WIS, WWA | I'm under, but not really. Oof.
What I Spent
I got a Hungry Harvest delivery ($25).
I spent $34.11 on an Aldi run, and then $32.45 at another local grocery store.
And lastly, Mr. FG and I made a quick stop for bananas, carrots, and milk, and that ran us $4.43.
I'm coming in at $95.99, so we'll just say $96.
Which is very fabulous, but due to my super high spending on week one, I'm still over for the month. Ugh.
In fact, in order to come in on budget this month ($150/week), I need to spend only $103 this coming week. Can I do it???
March Spending
Week 1: $245
Week 2: $156
Week 3: $96
What We Ate
Saturday
Mr. FG and I hit up the taco truck for our date night. $15 of deliciousness!
Sunday
I made Asian chicken lettuce wraps along with some potstickers from Costco's freezer section.
I cut up some fresh fruit as well.
Monday
I sauteed some fish fillets and topped 'em with a mango salsa.
We also had corn and green beans from our Hungry Harvest box.
Tuesday
We were here and there and everywhere!
Mr. FG ate out with his uncle, and the kids and I all fended for ourselves individually.
(I ate a plate of scrambled eggs, roasted beets, and sautéed pepper, onion, and carrots.)
Wednesday
I had a beef brisket in the freezer from our last side of local beef, so I thawed that and made onion-braised beef brisket from my big Cook's Illustrated cookbook.
I also made a fruit salad, and I wanted to make mashed potatoes, but I had no potatoes in the house. Nuts.
So we just toasted some homemade whole wheat bread to eat with our brisket.
Thursday
It was one of those days where late afternoon rolled around and I had no dinner plans.
I hate that feeling!
My freezer saved me, though. I dug around, found stuff to thaw and made green salads with bacon, brinerated and grilled chicken, cheese tortellini, carrots, snap peas, and avocado.
Phew. Crisis averted.
I also found some homemade French bread in the freezer and I used that to make garlic bread.
Friday
I think I'll make some homemade pizza.
This week's theme is phoning it in on the vegetables . . .
Saturday: Country pork ribs, baked potatoes, carrot sticks with ranch dressing
Sunday: Pot roast, rice, steamed carrots and broccoli
Monday: Tacos with leftover beef, Mexican slaw, black beans, leftover broccoli and carrots
Tuesday: Italian sausage links, roasted bell peppers and shallots, roasted potatoes, green salad, baked apples
Wednesday: Steak, Texas toast, peas
Thursday: Chili , rice, carrot sticks and bell pepper strips
Tonight: I think vegetable soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, if I can get the soup made
Saturday- Moms for corn beef and Cabbage, (she also made pot roast for those who don't do Corn beef)
Sunday- Did spaghetti sauce in the crock pot while we at a soccer tournament with DD, so we had Ravioli's, (I threw in a pork chop in sauce, and a few meatballs) fresh bread.
Monday- Made sausage, peppers, onions and potato in the oven, kids had left over sauce with pasta.
Tuesday- Breakfast for dinner, French toast, bacon. cut up and apple, strawberries, blackberries.
Wednesday-planned on chicken pot pie, but didn't have a pie crust! Darn it! So chicken Alfredo instead! Chicken cutlets for DS. I think I also had a salad.
Thursday- Pulled out of the freezer, left over Beef Stew, rolls. kids had pizza and such since they don't do stew!
Friday- not too sure, Might be pizza, might be Fish. We will see if DS has soccer practice or not. (snowed on Wednesday, I am so over the snow!)
I have never went to a taco truck. Got to add that to the to-do list. My town is just now beginning to get food trucks popping up. Ok, here goes.
Monday- Baked chicken with spring mix and rice. Simple but delicious. Lemon juice and olive oil were drizzled over the salad.
Tuesday- Grilled cheese sandwiches with carrots
Wednesday- Spaghetti and some of us had a sweet potato on the side.
Thursday- I made an interesting PB sandwich that was so good I gobbled it up immediately after I took pictures of it to post on the blog, lol. I just couldn't wait.
Friday- I'm not sure, one kid is spending the night away from home, so we may go out. I usually split a meal with my youngest so we can usually eat for not much.
$15 for a date night sounds awesome! Does your family usually have snacks or supper after dinner? I'm not sure if it's just the small photo, but sometimes I feel like I could have a second portion 😀
Hmm, are you referring to the photo of the eggs and veggies? I ate that at 9 pm (!), so I definitely didn't have time to get hungry before bed.
If you just mean my food pictures in general: sometimes when I take a picture of a plate, it's not a representative sample of what any one person in my family ate; it's just the amount that looks pleasing in a photograph. Like with the lettuce wrap photo....we had pot stickers and wontons with those, and I ate more than three wraps. But three looked nice in the photo! 😉
The weekends are our nemesis.
3/16 Friday: Lil' Ceaser' Pizza $15
3/17 Saturday: Grilled Hamburgers at home. Ice Cream out with grandkids $13
3/18 Sunday: Taco Bell $20
3/19 Monday Every man for himself (I was ill)
3/20 Tuesday Chili
3/21 Wednesday Leftover chili
3/22 Thursday Grilled Chicken, with a Large Salad
Monday: Beef shoulder roast, mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed vegetables.
Tuesday: I went to a movie at the local library (which turned out to be a bust because the disc malfunctioned and we couldn't finish it) so my wife ordered a pizza.
Wednesday: Snoopy waffles, bacon, eggs and fruit.
Thursday: Literal clean out the fridge day. I fried up a leftover baked potato which my daughter ate along with some leftover roast beef. I had roast beef and a
Friday: Pork chops, rice and some other details I haven't yet worked out.
I had a salad. No idea why I didn't finish that sentence. ^_^;;
I skimmed the Friday part of your comment and my brain read it as you saying you needed to work out before dinner. And I was like, hmm, that's weird! Battra has never mentioned needing to work out before he cooks dinner in the past! Ha.
That's a fabulous array of food for the week 🙂 and I can you can definitely pull under $150 to finish on budget. The pizza looks amazing. I bought some apples, spinach, melons on sale. Some ramen brands I've wanted to try, fish sticks...fries...generally a depressing food week because we've been busy and will be busy until next month. And it's raining everyday here.
How long does food prep and dinner cost time wise for your family?
You know, I'm not sure! I never have calculated it all out. I know it varies greatly from day to day, depending on what I'm making for dinner. It's a little difficult to calculate even if I tried, because often, food prep meshes with other things I'm doing.
For instance, I might put something on the stove and correct a kid's math paper while it's browning, and then do another step in the recipe and then make a phone call.
If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say I spend an hour on dinner prep each night, on average. But considering that a dinner out for us andour kids easily costs $50, that's time well spent. Not to mention that what I make at home is almost always healthier than what we'd eat if we went out.
It would be interesting to know what the average food prep time is for families in America.
I think that's about right! We spend a hour cooking if we are cooking a meal too. It's a time suck with the clean up so we've been addicted to turning on the oven for a quicker clean up because it's all in one big sheet pan or bowl 🙂
No dinners out around here for $50!! I generally spend an hour to 90 minutes on a meal, but I do try to make that last as 2 meals and a couple lunches, or at least parts of those. I like leftovers, so my second night is "bonus" that takes NO time. I know that some people don't like to take the time, or need to get a quick dinner on the table, but I really enjoy the time I spend preparing meals.
Let me start by saying that I generally don't buy a big quantity of produce because my husband basically only eats broccoli (which I get frozen from Costco). However, this week I had a $2 off $10 in produce coupon and there were a ton of Manager's Specials so I took advantage. Tomatoes, bagged lettuce, green beans, onion, mushrooms, etc. And it was up to me to eat all this!
Sunday - We grilled! The weather was pretty nice and I had marinated chicken to have with balsamic green beans, tomatoes, and mushrooms with wild rice.
Monday - Made pre-marinated pork in the instant pot (that I had gotten for $0.25 after Manager's Special and coupons!). The side was fried rice with egg. The pork was tough for some reason so I chopped it into more fried rice for lunch the next day.
Tuesday - I have class so I made a salad with Hard Boiled Eggs to eat between work and class. My husband had pizza rolls from the freezer (now I know he knows how to turn on the oven!) 😉
Wednesday - My husband had spaghetti and meatballs that were frozen. I had balsamic chicken with onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms over basmati rice.
Thursday - My husband is out of town for a ski trip. I used my final "free appetizer" coupon from a survey on a Noodles & Co receipt and got 10 Korean BBQ meatballs. Sauteed some veggies and ate 5 meatballs over rice. The other 5 I will have for lunch today over rice with veggies.
Friday - Meeting with the gf of the friend that my husband is out of town with. She is providing the wine and some appetizers so I am bringing sweet BBQ meatballs and tortilla chips (that I got free!) with guacamole.
Ooh, that sounds fun! Have a good time tonight.
"Dish" in the comments. Ha!
Sunday: Chicken soup (with peas, carrots, and celery incorporated therein) and cheese toast
Monday: Leftover chicken soup w/ bread and butter
Tuesday: Leftover chicken soup w/ cheese toast
Wednesday: Pasta, salad, bread
Thursday: Dinner out w/ hubby's family
Friday: leftovers from Wednesday
I am sooo punny.
The veggies and fruits on your menus is what I should aspire to!! We ate:
Monday - Turkey and Havarti Sammies on strawberry bread, low salt kettle chips
Tuesday - BBQ Beef and Beans, homemade garlic toast
Wednesday - Parmesan Chicken Whip Up, cabbage and carrots
Thursday - Leftover crock pot roast made into a stir fry over ramen, takeout crab puffs
Tonight - Turkey Pesto Meatballs over pasta, yellow squash
Saturday - Hubby and I will grill
Sunday - We're having Orange Chicken, rice, Arkansas Green Beans
I have managed to pare my grocery costs waaay down with one or two very cheap meals per week! And the leftovers go with me to work. (:
Yay for low grocery costs!!!
Getting my Hungry Harvest box makes me eat and serve way more produce because the produce shows up every week on its own. So, it's not up to me to be virtuous at the grocery store and buy it! That helps a lot.
Tell about Arkansas green beans!
DH has served a great week of meals - I'm going to have to up my game next week.
Sunday-chicken noodle casserole with salad
Monday-green chile chicken rice bowl (with black beans) and mango
Tuesday-skillet gnocchi dish with white beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, and cheese
Wednesday-leftovers
Thursday-leftovers
Friday-going out
Saturday-plans to make teriyaki pork sliders
After coming in rather high last week at $263, groceries came to $128 this week. It all balances out!
Monday - Chicken pot pie (we didn't eat at the same time, but since this reheats fine we did all eat the same thing)
Tuesday - Early group had chicken nuggets & broccoli; late group had Caesar salad and french onion soup
Wednesday - Tacos with corn
Thursday - Hot dogs and carrot sticks for the early group; homemade pizza for the late group
Friday - Tonight will be mac & cheese two ways. The adults will have homemade late. The kids will have boxed early (because they won't eat homemade).
We ate:
-Grilled Curried Lime Chicken Satay and Cauliflower with Rice (This was one of my Zaycon Fresh chicken meals and we ate it two nights in a row since there were leftovers).
-Pasta and Meatballs with Marinara Sauce (The meatballs and sauce were frozen a few weeks ago when I made a mega batch of meatballs and marinara sauce).
-Grilled Korean Chicken with Rice and Sliced Cucumbers (Another Zaycon Fresh chicken meal and it also lasted two nights because of leftovers).
-Tonight I'm planning to make copy-cat Chipotle Chicken with Rice Bowls. But I'm kind of tired of chicken, so I might make a pasta and Bolognese sauce tonight and save the Chipotle Chicken for tomorrow.
I didn't do too good this week:
Monday: Not much- wasn't feeling too well. Leftovers for the family
Tuesday: Spaghetti, peas and fries
Wednesday: Chicken,noodle, broccoli bake with green beans and corn
Thursday: Tacos
Friday: I'm thinking maybe eating dinner out? Maybe Chili's or Friday's? Something easy.
I'm getting error messages every time I try to write (not enough memory? May be my computer) but I can say that we had a weird menu week with my husband on clear liquids for two days for a procedure. I did fry chicken and bake chops on days he could eat, though.
I enjoy these posts - it’s nice to see how other people are nourishing families on a budget.
Our week has been weird and there’s been a lot of take-out... but that leaves more groceries for the coming week!
Ugh, I had the same budget woe happen to me this month. We stock up on all our organic meat at the beginning of the month. It's also our chance to bulk up on items at Costco. Of our $400 grocery budget, we spent $250 of it in the first week! Ouch. We have $30 left for next week's groceries, but after some creative planning, I think I can make it happen. 🙂
This week we ate:
Monday: Dinner with hubby's family at the sandwich shop.
Tuesday: Pumpkin chipotle chicken quesadillas. Surprisingly tasty!
Wednesday: Firehouse subs. I failed at dinner, so takeout it was.
Thursday: Farro parmigiano bake.
Friday: Corn dogs. My family is visiting this weekend, so we're improvising and moving some meals around. We'll eat corn dogs tonight so we can feed the fam the chicken salad we were going to have.
First time I have done this:
Sunday - We had snacky stuff while my kids were in town. Mozzarella sticks, buffalo chicken wings and chicken quesadillas. My youngest son was in town coaching a basketball tournament so the whole family went to watch and then ate after while watching more basketball.
Monday - I put a turkey breast in the crockpot. Had it with stuffing and green beans.
Tuesday - Hot turkey sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed carrots and broccoli
Wednesday - angel hair pasta with pork and steamed vegetables mixed in.
Thursday - DH repeated Tuesday and I repeated Wednesday dinner.
Tonight - Homemade pizza
Years ago I read about Cory Booker (New Jersey) who, as an experiment, tried to eat for a week on the money people get from Food Stamps (following SNAP rules about what he could buy as well). I was wondering if you ever considered a project like that with your kids, maybe as part of a home-schooling lesson? Or maybe do a week where you made recipes and are like in the The Great Depression (with ration portions and old recipes)? Maybe even watch that PBS series about people who lived in a 1940's house. Your goal of $100 for next week made me think of it, like it could be a fun challenge, again, perhaps tied to a school lesson or book?
I've thought about doing something like that before, when Katy from NCA did a food stamp challenge. But when I looked it up, the SNAP allotment in our area was more than I spend on a regular basis. I looked it up just now and this is still true...my budget is $250 less per month than what they'd give us for a household of six. I'm never quite sure what to make of that!
I know what you mean. I know a family of four (two toddlers, two adults). They get $600 a month. I only spend that amount or less on five of us (two adults, two boy teens and a 10 year old). I usually spend about $500 unless there's a special occasion or great stock up sales.
Wow! I just looked it up for California and, for a family of six? SNAP benefits are $913!!! Had no idea--
Love the random veggies and eggs dinner. Reminds me of some of the leftover lunches and dinners we have around here for a quick meal and to use up leftovers so they don't get thrown out.
Monday - don't quite remember, but I'm going to assume brown rice, meat and veggies.
Tuesday - venison stew (meat, onions, carrots, celery, cabbage and tomatoes)
Wednesday- ground meat, rice, carrots and asparagus
Thursday - Deer steak, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, carrots
I totally pushed the easy button this week as we’re all a bit tired of this cold weather and such.
Saturday through Friday we ate leftovers smorgasbord, pork rolls and veggie fried rice, spaghetti and meatballs, soup from the freezer and grilled cheese plus grapes, grilled kielbasa and veggie-loaded pasta salad, slow cooker pulled pork on buns with coleslaw, and last night I made deep dish pepperoni pizza and Caesar salad with berries and whipped cream for dessert. My spending has been a little random his month but so far at about $700 for the month and it’s likely I’ll need to shop once more next week - I guess that averages out to about $150 a week which is really good for us!
And my mental math was off...more like $175 a week for us. Pretty average.
Monday- Chicken sandwiches and lettuce salad
Tuesday- Spaghetti and Marinara Sauce
Wednesday- Scrambled eggs, toast and fruit
Thursday- Sloppy Joes, chips and fruit
Friday- Homemade Veggie pizza with cauliflower crust, bell peppers and hummus
We have an early spring farm share and I am so happy to have a box of local veg again every week.
Monday - pasta with roasted butternut squash and almonds, sauteed greens
Tuesday - pasta with oil and garlic and basil and grated cheese, mashed squash and turnips
Wednesday - rice with chick peas and carrots and kale
Thursday - pasta with spinach and mushrooms, roasted beets
Friday - rice with sauteed arugula, baked tofu, roasted carrots
We normally eat vegetarian at home, but my younger daughter has been sick. She’s better now, but she has definitely lost weight and is a little anemic. She’s not opposed to eating meat, so I got some beef and made stew for her and my husband last night. My older daugher and I ate leftover this and that and we all had rice.
I totally know the "this and that" kind of meal! Good for using up little bits of food you'd otherwise waste.