Grocery Report/Menu Plan | I went shopping. And how.
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.
The Shopping
I spent $17.67 at a local grocery store for a few things to help me squeak by until grocery shopping day. And then I went shopping for real.
Some of you have asked for more detailed shopping list breakdowns, and while I don't have time to type up everything I bought and the price I paid, I did take the time to break up my groceries into several pictures so you can better see what I bought.
Here's my refrigerated stuff. The yogurt container is there because I accidentally used up all my homemade yogurt and so I didn't have any starter. Whoops. The red gallon of milk is for making yogurt.
Here are my non-food purchases. I buy my toilet paper at Aldi because it's a good everyday price and I don't have to watch sales or use coupons. Easy-peasy.
I don't usually buy that much shampoo or conditioner, but we were just about out. The cheap shampoo doubles as body wash. The container on the right is Aldi conditioner, which I've never bought before. So far I like it a lot...it feels a lot like the expensive name brand conditioners.
These are my fruits and vegetables...they're pretty self-explanatory.
And here's the least virtuous part of my haul...the shelf-stable items. The Mini-Wheats were on a good sale, so I decided to be nice and buy them for my kids. And I've since been reminded why I don't buy new and exciting cereals every week...they eat way more cereal when I do that!
I spent $65.16 at Weis and $71.53 at Aldi.
And while I didn't buy any meat at Aldi or Weis, I did stop at our local organic store to buy some packaging-free local chicken. It's $6.49/pound, but you guys, it's so good, I'm pretty much spoiled rotten. Most normal chicken just doesn't taste as good to me anymore. This chicken has so much more flavor and is crazy tender.
Anyway, I dropped $28.23 there.
That means I've spent $182.29 on groceries this week, but that's actually not a big deal because I didn't really go shopping last week. Phew!
Zee Menu
Just so you know, since Mr. FG works second shift, we eat our dinner meal at noon during the week, and at night on the weekends. And our lunch meal happens at night during the week and at noon on the weekends.
We do eat breakfast in the morning, though, all week long!
Breakfast options are homemade yogurt, granola, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, fruit, and cereal.
Lunches will be comprised of sandwiches made with whole wheat bread, homemade yogurt, yogurt smoothies, cottage cheese, fruit, raw veggies, nuts, cheese, and leftovers as necessary.
Here's the dinner meal plan:
Saturday
- I just found out that our usual takeout plans are getting bumped, so I'm not sure yet what we're eating for dinner!
Sunday (I try to pick something super easy on Sundays)
- Chicken Noodle Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
- fruit
Monday
- Takeout date night for Mr. FG and me, something easy for the kids
Tuesday
- Bacon/Chicken Wraps
- Spinach Salad
Wednesday
- Shrimp and Fish Creole
- Garlic Breadsticks
- steamed broccoli
Thursday
- Swiss Mushroom Chicken
- green salad
- French Bread
Friday
- Pizza. Probably just a regular sort this week.
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Today's 365 post: Melted Chocolate.
Joshua's 365 post: More Books! (hint: He's not reading Organized Simplicity. Surprising, I know.)
Nice! Will the beets be included in the raw vegetable part of lunch? I actually love those raw! And the greens are delicious sauteed or steamed.
Is there a CSA in your area? They can vary wildly by quality and variety of foods available but if you find a good one and can afford it (which is an impediment to a lot of folks), it's well worth it to join. I rarely had to go to the supermarket when I was picking up the vegetables (thanks to my deep freeze, I'm all set for meat). I only went when I needed a roll of quarters or beverages.
I get my produce and milk delivered and I love it. I have a food budget of $200 to feed my teenage daughter and I for a month. When I had extra $$ last fall, I purchased some meat from the local butcher. I recently read An Everlasting Meal: Eating with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler. She really made me open my eyes to how to best utilize my produce and I am getting more meals out of my box.
They are in my area, but none operate in the winter that I know of. It's too cold.
I noticed you bought kettle corn,yum. Have you tried to make homemade? I made some this week and it was wonderful! By the way , my daughter loves frosted mini wheats and when we buy it it's gone in no time.
I haven't, but my sister-in-law does and it's really good.
I did most of my grocery shopping yesterday after work. I went to Kroger, because it's on my way home. I generally go to ALDI, but sometimes convenience takes over. I bought the staples and didn't end up spending much at all. I'm VERY frugal when it comes to groceries and packing my lunch for work and whatnot. The only thing I didn't buy was my produce. I will wait and go to ALDI for that. I find that they have the *best* prices on produce and I've never been disappointed in the quality of it.
I usually buy our snacky type foods there, as well. At Christmas, my husband became addicted to their Clancy's brand of chocolate covered caramel corn. Lol. It is pretty yummy! I guess I've never paid much attention to their locks of cheese. Do they have good [rices on them?
Oops! "blocks" not "locks".
Yup! They're a good everyday price...around the sale price at other stores.
Yes I also LOVE Aldi Conditioner it's one of the few that does good things to my thick hair. The Shampoo is also very good! Trader Joes also has excellent Shampoo and Conditioner for 2.99 a bottle and they don't have the harsh stuff in it!
I love my csa too 🙂
I have 8 children and I stock the same cereals too. I keep Cheerios, frosted flakes and mini wheats only. It pretty much has to be a birthday to get a different type of cereal.
Wondering if you actually plan a menu for 2 weeks since you've been doing your grocery trips pretty much every 2 weeks?
If I'm planning to go two weeks without shopping, then yep, I make a plan for two weeks! But this time, I just sort of threw together a plan for the second week, making items that didn't require unusual ingredients (I really didn't want to go shopping!)
My husband works second-shift as well, and that's exactly how we do it, too 🙂 In some ways, I actually prefer it, because I find I'm most hungry in the afternoon so by having the biggest meal then, I'm less prone to snick-snack and then come up to the evening and not be hungry. But it can feel like a rush to get "dinner" prepared at noon or 1, as opposed to having the afternoon to prep, etc. Always a give-and-take I suppose 🙂
Yes! That's SO how I feel about main meals at lunch...the hurry to get it done at noon is a little tough. But like you say, then you've got the afternoon and evening with no real food prep, so that's nice.
I agree with you on the chicken. I live in south Texas and we buy whole chickens from the farmer for about $17 apiece. They are entering their "off season" so I bought 5 of them to last me until April or may. It cost a lot, but the meat is exceptional. I roasted one yesterday and simmered the carcass overnight. I got about 4 quarts of chicken stock which is just as tasty as the chicken itself. I figure that brings the cost of the chicken down considering stock at the store is about $2 a box. Plus it does not have all the undesirable extras!
Yes. This chicken is so good, it hardly needs to have anything done to it...it's super yummy just salted, peppered, and grilled!
I'm smiling at the Haribo "Happy Cola". I used to love that and bring back many bags of it in my suitcase whenever I came home from visiting my cousins in Germany. I could never find it in the US in the old days. Now, it's available all over and my son (10) loves it---which is funny, considering he doesn't drink cola!
Zoe hates soda too, but she does like Happy Cola. It's because it doesn't have the carbonation...that's what she hates about soda.
I went to Aldi for the first time in months this week. I usually shop at Meijer for a couple of reasons (consistently low prices, the ability to get everything in one go, my husband's preference for a particular brand of yogurt not sold at Aldi, and it's next door to a Target, which has the only off-brand baby wipes I like to use - the Meijer brand ones seem to just fall apart!)
Anyway, we're trying to live on a tighter budget this year so we can afford to remodel our kitchen (nothing extravagent, but we have some plumbing issues that can only be addressed by pulling out the old 1950's era metal cabinets, and if we're going to go through all of that, I'd like to get new cabinets!), and I noticed Aldi had a sale on some produce I needed to get through the week.
A couple things:
1. Their yogurt is the same price as Meijer.
2. We're trying their chocolate (DH's favorite way to cope with a stressful day is some dark chocolate), since it's cheaper than almost anywhere else.
3. No frozen spinach?
4. Does no one talk at Aldi? The person ringing me up was chatty enough, but NO ONE in the store talked to me. I'm the kind of person who randomly strikes up a conversation with a stranger, but even to a cheerful "hello!" the most I got was a brief smile. I even had to ask for help (I hurt my hand yesterday and couldn't wiggle a container of mushrooms out of the larger cardboard box), and that person barely said much beyond a "yes" to my request. At Meijer, my fellow shoppers are very chatty and friendly! The people at Aldi just seemed depressed.
My Aldi is quite close to Meijer, so I find it hard to believe it's just a matter of a different neighborhood. I think they're less than a mile apart, though there is a highway between them (a local road passes under it). Is this lack of chatter common to Aldis?
Gosh, I'm not sure! In my area, people don't tend to talk to each other in any grocery store. You must have friendlier folks in your area!
I usually talk to my Aldi cashiers, but not so much to other shoppers in the store.
My dad and I are actually going to sit down this weekend and plan a weeks worth of meals. Our first goal to limit grocery shopping to once a week 🙂 🙂 🙂 It'll be interesting to see how it works. I haven't been writing down what I've been spending, but I do save all the receipts 🙂 Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂
I usually see name-brand cereals and not Aldi ones in your pictures. Does Weis have better cereal prices?
Well, it depends...if I hit a good sale at Weis, I can often get name brand cereals for less than Aldi's prices, especially if I have a coupon. I do buy shredded wheat and Rice Krispies at Aldi on a regular basis, and we recently tried their version of Wheaties and thought it was good.
Doesn't packaging for fruit and veg drive you crazy. I see from your picture that its about half and half. Mines the same simply because you have no choice other than not buying it I suppose.