Grocery Report/Menu Plan | I'm under, oh yes, I am.
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 did venture out to the grocery store this week, and I have a photo to prove it:
I also bought a dozen eggs from my local blog reader and those aren't pictured.
I spent $3 on the eggs, $55.40 at Weis, and $86.94 at Aldi for a total of $145.34.
But! Because of my grocery procrastinating, I've actually spent $270 over the last three weeks, which means I'm a bit under budget. Sweet.
The Menu
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!
(There's a teeny bit of normalcy in our schedule at least.)
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 (It's Zoe's and Mr. FG's birthday and Zoe got to pick the food for this meal)
- Stuffed Shells (I just use the recipe on the back of the pasta box)
- French Bread
- broccoli with cheese (Zoe likes broccoli so much, she wants it on her birthday. I wasn't about to argue.)
- Jello (Zoe picked raspberry and orange)
- Chocolate Cake in the shape of a whale (hopefully!)
Sunday
- We're having our date night since the birthdays bumped it from its usual Saturday spot.
Monday
- Chicken Quesadillas
- chips and salsa
- fruit salad
Tuesday
- Pan-Sauteed Tilapia
- Scalloped Potatoes (writing the post last week made me hungry for them, plus I want to take a better picture of the finished product)
- green salad
Wednesday
- Clam Chowder
- Cheese Bread
- Pan Roasted Green Beans
Thursday
- Panini Sandwiches
- Zucchini Patties
- grapefruit halves
Friday
- Homemade pizza. I need to take a family poll to see what kind everybody wants.
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Today's 365 post: Teachin' Lisey how to knead
Yay for going under budget! I also thought that this would be a good place to mention that we're finally getting an Aldi in our neighborhood! Before this one I would have had to drive nearly 30 minutes for one, so needless to say it was outside my usual grocery shopping range!
Hello -
I found your site on Google looking for articles on buying things from goodwill {glass containers}. I browsed through your site and and found a lot of awesome posts {chocolate chai bread/cake, yum!, I love chai too; goodwill finds etc}
I saw this article and the photo and wondered if you've ever considered how to handle the plastic waste that goes through your household {going back to the reason why I'm shopping for glass containers} Do you plan to in the future?
You will have to read more of her posts, but I do know she prefers to use cloth grocery sacks and when she picks up her meat from local farms she uses a glass container that she takes w her for the job(she has spoken about it before). She was also discussing using mesh bags for produce. I know she likes to waste as little as possible. And thank you for checking out her posts. I find a lot of them very useful and a lot of people put in what they like to do or have tried. 🙂
Ummmm... So the way I see it there is only three options to explain your picture. 1) You accidentally put the wrong picture up. 2) It's a big joke because you forgot to take a picture. Or the mostly likely option 3) You plan on serving and eating books and R2-D2 for supper :). I hope it's either 1) or 2). Poor
R2-D2
I don't know what you're seeing, but I see a picture with lots of groceries.
I agree. All I see is fruits and vegetables. I dont see anything that would provide for the carbohydrates or proteins needed in the diet. I also dont understand how that little of food could feed a family of 6. I mean my mom and I go to the store every week and cannot get out of the grocery without spending less than $180-200 a week. We get the bare essentials and cannot get our totals down to yours! I dont get it!
The funny thing about this is that in the past, I've gotten the exact opposite sort of feedback..."You eat too many carbs and not enough fresh produce!". Hee.
I've got lots of protein in my freezer...I bought a quarter of a local cow. 🙂 I also have fish and chicken in there, cheese in my fridge, and I make yogurt with one of those milk gallons.
You don't see tons in the way of carbs there because I bake pretty much all of my own bread. So, you'll see flour and other bread ingredients in my photos, but not bread itself. There is cereal in the photo, though.
My family and I are not the type of people who have large appetites so we do get by on less food than the average family probably does. If you and your family eat more, that's totally ok! I don't think everyone should have the same grocery budget as I do, since everyone has different dietary needs and different appetites.
I should add too that all six of us are in good health and are a healthy weight, so I think what we're eating is right for us. However, that definitely doesn't mean you ought to eat exactly what we're eating. Do what works for you!
Isn't it awesome when you don't have to go to the store every week? I have been doing one big grocery trip and spent $205.00 at Aldi this week. The last time I spent 178 but it turned out that I did not buy quite enough meat, juice, coffee so it did not last quite a month so I kept track of all the extra stuff I had to get before the month was over so I had a better idea how much to get this time. We'll see how I do this month. I do still have to get milk and perhaps some bananas here and there but it sure beats what I was doing before and the best thing....I saved $70 last month because I did not go to the store as often:-)
Just clicked over to the yoghurt post... vowed I'd never make yoghurt but you never know...
Anyhow it has prompted a question! Which I had thought of asking a few days ago. I notice that you don't put any text on your images to identify them as your's, but in that post you did. Just curious....
Have a fab weekend!
The yogurt is *very* doable and *very* tasty and significantly less expensive than purchasing it.
I love your food pictures, how refreshing to see fruits and veggies and know that your still on a budget. So many frugal sites talk about coupons and those shows about couponing and all I ever see if over processed food (I am hoping there are some fruits and veggies, they are just showing the coupon food), even in their storage area's. Thanks for letting people know they can still live on a budget and eat healthy.
How much did you pay for that box of clementines? Or are those mandarins? They're so expensive where I live...no matter where I shop. A box of clementines was $7.99 and now they're $8.99...so I just don't buy them anymore at all. They'd have to be at least half of the price for me to consider shelling out money for them...It's too bad, because my dad LOVES to eat them. However, I can still get oranges and grapefruit for less than a $1 a pound, so I buy that!!! Have a great weekend. Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather. 🙂
During the summer months do you grow any of your own produce?? We, and it makes a big diff on the budget, esp when we can and freeze part of it for winter months...
I think Zoe picked an EXCELLENT birthday menu. A girl after my own heart!
I like how you redid your links bar on top. I'll actually visit Lisey's site, now that there's a direct link.
Hi
Just wanted to give everyone a little heads up.
When buying onions always buy them loose, i have found that by buying them in these three packs the supermarkets like to do so much can cost you double. yes thats right double. last week I bought three red onions for 51p, a pack of three same sized red onions right next to the loose were prices at £1.20 a pack. i
In the stores I go to, the 3lb net bags are at least 1/3 cheaper. I believe this is because the onions aren't as good.
OMG. I need to make broccoli and cheese. I forgot how delish that is.
Not sure why my comments keep disappearing? Anyway, I was just wondering what other people spend on groceries, since it seems I spent to much more on a family of 2. Just found this very useful link to the USDA food costs (this is for Dec 2011) http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2011/CostofFoodDec2011.pdf
Ha! Never mind, I commented on the post before this one 😉 duhh