Grocery Spending/Menu Plan | Well, just grocery spending, actually!

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.

Hi, everyone!

I’m working on kind of a tight schedule this weekend (all for fun and good reasons, though!), so this will just be a grocery report and not a menu plan post. I do have grocery pictures, though…four, in fact, because I separated my groceries into categories this week.

Here are a few toiletries that I bought.

This is the produce.

These are my pantry-ish purchases (although OJ is in there, and that’s not a pantry item. Whoops. And should canned fruit go in the produce picture? Who knows?).

And these are the animal products I bought.

I spent $112.75 at Aldi and $70.80 at Weis. Plus, I sent Mr. FG to the store earlier in the week to get a couple of things and he spent $7. So my total for these two weeks is $190.55, which gives me $10 for a mid-week produce/milk run. That’ll be a bit tight, but I think I can make it work.

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Tamika

Monday 11th of April 2011

Seriously??? All that for $183???? I have my latest picture on my blog of last week's grocery shop - and its kinda even more depressing although at the time I was so proud of it! LOL

Stacey

Have you ever tried going "no poo" before? I was reading about it last week and I'm considering trying it (baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead of shampoo and conditioner) for health and money-saving benefits, but I'm feeling anxious about the transitional period.

Karen S.

Sunday 10th of April 2011

Hmmmm...let me guess what your meals are. Asian glazed tilapia, shrimp-pasta, grilled chicken salad, pizza at least twice...am I at least close?

Sarah

You do real well. With the price increases in gas and ect.. it is costing me $50 more per week now.

Lori

I have two comments: first, I found a way to save money on lunch meat and that is not to buy it at all. When chicken breasts are on sales at my local discount grocery store (ALPS--Always Low Prices Store) like they were on Friday for $.99 per pound, I bought about 7 pounds. I skin them and put as many into my stock pot as I can (or I roast them). Then when they are cooked and cooled, I shred them and put them into small zip bags and freeze them. For lunches, my hubby comes home and has a quick chicken taco--chicken, a little spicy seasoning and some cheese in the microwave. My child who goes to school gets a chicken salad sandwich--meaty, filling and healthier and cheaper than store-bought deli meat! My second comment is this--well, it is really a question: how do you get Mr. FG to only spend $7 when you send him to the store??!!

Lori - I do the same thing. I do this with our leftover pork chops and roasts (either beef or venison). I shred them and put them in reuseable containers in the freezer. The kids can make their own sandwiches at school since by the time lunch rolls around the meat is defrosted but is still cold and 'healthy'.

Kristen

Oh, he's actually better than me at not picking up extraneous items at the store. He does occasionally pick up a small treat, but it's not a regular occurrence. :)