Grocery Spending/Menu Plan | 4 weeks ’til vacation!

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.

Yep, we’re super counting down to our annual Myrtle Beach trip!

(Those of you who always wonder when I buy toiletries should take note of this week’s photo…there’s shampoo, condition, deodorant, and toothpaste in the picture!)

I spent $44.37 at Weis. I actually used 6 coupons there this week, which was a little bit unusual for me. I printed two Kellogg’s cereal coupons from the Kellogg’s website (some are also available on Coupons.com), I used two coupons from a free Weis magazine (it’s at the customer service desk at my store and it has a $1/produce coupon and a $1/mozzarella coupon, so go look for one if you have a Weis!), a $.50/1 Ball Pectin coupon (which was doubled to $1), and a few coupons from the inserts my mom gave me.

I spent $52.06 at Aldi, I spent $5 on a local watermelon and I forgot to mention last week that I spent $5 on local eggs from my dear blog reader who shares his with me (Thank you, David!). So, I’m at $106.43 for the week, but that’s no problem because I’ve been under for the past several weeks.

I’ll be visiting the produce stand on Monday to buy some corn, green beans, and watermelon, but I’ll count that spending in next week’s grocery post.

I did a little bit of meal juggling this past week (I’m happy to report that it didn’t involve any takeout!), so some of these meals have been bumped fro last week’s menu plan.

Saturday

• We’re having an honest-to-goodness, out of the house, no-kids date night tonight. Yay! One of my cousins (for my friend Laura, who is keeping track, this is yet another cousin not previously mentioned here!) is babysitting for us, and we’re grateful.

Sunday

• It’s our anniversary, so I think we might feed the kids something easy and then eat sushi by ourselves. 😉

Monday

• Tomato-Basil Chicken Paninis
• local corn
• green salad

Tuesday

• Broiled Tilapia fillets
• local watermelon
• Spinach Salad (probably topped with Spiced Pecans)

Wednesday

• Cilantro Chicken Pasta Salad
• homemade English Muffins
• green beans

Thursday

• Tacos, made with local beef
• local watermelon
• tortilla chips and salsa

Friday

• It’s our weekly at-home date night, which means the kids will eat something easy, and Mr. FG and I will have some takeout.

I’m having a super-easy week, aren’t I? In 7 days, I’ve got three evenings where I don’t really have to cook. Sweet.

Today’s 365 post: Why yes, we have been recycling notebooks!