Two week spending roundup (plus a menu, of course)
Since last week included a holiday, I didn't share my menu plan or grocery spending, so I'll include that, especially since last week was the last shop of November.
Last week I spent $100.58, so in November, I averaged $120.33 per week. Yay!
On to this week's spending!
At Costco I bought pistachios, frozen berries, and contact cleaning solution. That cost me $56.30.
(It takes about 5 seconds to spend $50 at Costco. Have you noticed that??)
At the organic market, I spent $16.46 on chicken.
At Aldi I spent $133.40.
And lastly at the local store I spent $9.39. I'm trying to remember what all I bought there...a gallon of milk for cereal, a gallon for making yogurt, a banana bunch and something else that I have NO memory of now. Hmm.
Anyhoo, it all adds up to $215.55, which is $15 over my average. But considering I was $320 under that last month, I'm not too worried. 😉
Also, I'm fairly certain that I can make it under $200 the rest of the weeks this month.
Monday
I made fish cakes, which we ate as sandwiches on fluffy burger buns.
On the side, we had sauteed green beans with garlic and herbs.
Tuesday
We had jambalaya, plus applesauce from the freezer.
(I never regret making as much applesauce as I do each fall!)
Several people on instagram asked for the jambalaya recipe, so look for that soon.
Wednesday
We had sloppy joes on fluffy homemade hamburger buns...
plus this green salad.
Thursday
Soup night! We ate chicken tortilla soup. I also made guacamole, and we had more applesauce.
Friday
It's pizza night. I think I'll poll the kids to see what kind of pizza they want.
(I'm guessing homemade deep dish pizza might win...)
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What's been on the menu at your house this week?
P.S. The winner of the Money Making Mom book is Sarah C. Congrats Sarah! You've been emailed.
I don't track as closely as I should, but every time I go to the grocery store, I marvel: Only in America can we go get pretty much exactly what we want and get enormous variety and a range of healthy options for $120 a week.
That said, I've heard of "food deserts" where that's not possible, and can't fathom it.
We have a food dessert in my town. Think of it this way, an area with no public transportation where the only store you can walk to is a gas station. So, unless you have can money or a relative with a car, you're limited to "gas station food" which almost never includes fruits and vegetables (at least around here). Small rural southern town.
I didn't get the concept for a long time either. It's more about the poverty level and the access to transportation than anything else.
I live in a food desert. And relied on public transportation for YEARS (I'm very, very privileged to have a car now). I don't have any kids so I was able to spend the extra 2 hours once a month to get to and from a grocery store on the bus AND afford the bus fare for myself. Some people are not so lucky. Because it took so long to do things like go to the grocery store or go to the laundry mat or go get things like cleaning supplies/laundry detergent, I was only able to go on one trip to the grocery store every month or so. I had a little cart that I would fill to the brim and would stuff a backpack full of other stuff, but it's amazing how difficult it is to only buy whatever you can carry (and expect it to last a month). Fresh produce was pretty low on the list of priorities, frankly. They almost always got crushed and/or would spoil before the week was over.
For families it's much, much worse. People can't find healthy food options close to them so their kids are eating processed foods with a long shelf life, whatever can be purchased at the liquor store on the way to school for breakfast or something from the dollar menu at a fast food place. It's causing a huge problem in my community with childhood obesity rates through the roof and a huge surge of children being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
Food deserts are very real and very scary.
That's so hard...and when you have to carry things like laundry detergent and such, it's hard to even have room for food!
Wow, yeah. That's a tough place to be. We are 12 miles from any store, but we've never had to do without a vehicle. :/ I am sorry.
I was thinking about this more and realizing that when you don't have a car, food deserts are everywhere. In suburbia especially, there doesn't tend to be a grocery store on every corner, and little is within walking distance. At my own house, I'd be hardpressed to walk anywhere except to a liquor store. It's not that a store is impossibly far away, it's that the roads aren't walkable.
We tried your Shrimp Viennese recipe last night, served with broccoli. It was a great recipe for us to try together. He was the chef and I was, I guess his supervisor, lol. He gets a little nervous in the kitchen. Still, it was easy and delicious, and now on the fast-track to "standards" status in our household. But with a husband in a labor industry, ... he ate half of it on his own!! We marveled that it will feed six of you. 🙂
Other items we've had this (very busy) week...
--chili and rice for him, and a mix of rice, soup, and cheese for me
--spaghetti and jarred sauce
--ham and eggs with home fries
--sauteed veggies, ham, and ricotta with fettuccine - the leftovers meal
So glad you liked it! 2/6 of us are little girls who don't have huge appetites, and the rest of us, while tall, aren't very large people, so we don't have super large appetites either. So that makes food go a little farther at our house.
Unintentional frugality, I guess! Mr. FG and I just don't have the genes to produce linebacker-sized people/appetites.
I decided to try my hand at baking break after reading your blog posts and seeing so many mouth watering pictures of those delicious looking rolls. I started with the rolls and they were AMAZING! My husband and daughter gobbled them up! Next to try is the buns 🙂
baking bread* oops.
Yay! I'm so glad!
I made a new dish - peanut chicken, in the crockpot and served with basmati rice - delish! I also made a salmon "pie" by putting my usual salmon croquette ingredients in a pie pan, topping with buttered bread crumbs (from stale bread) and baking. It was so good and no frying fuss.
Well, I'm making your pizza dough recipe today.
Having a friend and her son over, so we'll have "make your own pizza" night with toppings!
Let's see- lady night I made Thai curry chicken, veggies,and rice.
Earlier in the week I made a quick pasta sauce which we had with veggie meatballs.
I've simplified my taco recipe bc we get so frustrated at "ingredient fallout" I sautéed my base ( ground turkey, beef, or veggie protein) and mix in salsa,seasonings, and a veggie. This way we just add cheese or a slice of avocado to the top- less mess!
For the 4 days following Thanksgiving we ate nothing but leftovers ( easy and so good)
I don't have a Costco but we have a BJs. I swear it's a $50 cover charge to get in and out of there sometimes. I dropped $35 without ever seeing past the first aisle the other day. I bought a large container of their brand of powdered formula and some Playtex bottles that were on sale which we can use when the little one is taking 9oz bottles.
Your fish cake recipe and fluffy hamburger bun recipe are staples at our house. Thank you!
Sounds great. Menuplan with us this week was a little different since the whole band was not eating together, so I was dropping too often to shopping ready meals but better than that was salmon corn breads at one evening table. Also eating out in chinese once and once tasting meatsoup at mom's. I still think with warmth the delicious salmon pasta that I made some weeks ago. 😉 But it happens too rare anyway. Cookingideas are so welcome, what about coming Christmas, any new adds to that?
We have lots of food in the freezer, so my plan is not to shop next week unless we are out of something fresh we have to have. Last night I made a big crock pot of lima beans with some spiral sliced ham scraps I found prepackaged at HEB. I also put together a couple of sheperd's pie-like dishes with various leftovers from Thanksgiving. I have the fixin's for another couple of pots of soup, too, from the turkey carcass. Tonight is chicken lime burgers from Trader Joe's, served on sliced bread, and Sunday will be one of those frozen meals I have stashed away. I want us to be frugal up to Christmas Week, and then we FEAST.
Kirsten love this post, your photography is great, always soo bright and colourful..Since starting to read your blog I'm delighted to say I've become soo much more consious of waste and if something is not eaten for dinner I just pop it in a lunch box and bring it the next day to work..
This weeks menu for us consisted of roast vegetable pasta with pieces of smoky bacon, chilli con crane with brown rice, Thai green curry with rice..cheese & ham toasted tortillas..& good old scrambled eggs..they r soo quick, versatile and handy after a busy day at work..have guests this weekend so grocery bill is higher than usual plus bought some extra treats for Christmas thank you for sharing and inspiring us..
How do you do it?! This is one area I just can't seem to cut down on, despite my best efforts 🙂
Aldi helps a LOT! Food is so affordable there, and they even have a fair bit of organic options now. I love me some Aldi.
This may sound crazy, but you explain the process of how you freeze applesauce? Do you just put it in a container (glass or plastic?) And put it in the freezer? Or do you have do go through the whole canning jig - which seems so complicated to me, but a lot of people do it so I guess it can't be that difficult. I am a freezer novice, and have never really frozen anything unless it comes from the frozen foods section... help!
Nope, I don't can it, mainly because I don't own a pot large enough for canning!
To freeze applesauce, I make it fresh from apples and then put it in glass Ball jars or Pyrex or plastic containers and freeze it. The important thing when you're using a jar is to leave enough room for the applesauce to expand as it freezes. Otherwise the glass jar will break.
That's really the only thing to watch out for...other than that, it's crazy simple!
For freezing applesauce, would one of the ziplock freezer bags work as well? I usually use them when separating meat. But I have never tried homemade applesause or any other liquid in them.
Yep, I use those too, when I run out of containers.
I have so much love for your fishcake recipe 🙂 Viennese Shrimp sounds like something we should check out. Kathy's peanut chicken on basmati also sounds wonderful. Can you tell that I'm hungry? Homemade pizza for dinner at our house tonight too:)
Wonderful and useful post. I have a request for a future post please. I would like to ask your opinion and the readers re: what items they find cheapest/best value at what store. For ex. I find detergent cheapest at Costco as well as paper products and rotisserie chicken too. Thanks in advance!
We are headed out of town for a week, so I'm trying to use up everything in the fridge. I roasted carrots, turnips, a butternut squash, onion, sweet potatoes, and garlic. There may have been more winter veggies that I'm forgetting. I blended that with a tiny bit of cream and the last of the broth I made from our Thanksgiving turkey. It was a heavenly soup, and I was super proud of everything I managed to use up. We even served it with the last of our Thanksgiving rolls. 🙂
Your burger buns look amazing! I am going to have to try your recipe!
If you got out of Costco for $50, you did well!
We've been living in Germany for the last five months. I like liked Aldi in the states but I love it here. Maybe it is because the exchange rate is not that bad, but I find the food in Germany cheaper, fresher and far more accessible than in the States (I've lived on both coasts and traveled extensively). There are 3 grocery stores within a mile radiusnof where we are, and most places seem to have the same set up. Another thing I notice is that the price of items is very uniform...milk costs .55 a liter regardless of which store, gas is the same price at all stations in a given place, and eating out isn't as expensive although it is more time consuming! I feel like I'm spoiling my children because saying yes to Eis(an ice cream cone) only sets me back one Euro and they have gotten used to getting a drink with their meal, as water costs just as much. I do miss Costco though.