I did find a produce (only) type of store here. I like that I can purchase by piece compared to by the pound or bag. (We used live near a Produce Junction and it had great deals but we never got to eat all that was in a bag/pound before it went bad.)
Thank you for adding such detail. I am still wondering though, does your $ 100.00 budget cover things like cleaning supplies, meds, b-day gifts, and personal products (deoderant, shampoo, diapers,etc...) or do you have a seperate budget for that?
I just stumbled upon your blog last week and I must say I love it!!! I have already made yogurt, garlic bread, and tonight I am going to make a deep dish pizza. Tomorrow I am going to make my own laundry soap. Hopefully it doesn't end up smelling like stinky feet! After reading your recipe I went to the 19 Kids and Counting website and compared to their recipe and the only difference I found was the kind of bar soap you used. I am going to use Ivory (wish me luck).
I have been totally inspired. My hubby works, and I am a stay at home mom of 2 so any way I can save money is wonderful and you have a million great ways! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to give us these awesome tips and ideas. I hope you have a great time with the fam today!
Just curious - how much per pound and origin of your tomatoes and citrus?
Reason - I live in SW Florida and oranges and grapefruit from California are cheaper than those from Florida - because of the freezes in Jan & Feb. Thanks.
The grapefruit were $.29 each, I think, and I'm not positive where they were from. We ate them, or I'd check. lol I don't know about the tomatoes either, but they cost around $2.
I am giggling at the cereal photo- I have grocery weeks like that when I get home and DH just says "It was on offer again wasn't it?" - I thought it was just me who looked like the crazy cereal lady at the checkout.
I've sent my sister over to check out your blog too- with a new baby she needs to get more frugal whether she likes it or not so I've sent her over here so she can see it doesn't mean having to eat badly nor boringly.
Great pics- nice to see how similar your aldi's stock is to ours all the way on the other side of the ocean! I think I'll be giving the tortellini soup a go too this week, thanks for the inspiration.
I'm right next to you on the crazy-meter and I've been there so long I don't even notice anymore. In the past couple of months several generally-pricy favorites have been on sale. I bought (not on the same trip):
- 8 boxes Perdue short cuts (coupon)
- 12 boxes of Life cereal (sale)
- 14 8oz bags of animal crackers (sale + coupon = $.50 each)
- 23 bags Quaker rice snacks (sale)
- 41 bottles Propel (sale)
I regularly buy up to a dozen six-packs of soda when the price is good.
This is how crazy I am. Today's shopping trip included
- 14 bags of flour ($1.25 per)
- 14 six-packs of Propel ($2 per)
I will be buying more of the same next week. We drink a lot of Propel and there's still room in my Rubbermaid bin for one more bag of flour.
I am surprised that amt of fresh produce gets you through the week, I probably buy 3 to 4 times that amount of veggies and 2 times that in fruit, and we go through it every week!
I think that's awesome that you guys eat that much fresh produce...good for you. 🙂
In addition to what's in the picture, I have an enormous head of lettuce in the fridge, 10 apples, a bag of frozen strawberries, a bag of frozen blueberries, and some frozen grapes and pineapple. So, that photo is not representative of all the fruits and veggies we will eat this week.
And the milk, thankfully we have WIC, and so get milk through them, but we go through 4 gallons a week and thats just 3 kids drinking it.
Ah, we don't go through a lot of milk. We eat a little bit on cereal, and I use it when I cook, but we drink very little of it. I personally HATE drinking milk unless it has chocolate in it. lol
I'm amazed that one pack of hamburger meat will last for two meals. Maybe it's because I buy ours in the 8# tube. I bring it home and split it up into 1.5# portions, but it's never enough for hamburgers for my family of four.
Maybe it's the fat/lean content. I need to look into that. I might be literally pouring money in the trash!
It's a three-pound pacakage of hamburger, but you couldn't really see that in the picture...sorry! 1.5 pounds will make hamburgers for one dinner, and the other 1.5 pounds will probably make another hamburger meal in a few weeks.
Hi, WTG shopping this week 🙂 I am a new Aldi shopper, will be going for the first time this coming week and was wondering are there particular products you buy there on a regular basis/like, and particular ones you stay away from. Any insight into what's good/not would be great 🙂
I know I'm not Kristen but I shop at Aldi once every two weeks and have for 3 or 4 years now.
I do get chips and things from them. Their "no-name" chips are just as good as other brands and are much cheaper. I also stock up on packable things for lunches. (Fruit snacks or cheese & crackers) Things I always get are eggs, milk, cheese, salad mixes (which are by far cheaper than other stores and last longer), ground turkey (also cheaper than other places, by far), canned tomatoes, canned beans, and that sort of thing. I find that depending on the store produce can be really good or bad and same with the meat. Meat at our stores last a while, freeze well, and are cost effective. Produce at my store tends to be "use today" quality. I also like almost anything in the Fit & Healthy line they carry.
You just need to try everything really. If it interests you most things are cheap enough that you won't feel bad if you don't like it. Also Aldi has a pretty good return policy for items you didn't like and they call it the Double Guarantee.
Good luck and have fun shopping.
Do you have a special way of cooking your teriyaki chicken meals? Do you always use chicken thighs? That is a very good price on the chicken leg quarters!
I love this more detailed pictures. I can spy your groceries 🙂
I little off subject, but I just wanted to let everyone know the FANTASTIC deal I got this last weekend. I bought a chest freezer for $199 plus tax and received $200 in coupons for FREE groceries! This is a promotion that Hy-Vee runs once a year and I couldn't see passing it up.