Grocery Spending | Squeaking by.
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
Early in the week, I spent $22.00 at a local grocery store for some flour (20 pounds of it), which was on sale, plus ricotta for Zoe's stuffed shells, some turkey sausage, and a bunch of bananas.
And after that I looked at my menu and realized that I could get through the week with just a quick stop at Weis. Yay!
I bought clementines, clams, chicken noodle soup, cilantro, clam juice, tortilla chips, a jalapeno pepper, a mango, a bag of potatoes, lime juice, a box of cereal and a gallon of milk. And I spent $32.76 for that.
I also spent $3 on local eggs yesterday, which brings my total for this week to $57.76.
I'm under budget and avoided doing a big grocery shopping trip, so I'm feeling mighty pleased with myself.
Let's see. I have no grocery picture, so hows about a random one from yesterday? I visited my friend from Ready. Set. Simplify. for a serious decluttering session, and we got her daughter to snap a photo of us.
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!
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
- Takeout date night for Mr. FG and me, something easy for the kids
Sunday
- Snacky Stuff (every now and then we have a meal comprised of hors d'ouevres type of things...cheese, crackers, dip, fruit, veggies and such)
Monday (this meal got bumped from last week)
- Sauteed Fish Fillets
- Scalloped Potatoes
- green salad
Tuesday
- Pulled Chicken Sandwiches
- Zucchini Patties
- fruit salad
Wednesday
- Shrimp and Ravioli in Pink Sauce
- French Bread
- Spinach Salad
Thursday
- Chicken, Bacon, and Spinach Wraps
- Sauteed Green Beans
- Veggie Chips
Friday
- Pizza day!
Hey, Lisey has her post up now! Go check it out if you'd like to learn how to make orange sweet rolls.
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Today's 365 post: Joshua still fits in the Cozy Coupe
Joshua's 365 post: Sleepy Cat
My husband works second shift as well, he goes in at 11, to early for a lunch first, but seeing that your family does a lunch made me think perhaps once and a while I should shoot for a big family breakfast. I think he might really like that.
Those rolls...sublime. What a great grocery shop. I had to do the big stock-up at Costco yesterday. Yikes.
Oh oh there's a link to homemade yoghurt again... at this rate I'm going to have to make some...
Clearly.
I'm surprised that picture came out so well! Thanks again for the help! Mr. RSS was very impressed and said he didn't know what to do with his dirty laundry now that we cleared out that space. 🙂
Those orange sweet rolls look so good!
It's the LightScoop! It's perfect for when I hand my camera to someone who doesn't know how to use an SLR. 🙂
Tell Mr. RSS he better put his dirty laundry in the laundry basket. Hee.
We have the $100 a week budget for food, toiletries and cleaners as well. The main reason this really works for us is because my husband is an avid hunter and fisherman and we can and freeze a lot of food that we grow and forage. I don't meal plan, I follow more of the pantry method like Katy over at Nonconsumer Advocate. I've tried it, but it just doesn't work for us. I too am an Aldi's fan...enjoying your blog!
Hi there! You came and spoke to my MOPS group not too long ago and I've been following your blog since then. In an effort to save some money I'm starting to try to reduce our weekly groceries down to $100. I'm a little intimidated though! $100/week was what I spent when it was just my husband and myself and now I'm feeding three kids as well.
Hi there! Please don't feel like $100 is a magic number...depending on what your family eats and how your appetites run (my kids aren't big eaters), $100 may not work for you. So, don't stress yourself out over that particular number. 🙂
the link to the sweet rolls is not working for me. It says the page cannot be found.
Props on da hair, ms. Fg. 🙂
Ah, thanks. That's my, "I didn't have time to straighten it so I sprayed stuff in it and ran out the door." look.
Kristen, Your hair looks lovely!
How do you make your pulled chicken?
Have a blessed Saturday!!
Well, I'm planning to use a Cook's Illustrated recipe that involves grilling chicken legs and thighs.
And thanks!
Wow, I have to make those zucchini patties - they look delicious!
That's really good on the spending so far. I probably won't be making any shopping trips anytime soon, because it's the end of the month. I'll have to wait till next month before I can do more grocery shopping 🙂 Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂
Your hair looks really cute & rolls look yummy!
I don't see the clams on your menu plan!
Just for kicks, I compared your $32.76 groceries to our grocery store and surprisingly a big difference (I guess). I looked for things on sale but not everything was on sale (Wasn't sure if you bought some of the items because they were on sale or if Aldi's even does sales). My bill came to 38.01. So, 16% more in costs. I live in California so, I just wondered how the prices compared. We don't have Aldi's but I used Safeway. I don't know if you have those there or not.
Those rolls look amazing... and your hair is also really cute :).
Can you share the chicken bacon spinach wrap recipe? Sounds yummy! Thanks for all your frugal tips, made the homemade grape jelly with the on sale Welches I bought during super doubles a few weeks ago. It is wonderful.