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.
The Shopping (or not)
I went just last Friday, actually, so it’s only been very slightly over a week. And since we haven’t run out of food yet, I’m thinking I’ll just put off shopping until early next week.
Yes.
That sounds good.
I did spend $3 on a dozen eggs from a local blog reader.
Oh!
And I should tell you that this chicken-owning blog reader has offered to take my Asiago cheese off my hands as his chickens love cheese (even very pungent cheese. Hee.) So, I will not have to throw away my cheese, and the chickens will turn it into eggs. Fabulous.
(Thank you, David!)
Also, I just now remembered that I did stop at Costco last Saturday, where I spent $10 on milk and butter.
That means I’m at $13 spent right now.
So, I have a nice full grocery budget and a lovely empty-ish fridge, which will hopefully be even more empty by the time I go shopping.
One great thing about putting grocery shopping off for a bit is that it really makes me use up the odds and ends in my fridge. This is especially helpful on the produce end of things because when there’s no New! Fresh! Just-Bought! produce covering up the slightly older stuff, we’re a lot more likely to eat it up.
That’s good for the earth and my wallet.
Zee Menu
Since Mr. FG works second shift, we eat our dinner meal at noon during the week, and at night on the weekends. And our lunch meal happens at night during the week and at noon on the weekends.
We do eat breakfast in the morning, though, all week long!
Breakfast options are homemade yogurt, granola, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, fruit, and cereal.
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.
Here’s the dinner meal plan (a few meals got bumped again, but I promise I did cook at home every day last week!)
Saturday
- Takeout date night for Mr. FG and me, something easy for the kids
Sunday
- French Toast
- local sausage
- Orange Julius
Monday
- This is a bit up in the air at the moment. 😉
Tuesday
- Meatball Subs
- green salad
Wednesday
- Shrimp and Fish Creole
- garlic breadsticks
- green beans
Thursday
- Aussie Chicken
- Spinach Salad
- Potato Cubes
Friday
- Pizza. Not sure what kind yet.
Psst! In case you missed it yesterday (we were late getting it ready), Lisey’s got a new baking post up.
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Today’s 365 post: “Mommy, someone REALLY needs to sweep the floor!”
Joshua’s 365 post: An Un-Rainbow
Monique DiCarlo
Monday 13th of February 2012
Hi Kristen, thank you for inspiring me to no longer waste any food, getting pretty good at it now! I post my food waste on facebook with a link to your blog. Looking at your weekly budget I wonder how you do it? We live in the Washington DC metro area, where a 2 bedroom apartment goes for around $1500, My daughter (almost 9) and I live together and I spend around $500 on groceries a month (this does not include non-foods!). We do not eat meat every day and if we do, the portions are small, but high quality free range type of meat. I prepare our lunches and we eat out maybe once or twice a month. I am very health conscious and buy most products organic and no processed foods at all. I bake myself and cook from scratch. I wonder if it is our area or my shopping and would love to know how other readers do! Thanks! Monique
Jo@simplybeingmum
Sunday 12th of February 2012
Every couple of months I have a 'use it up' week, where I just buy the absolute essentials and raid my cupboards. This is getting harder to do however, as my fridge and freezer is so sparse most of the time. It's amazing what you can make with just a few basic store-cupboard ingredients. I made a curry Friday from 2 sweet pots, a can of toms, large handful of sultanas and peanuts, tablespoon of curry paste and peanut butter.
Jo@simplybeingmum
Sunday 12th of February 2012
p.s . The Kid's are on school hols...reckon we are gonna make those cookies this week - Thanks Lisey!
WilliamB
Saturday 11th of February 2012
Today I made two "clean out the fridge" dishes:
1) Veg Soup in Ham Stock. Used up brussels sprouts, turnips, and very salty ham stock from the Xmas ham. Also used onion, celery, carrot, rice, and beans (first cooked in the very salty ham stock). Absolutely to die for.
2) Chicken Enchilada Casserole. Used up Beggar's Chicken[1], cream-of-mushroom-soup sauce from a different dish, scallion, one of the excessive number of cans of baby corn I bought on excellent sale. Also Ro-Tel, grated cheese, and tortillas. OK but not even close to absolutely to die for.
I did such a good job cleaning out the fridge that I'll have to go shopping soon.
[1] a fancy Chinese dish in which one encases a whole, stuffed chix in flour-and-water dough and bakes it. Made tender, juicy, but bland chicken. The entire bird became ingredients in other dishes.
Heather :) :) :)
Saturday 11th of February 2012
I just started tracking my spending, and I"m posting about it ln Fridays now!!! It's one step closer to meal planning...but I did go shopping again today...but I didn't buy any hamburger, because I've got a whole bunch of chicken in the freezer. So in an effort to be a bit more frugal, I'm going to use all that up first!!! Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather :)
Megg
Saturday 11th of February 2012
Mmm, local eggs! I must say that I kinda laughed a little when I read that you can taste the difference non-local/grass fed chicken, until I realized I do the same with milk. We have our milk delivered from a local farm (milked from the cow on Monday, in our house on Tuesday!) and it tastes SO much better than regular milk. I didn't even notice until we ran out of milk and needed to buy more from the store. I need to find a way to use it up because I just can't drink it!
anon
Sunday 12th of February 2012
I am pretty sure that chicken fed on expired moldy cheese would taste different from grass fed chicken as well. I dont think expired cheese is standard feed for chicken. It is probably not ethical to feed expired foodstuff to livestock/poultry because some consumer couldnt put to use their food products in a timely fashion. I thought this blog was about frugality.