Grocery Spending/Menu Plan | We have a 3-day weekend!
Mr. FG, being the good dad that he is, wanted to take the kids to a reptile show that's not too far away. The problem is, the show only happens on Saturdays, and he works every Saturday. So, this week he worked Monday-Friday in order to have today off. That means we had a 1-day weekend last week (boo!), but we have a 3-day weekend now (yay!).
Because reptiles aren't really my cup of tea, I'm super glad that he's willing to take on all this reptile stuff (and with initiative and a level of enthusiasm and interest that I would fail to muster).
Anyhoo, I'm really here to talk about groceries.
If you remember my post from a few weeks ago, I'm trying to spend $320/month instead of my usual $400/month from now through the end of the year in order to build up a savings for when I next need to purchase part of a cow.
This is going to be a tricky task, and it's possible that this goal is too tough for me, but I'm at least going to try.
I shopped at Weis and Aldi this week....I spent $110.54 at Aldi and $65.44 at Weis. Unfortunately, that adds up to $175.98, which means that I have a mere $144 left in my budget for the rest of the month.
Dear me.
What are we eating?
Well, I've been on a granola-making kick as of late, so that'll be one of our breakfast options along with toast, yogurt, fruit, muffins, and eggs.
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. Of course, we don't eat all of that every single day...it's just a list of the things we choose from for lunch each day. And Mr. FG eats leftovers for lunch pretty much every day.
Here's what we're planning to eat for dinner:
Saturday
- Pizza...I think I'm just making regular crust pizza.
Sunday
- Snacky stuff (fruit, popcorn, cheese, etc)
Monday
- This is a little bit up in the air, due to some uncertainty about our schedule for the day. My menu block for this night seriously just has a "?".
Tuesday
- Slow-Cooked Beef Tacos (a new recipe)
- green beans
Wednesday
- Broiled Tilapia Fillets
- Braided Cheese Bread
- green salad
Thursday
- Sloppy Joes
- whatever produce needs using by then
Friday
- Takeout date night for Mr. FG and me, something easy for the kids
I see beef jerky in that pix. That's one place where homemade beats out storebought by a huge margin. I once did a highly unfair price comparison: homemade jerke made from happy beef, compared to cheap supermarket jerky. Even using the very fancy meat, homemade was cheaper. And much tastier, too. So if you guys buy a lot of jerky, a dehydrator will save you a lot of money.
Or stop buying so many stuffed animals when you go shopping.
Yeah...you think 3 build-a-bears a week is a bit much?? 😉
I do definitely want to try making beef jerky, so send over a recipe. I've got plenty of happy beef to make it with.
yum,, wish I was eating at your house,,
I'm trying to come up with my menu plan for this weekend and Mon/Tues - I work 12 hour shifts and am switching to day shift for 2 weeks starting Monday(every 2 weeks I switch) and trying to eat better (weight watchers as the main program) so that means I have to do at least a rough outline. I cook for just myself and that can be tricky with leftovers, etc.
so far I've come up with
1) eggs - egg white, center cut bacon, canol oil on open faced light bread sandwiches - can eat this as a dinner as well as breakfast or add some onion, whole egg, some egg whites and eat in a flour tortilla with some salsa
2) fajitas - probably not a 'real' fajita but chicken breast, onion, bell pepper(from garden), 100 cal guacoamole I thawed yesterday and some salsa and/or tomato(garden)
3) chicken noodle soup using leftover canned green peas and maybe find some pasta that's been partially used and finish it up
4) eggplant and garbanzo bean dip - didn't like this as well as I thought I would but dont' want to see it go to waste
I also have a few tilapia fillets individually wrapped in the freezer - hope someone puts these on sale soon but they come in handy for a fairly quick meal - my latest fave is to sprinkle blackened seasoning on both sides and cook in skillet with 1 tsp canola oil. I mix up a homemade tartar sauce with fat free mayo, sweet relish, lemon juice, and lemon pepper - enough for a taste. I usually do oven fries with this though sometimes canned veggies like corn and green beans.
Those bears sure do their shopping in fancy outfits!
So I was wondering about the stuffed animals too. LOL Are they decorations?
My kids just like to put those in the picture for fun. They love for their stuffed animals to be famous. 😉
I think the price of food has really increased. I find the price of produce unbelievable. We do not live close enough to an Aldi to make it a viable option so I only buy produce on sale and bananas.
I have a general grocery question that has been giving me trouble for some time. I plan meals and try not to go grocery shopping more than once a week. (We started this practice when we realized that our "last minute" shopping trips on the weekends were costing almost as much as my carefully planned trip to buy food for M-F!)
My problem, however, always comes down to produce. I go shopping Monday morning, and many things just won't last until Sunday. Do you plan specifically by what will last? Just use frozen vegetables at the end of the week? Any advice would be appreciated!
Hi Elizabeth, I do my meals around what will last. So we do our salad based meals & sides in the first half of the shopping period and things like cooked veggies sides, stir fries, pastas, risottos etc in the second half. Things like pumpkin, potato/sweet potato, carrot, snow peas all last well and stuff like mushrooms that might not be 'salad quality' anymore are fine in a cooked dish. I also do actually recommend Tupperware Fridgesmart for keeping the salad bag contents in - I can get about 6/7 days out of mine now whereas in the bag I'd only get 3/4. Hope this helps.
Do you have juice at every meal? I spy 2 bottle of sparkling juice, a carton of oj and a couple cans of frozen juice. Is the lunchmeat an addition to your lunch usuals? Can that be cut out to help with the budget?
And are the oats, chocolate, peanut butter and honey for future pantry items or are you baking something delcious soon?
Oh goodness no! We'd need a LOT more juice than that if we drank it at every meal. At breakfast, the kids and Mr. FG each have a small glass of OJ (I don't really drink juice). At lunch, we drink water, and at dinner, we drink water except for when Mr. FG and I have our weekly date night (we drink a bottle of sparkling juice with our meal then).
I got the lunchmeat because I packed lunches for Mr. FG and the kids when they went to the reptile show. Normally we don't eat much in the way of lunchmeat.
Oats and honey are for granola, the peanut butter is for lunch sandwiches, and the dark chocolate is for yours truly. lol
first of all, thanks for the recent photos of your colorful groceries...they sure make my saturdays complete. secondly, like another commenter i find the prices at the store have really skyrocketed. we are blessed to have several ethnic groceries nearby that have good produce prices and sometimes good canned good prices even if you can't understand the language on the labels...the pictures are there. i have found ways to experiment with canned goods that i didn't do a few years ago. take cream of mushroom soup. there is a brand at the national chain store that doesn't have a pretty label but the price is almost half what the best selling brand is. i used to buy this exclusively until i found another seminational store has it occassionally 3/1.00. the grocery stores are plentiful here or else we would really be feeling it in our pocketbook as we are on fixed incomes. thank you as always, for honoring the Lord's day. you and your family set a fine example to the blogging community.
Hello there, I've been following your blog for somewhere around a year now and have never commented but I had a couple of thoughts for you. I notice toilet bowl cleaner in that picture, and wondered if you've considered making/using homemade cleaners? There are some wonderful recipes on the web, that contain many things most of us keep in our pantry. Cleaners have gotten so overpriced and I switched a while back. It takes a little getting used to not having that chemically clean smell, but they work great. My other thought is this, I know you have stated before why you don't do the whole coupon thing, but I do it mainly for our toiletries and I haven't paid for toothpaste, shampoo or deodorant for the past year. I only say that cause I noticed what looks like shampoo in your picture.
I've considered it but not gotten around to it! lol I need to find some good recipes for homemade cleaners.
In your menu planning this week you mentioned slow cooked beef tacos as a new recipe.... anything slow cooked (slow cooker I presume) is awesome.... but I went to recipes and there isn't one for it! Would love to have it! I am slow going with planning, etc. but I'll get there some day!
My question is about eggs. I noticed in another post that you purchase local eggs from a farm for $2.50/doz. Is that correct? I'm assuming that because you do a lot of baking most of the eggs you buy are used for that purpose so my question is, how many eggs do you go through in 2 weeks time (just for breakfast purposes) and how do you prepare them for your children? Do you make eggs for breakfast everyday? I find my family of 4 going through a ridiculous amount of eggs; I scramble them up with a little milk, but 1 egg per person is just never enough!