What I spent, what we ate
Ready for a peek in our food lives this week?
(That makes it sound more exciting than it actually is. Be forewarned.)
This week, I spent $125.25 on my main shopping trip, $84.77 of which was at Aldi.
Of note:
I purposely bought the butter package with the loose end. The interior wrappers were unmarred, and I bought it so Aldi wouldn't have to throw it away.
I'm not much of an impulse shopper, but when tea is on sale, I cannot resist. Tea is a fairly frugal splurge, after all. I mean, $2.50 gets you 20 cups of hot goodness, which is hard to beat.
I found a few packages of marked-down chicken legs. They were only about $1 apiece, so I bought them and immediately put them in the freezer when I got home. I'll probably brine and grill them when we get a warmer day.
I have no beef with grilling in the cold, exactly, but it does use a lot of propane to heat a grill up in 25 ° weather. So, I prefer to do that on a warm-ish winter day.
My spending this week includes our traditional January gingerbread house kit. 😉
Also, I had to stop in at Costco, and I spent $54.40. And before our field trip this week, I needed a few portable foods, so I spent $9.57 there.
The bottom line: $189.22.
Soo, my first two weeks in January have been on the high side if I want to average $200 over the course of a year. I think I'll see if I can manage a lower-spending week this next go-round.
Not going to Costco would help with that. 😉
January Spending
Week one: $195.93
Week two: $189.22
Monday
I made a pot of tortellini soup and thawed a loaf of English muffin bread from the freezer.
I feel like we ate a vegetable with this but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.
Tuesday
We were out all day, so I put a chuck roast (from the freezer) into the crock pot and made Crock Pot BBQ Beef sandwiches with store-bought buns.
I served those with veggie chips from Aldi and cut-up fresh pineapple.
I ate my beef on a salad because (embarrassed face) I feel like store-bought buns are usually not worth eating. If I'm going to eat refined carbs, I want them to be darn tasty.
(The one exception to this is a Five Guys burger. I do eat the bun there!)
Wednesday
Mr. FG wasn't with us for dinner, and the kids and I had to be at church, so we did kind of a fend-for-yourself thing.
There was leftover tortellini soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, eaten in a hurry.
Thursday
We had Swiss Mushroom Chicken, a green salad, and a braised red potato recipe from Cook's Illustrated.
(placeholder picture of Swiss Mushroom Chicken. We did actually have a salad and potatoes, not green beans and pineapple.)
I made the potatoes to use up the last of the bag of red potatoes I'd bought for clam chowder. Cook's Illustrated's website is so handy for things like that...I just typed in red potatoes and chose from the list of recipes that popped up.
Friday
It's a pizza night, although the three girls are at a sleepover, which means I might opt not to make homemade pizza just for the three of us. We shall see...
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Re: the crock pot beef, did you put the beef directly from the freezer into the crock pot without thawing? I've read so many conflicting opinions on whether or not to do that from a food safety perspective, but if the point of a crock pot is to be easy than going right from the freezer just seems so much more convenient!
Nope, I thawed it, cut it into pieces, browned it on the stovetop, and then put it into the crock-pot.
I think it would take a REALLY long time to cook in the crock pot if I stuck a whole frozen roast in there!
We put whole roasts, frozen, in the crock-pot and it takes about 6 hours to cook usually. Same for whole chickens (8 hours or so)
Wow. Do you cook it on high, then? I cut my thawed roast up and cooked it for a good 8 hours on low and it wasn't fall-apart tender before then.
I always cook my frozen roast for 8 hours on low in the crock pot. It's really the only way I cook roast..My crock pot is very hot. The roast is always very delicious and fall apart tender. BTW, that tortellini soup looks so delicious I wanna lick my screen!
I always toss frozen hunks of meat into the crock pot on high and 6-8 hours later it is falling apart tender! I have never had an issue with it at all!
Ohhh, on high I could totally believe that. I've been cooking mine on low.
Just wanted to say, I often put frozen meat in my crockpot insert and thaw it out overnight in the insert which I put in the fridge, then put it in the heating unit and cook it during the day. I have also read some articles about food safety temps and how you are not supposed to put the ceramic insert in the fridge for this reason. HOWEVER, I always put the insert in the fridge overnight because I prep my meals the night before.....and I've never ONCE had an issue. And I do this 2-3 times a week most weeks all year long. SO long story short.....I wouldn't overstress about food safety issues unless you've experienced an incident. I also have learned that every crockpot is different. Ours cooks very hot, I never cook over five hours on low (no matter what the recipe I am following says), and I never have anything undercooked. But based on the comments, it sounds like Kristen's crockpot cooks very differently. I recommend getting used to how your crockpot cooks and going with your gut. Hope that helps!!!
Nice to see the tortilla soup recipe. I have been thinking of tortilla since Christmas, it seems.
Save-On-Foods supermarket chain here in Vancouver, BC, is selling real loaves of bread for $2/loaf in different varieties. This means an affordable price for me at which point I can bake muffins this week instead of bread. Box of okay chocolate are on sale. I plan to use some for baking chocolate muffins.
Living on $50, US funds, for 3 sounds like a challenge. Cheers,
Richard Zorniak
Vancouver BC
"I purposely bought the butter package with the loose end. The interior wrappers were unmarred, and I bought it so Aldi wouldn’t have to throw it away."
I do that, too. Including rearranging boxes of berries or citrus so all the rotten ones are on in one box rather than many. IfI'm going to use milk soon, I look to buy the soonest-expiring milk. One day I was rewarded with several $1 off coupons on the milk. Only the milk expiring that week had the peelies. Most customers avoided that milk which meant I could get as much discounted milk as I wanted.
I wish I could ever find marked-down, soon-to-expire milk! I don't have good luck with running across it.
And at Aldi, their stock moves so fast, their milk never has a chance to get close to expiration.
Wow, you guys are making me rethink my milk habits in a good way! I carefully choose the newest date since it's just the 2 of us and milk has a tendency to not get drunk fast. Keep hearing about freezing milk and think about it when i see the marked down, use-it-today quarts. Hmmm, you have yet to steer me wrong. . . and it is great that you are thinking about the store's waste!
It wasn't marked down - I've never seen that at my stores either. It was an actual coupon affixed to the carton.
My grocery shopping got a big boost from coupons/loyalty card this week. One of our stores had "super double coupons" meaning they doubled coupons up to & including $2.00. This is usually the only time I do much with coupons....My initial total was $253, but with coupons and loyalty card discounts the final amount was $118! I was pretty excited about that! This included several pkgs of meat, fresh produce, etc. that I did not have coupons for, so several of the coupon items were free or nearly free. Then I rearranged and inventoried my pantry....won't need to purchase anything much except fresh produce for a few weeks!
Way to go!
Not sure at what we are right now budget wise (it is written down but I didn't calculate in the past few days), probably around 200$, maybe less, since the beginning of the month.
This week was a left-overs week.
We made 2 gigantic pot of soup during the week-end (vegetables soup and pumpkin/sweet potato soup) and we pretty much ate this all week mixed with some proteins (chicken, cheese, beans, beef). One night was chicken fried rice and yesterday was pasta with sausages mixed in. Tonight is leftovers again.
And my lunchs were pretty much corn chips+cheese+nuts+fruit. I keep it really simple, it's just for myself. Hubby is having a salad every day at lunch and daughter is having leftovers (other daughter is getting lunch at daycare).
So it's not exciting, but since I hate cooking it works out great for me like this.
Easy cooking eats this week as we are newly home from one trip, then off to daughter's ( the keeper of our beloved grandbaby!) for the weekend:
Mon- Trader Joe arugula/pesto pasta, drizzled with olive oil, parm cheese, and toasted pinenuts (yum!), salad and garlic bread.
Tue- Honey lime glazed salmon, brown rice, steamed baby carrots with butter & lemon salt. This recipe is from ATK's Quick Family Cookbook, which you promoted here when it was on sale for $10. I bought three, one for me, and both of my daughters, and we all absolutely love it. Above salmon was truly restaurant quality.
Wed- Just me at home, so I warmed a Trader Joe bean and rice burrito, which I keep on hand for exactly these type of no-spouse evenings.
Thur- Green-chile tamales with verde sauce, black beans, cilantro dressing salad.
Fri- Daughter is cooking, yeah. Chicken something from the looks of her fridge.
All told, we/me ate three ready made entrees last week, highly unusual other than these type of weeks (home briefly, then gone again), but far healthier and cheaper then defaulting to fast food.
Our weekly food budget for two is $100, but since the majority of our meals are vegetarian, I generally come in around $80.
Have a lovely time with your small person!
Our menu this week was challenging! We are participating in a clean eating challenge in attempt to re-vamp our eating habits. Here's what ours looked like:
MON: Broiled skirt steak salad with arugula and I can't remember the veggie!
TUES: Bowling night, fended for ourselves. Hubby and daughter made mac&cheese at home and I grabbed a salad at the local market.
WEDS: Turkey sloppy joe bowls with a whole wheat tortilla and edamame.
THUR: Balsalmic pork loin in the crockpot with cauliflower mash and steamed green beans.
FRI: Leftover balsalmic from last night over brown rice with black beans and other fixin's (homemade Chipotle)
This weekend my mom is cooking a turkey she's had in the freezer and Sunday we are making a batch of chicken noodle soup!
I stretch our grocery budget, thanks for Aldi and being gifted meat from the family farm. We budget $50 per week for the 3 of us and are on budget so far!
I have enjoyed your posts. However, I am an empty-nester living alone so while some of your posts are helpful, most are for a larger family. Wish I'd had them when my 5 sons were still at home. I wonder if you know of any bloggers that would be more suitable to my current circumstances; single woman living alone mainly on Social Security and a small IRA.
Hmm, I'll have to think on that. And maybe my readers will have some helpful suggestions for you too!
Hi Diana, this blog came to mind when I read your comment:
https://afrugalspinster.wordpress.com/
I have enjoyed her blog for many years now.
Ohh, right! I forgot that she has a blog...I did think of her when I read this question, but completely blanked out on her having a blog.
Maybe ecocatlady too? She's single. http://ecocatlady.blogspot.com/
Ditto on the tea. I was super excited to find all of the Holiday flavors of Stash tea boxes on clearance for 99 cents each! Bonanza!
Whoa, that's a great price!
Saturday: frozen pizza
Sunday: goulash
Monday: leftover goulash for me, scrambled eggs/toast for hubby
Tuesday: fried chicken, green beans, potatoes
Wednesday: leftover fried chicken for hubby, ice cream for me (sometimes a girl's gotta indulge)
Thursday: shrimp tacos for hubby, chicken tacos for me
Friday (tonight): an exact repeat of last night
I've started stretching most of our meals to two days because we were throwing a lot of food away. We weren't eating the leftovers because there was always something new to eat the next day. I've found that if I leave a few days per week where we have no plan, we eat up the leftovers in a timely manner. And, this is great for my budget! I spent $70 this week. My lunches were mostly leftovers that hubby didn't want to eat (a baked potato and goulash) and a pot of soup that I made/froze into individual portions.
Were those chicken packages $1 each or the chicken pieces were $1 each? If it's the former, that is amazing!
I'm also very impressed that you got out of Costco for under $150 - discipline!
The packages were $1 each! They had a $2 off coupon on them and they were only about $3 to begin with because they were on sale.
The Swiss mushroom chicken recipe sounds good, but a bit fattening. Do you think it would still be good if I use egg whites instead of a whole egg and maybe a little bit healthier sounding crackers than butter flavored crackers? Thank you Kristen.
You could certainly try it that way! All the kiddos at my house are pretty far on the skinny end of the spectrum, so I've never tried tinkering with the recipe myself.
I'm all, "Here! Have some more butter! Heavy cream, in your tea, perhaps? Pile on the cheese! Want some whole milk?"
I'm going to pop in here because I love cooking challenges.
0. Since all these changes tend to make the chicken less flavorful, I recommend brining the chicken before cooking. Small pieces brine faster; if you brine after slicing/pounding, it'll take maybe 20-30 min. The brining will make the chicken more flavorful and less inclined to dry out.
1. Instead of ritz crackers, use Panko or dry bread crumbs. Ritz crackers will make a softer, sweeter breading; dry bread crumbs will make a crisp-ish breading, Panko will make the most crisp breading.
2. I wouldn't mess with the egg for the egg dip. The yolk+white is a much better binder than just the white, and the 50-cal yoke is split amongst 4 breasts plus whatever's left in the bowl - so maybe 10 cal per piece of chicken. But if you want to experiment, beat the white well enough that its smooth, but not so much that it's bubbly. Or beat it smooth and bubbly then wait for it to settle down.
3. You can make a bigger change to strip the calories, with a commensurately larger change in the food, by changing the breading a lot. Rather than doing two-step breading, dip damp chicken directly into flour or finely-mashed bread crumbs (Panko won't work here). The coating will the thinner and less crisp. Or go further and not bread the chix at all. In which case, dry the chix with paper towel and sprinkle with salt before cooking. See #4 for ideas about cooking.
4. Use olive oil rather than butter. Same calories but more nutritious profile. Or try baking the chicken rather than pan frying. It'll come out crispiest if you bread the chix, then spritz with oil (or nonstick spray) before baking.
5. Use turkey han rather than pork ham. Thin slices will have fewer calories and, by the same token, less flavor.
6. Use low-fat cheese. And use good cheese - good cheese has a stronger flavor so you don't need as much to have the same cheesy flavor. Good cheese costs more but, if you use less because of the flavor impact, it'll last longer.
Sun- chicken pot pie and fruit
Mon- pork chops, field peas, collard greens
Tues- chicken spaghetti, green beans
Wed- beef and broccoli stir fry
Thurs- black bean and corn enchiladas, peas and carrots
Friday- homemade pizza and salad
Used up all leftovers and had an essentially empty fridge before shopping!!!! Also made it nearly two weeks before grocery shopping which ends up saving us more $, though I don't like doing it
Inspiring post--and comments--as usual! Thanks everyone.
The butter at Aldi may have qualified for a markdown for the asking....I've had success there with getting discounts in several situations.
I did ask a few years ago about a markdown, but I was told that they don't mark down damaged goods. I wonder if that varies Aldi to Aldi or something.
I enjoy your grocery posts, but I miss the stuffed animals. The first time I read your blog 7 years ago there were stuffed animals all over the food, and I thought "why does she buy stuffed animals every time she buys groceries?" Then I saw a note about your kids adding them into the pictures. Your kids grew up!
Hi! I read you all the way from Tijuana, México. I love your writing and your so down to earth aproach to every day living. I just wanted to stop by and say hi. I read you every day!!
Aww, thanks for saying hi! I love to hear from readers...don't be a stranger. 🙂