Grocery Spending/Menu Plan | Actually, just a menu plan!
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.
This is an off-week for grocery shopping (yay!) so I just need to share a menu today.
I have to say, I am so pleased that I decided to start grocery shopping every two weeks. It's saving me a lot of time and stress, and I'm always happy when I find something that accomplishes those two things.
Saturday
- Pizza!
Sunday
- French Toast
- sausage from the farm
Monday
- Bacon and Cheese Quesadillas (that's what's in the picture above)
- chips and salsa
- fruit
Tuesday
- Sloppy Joes on buns (made with beef from the farm)
- green salad
Wednesday
- Stuffed Shells (I just use the recipe on the back of the box)
- french bread
- some sort of veggie...not sure what yet!
Thursday
- We're using some gift cards from our credit card rewards and are eating out for free. Woohoo!
Friday
- Date night
And now I'm off to go make a snack for the women's prayer meeting which is at my house this morning. Have a lovely Saturday!
Today's 365 post: Look what I found!
Joshua's 365 post: Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Your week sounds yummy. We are doing sloppy joes tonight. Have a great weekend. 🙂
I love to see what other moms have planned for dinner. It really helps change it up in my house since it seems we always eat the same things over and over. I normally only shop every 2 weeks as well unless it is for something special. It's a grueling process sometimes to go through all my coupons and match up with the sales but in the end it is totally worth it! I haven't set a per week budget to stay in for food but I am always happy if I can stay under $250 every two weeks and thrilled if I am at $200 every two weeks and that does include my food, cleaning supplies, etc.
I started bi-weekly grocery shopping a couple months back after putting off trying. I never thought it would work for my little family because we eat a lot of produce. I am so happy that we started as it just takes a tiny bit of extra planning and saves so much time!!
Looks good! Quesedillas are a staple here.
I've been following your blog as our family has recently gone to one income and are trying to save some money. I also plan out my menus once a week but we go shopping every week too, instead of every other week. I think that fresh produce would go bad if we only went once every two weeks (although I'm sure I would save money!). Any thoughts on the fruits and veggie dilemma? How have you solved that?
Thanks for the budgetary inspiration!
Well, we eat the most perishable stuff first, but lettuce and grapefruit and carrots and a lot of other produce does last for two weeks in the fridge.
I do usually end up making a milk/produce run on the off-week for things like bananas, which definitely cannot make it two weeks!
Hey Kristen... I love reading this stuff as always. I'm really curious about your whole process for the meat. Maybe you could do an entire post about that (with lots of pictures of course) and include how you bought your meat, how you store it, how you thaw it, etc. That is my biggest obstacle in shopping less frequently... I just cannot figure out how to incorporate the frozen meat into my process. I am very good at buying a large quantity of meat and cooking a bunch of stuff (soups, casseroles, meatloaves in muffin tins, etc.) and freezing it. I am not so good at freezing the meat raw and planning meals around that.
Thanks again and looking forward to more of your great information!
Margaret
Oh, that's so interesting! I feel like the option I take is the easier of the two. lol
I'll put that topic into my to-post queue.
Hi Kristen,
I just love your blog! I really enjoy the baking tips, parenting info, grocery tips and menu planning. I've learned a lot :)! I have a question for you: do your kids and hubby snack between meals? If so, what kinds of snacky things? I have noticed pretzels on your grocery photos. Also, does your family eat ice cream or only the baked goodies you make in terms of sweets? Thank you ahead of time 🙂
K.
When my kids are hungry between meals, I usually offer them veggies, fruit, or nuts. Sometimes I let them have cheese and a few pretzels if the next meal is a long ways off.
For treats, we usually have small candy stuff around the house, like little mini candy bars, Smarties, Skittles, and so on. I actually am kind of a fail at keeping homemade treats around. lol Mostly I bake breads, it seems!
Have a great week. That all sounds good. I had sloppy joes last night that were good.
Hello!
I have a question, too... Does each family member get their own quesadilla? Or, do you all share 1?! You guys seem to have great portion control! 😉
Ha! None of us has a big appetite, that much is true. The kids don't often eat a whole quesadilla, but Mr. FG and I do.
Kristen, have you ever considered freezing milk and bananas so you don't have to made the extra grocery store run? I do this and it works out great! I really hate grocery shopping so the less frequent I have to do it the better!
I do freeze milk sometimes, but frozen bananas aren't good for snacking, are they? My kid like to snack on them in between meals.
I do freeze bananas to use in smoothies, though!
The off-week grocery run isn't too bad...I often do it after a trip to the gym (it's right near my grocery stores), so I get to go by myself.
FG-
One of my "goals" for the year is to try one new recipe every week. It has been fun! The new recipe for this past week was your Carmel-Pecan Monkey Bread. Absolutely fantastic! My four girls want me to put it into my cookbook to keep. Thanks! In a couple of weeks, I plan to try your Two-Tone Bread. I LOVE baking with yeast!!
BW
I just read that you've decided to shop once every two weeks and told my husband about it! We have such a hard time getting to the grocery store and then are miserable when we run out of food. I'm trying to become a menu planner (I'm finding lots of good ideas on T.F.G today, thanks to you!) to make meal time less stressful. I think shopping every 2 weeks might be the other answer. Simple idea, but I don't think I ever thought about doing it before!