What I Spent
Let’s see. First, I made an official shopping trip earlier in the week and spent $130.
Then I went to Costco and dropped $80.03 on pistachios, frozen fruit, butter, and coffee.
Plus, it was a produce box week, which cost $32.
And finally, I stopped by the product stand and happened upon a box of marked-down bruised fruit for $10.
This means I’m at $252 for the week, which is definitely higher than usual.
These things usually average themselves out, though, and I imagine that the coming weeks will probably not all be $250+.
What We Ate
Monday
I made some shrimp and fish tacos (fish for Zoe, who is allergic to shrimp). I basically used the fish taco recipe, but put the rub on the fish and on the shrimp.
I cooked the fish first and set it aside so that it wouldn’t touch the shrimp. Poor Zoe gets an itchy mouth if there’s any cross-contamination at all, so I gotta be pretty careful.
Tuesday
I made BBQ chicken legs and we also had applesauce from the freezer, and no-knead batter rolls.
Wednesday
We had Teriyaki Chicken, plus cornbread (I know. That’s a weird side for teriyaki chicken. But it’s my house, and I will make weird meals if I want to.)
We had watermelon too.
Thursday
I grilled some sausages, and we ate them with veggie chips and fresh peaches.
Friday
Pizza, because, of course! The weather promises not to be stiflingly hot, so I think I’ll opt for an oven pizza, and save the grilled pizza for hotter days.
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What did you eat for dinner this week? And was your first week of grocery shopping this month on budget?
(Unlike mine!)
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P.S. Joshua and I got another installment of our 52 project up.
Lorraine
Saturday 6th of August 2016
I splurged on some Rancho Gordo beans so my remaining grocery budget for the last two weeks has been $30 per week (for one person). I only went $2.50 over so I am super excited about that.
This past week was a lot of leftovers for dinner and a lot of sandwiches with fruit for lunch.
Sat/Sun/Mon - Crock pot pepper steak with differnt veggies each night including artichokes, zucchini and green salad.
Tues/Wed/Thurs - chicken tacos with zucchini one nght, and grapefruit 2 nights.
Fri. - Went out to dinner with my spending money (not food budget),
Tina
Saturday 6th of August 2016
On vacation this week with 3 other families so we shared meals. Unfortunately we will go over budget because we are eating out 3 nights this week. One thing I learned is that in Arizona price of food is almost half of California. For example a gallon of milk is $1.98 in AZ while in CA I pay $3.98 a gallon. I was amazed at how inexpensive groceries were. I always feel bad as I can never keep my groceries at $125 a week. We spend more like $200 per week. We spent $125 for 4 1/2 days while in AZ that includes paper plates and other supplies, 8 cases of water plus 8 gallons of milk, etc...
Sunday: pizza night at a restaurant Monday: taco night Tuesday: spaghetti night Wednesday: terakayi chicken with garlic bread and Caesar salad Thursday: Fajitas night Friday: eat out. Ate at Shake shack in Las Vegas and it was $62 for the 4 of us. Very expensive. Saturday: eat out
We had one fancy day if breakfast where we made egg burrittos and the rest of the week had cereal or took advantage of the hotel's free breakfast. Lunches mostly sandwiches or leftovers.
chris
Saturday 6th of August 2016
Why are groceries so much more in California? You must have SO MUCH local produce, dairy and meat. What causes the price hike? Taxes and regulation? Or maybe a case of "everything is expensive so everything is expensive"?
We are in Indiana and blessed with an amazing cost-of-living.
Liz
Saturday 6th of August 2016
Monday -Breakfast for dinner featuring cooks country French toast (my fave), scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, cheese grits, breakfast potatoes and fruit. My kids' favorite night. Tuesday - We hosted our neighborhood National Night Out block party. It was a potluck. We had hotdogs for our family and brought a cabbage/kohlrabi/broccoli/ carrot slaw that was yummy. There was so much food to go around and we had a great time with our neighbors. We provided plates, utensils, napkins, cups, cold water, ketchup and mustard for all and have plenty leftover for next year. Wednesday- pizza night for the kids and my husband served with snap peas and watermelon. I ate at a friend's house and brought a colorful salad with homemade Asian peanut dressing. Thursday- My kids and husband were at my in-laws' as my mothrr-in-law often watches the kids when I have a full day of consulting work. They had hot dogs there and I had a Salami-Lettuce-Tomato sandwich. This is my new favorite and may even rival the BLT. Friday- we were at a local county Fair and ate at the 4H building I used to volunteer at when I was a young student. We shared cheeseburgers, fries and hotdogs.
With my (relatively) new consulting job, I've not been keeping track of my food budget. In July, we are spent $150 over our $400 budget including eating out. In August, I'm committing to tracking our budget closely (instead of seeing the damage at the end of the month). We've had a great start - $32 including our planned $22 meal at the 4H building. I will be shopping from the freezer and using our grocery funds to stock up on bath products/ ingrediens for freezer meals to prep for our third baby arriving in late September/ early October.
Kristen
Saturday 6th of August 2016
Your night out party sounds fun!
And congrats on your soon-to-arrive little one.
Suzan
Friday 5th of August 2016
I feel for your little girl. But I am pleased to see you help her deal with her allergies.
As usual I am having the hardest time remembering what we had. There are days when we eat left overs. They seem to go on forever. I managed one meal this week with all my children visiting and no fighting. My son is a chef and he helped me prep the vege for our roast chicken dinner. I am still so pleased about that. Even with the extra serves we still had leftover chicken and vege.
Diana
Friday 5th of August 2016
$80 for frozen fruit and pistachios???!! Which one was the really expensive item on that group? And is there no way to get those things cheaper? It seems like a really high amount for just a few items.
Kristen
Friday 5th of August 2016
Well, the three bags of fruit were all about $11 each, but they're 6 pound bags. The three pounds of pistachios were $17.99, the four pounds of butter were $10.49, the fresh strawberries were $3.79, and the coffee was $16.99.
So, it wasn't just fruit and pistachios (you missed the butter, coffee, and fresh strawberries) and it wasn't a paltry amount of anything. And this amount of fruit/butter/nuts will last us for a good deal more than a week.
These were all from Costco, and I carefully choose my purchases from Costco. If it's cheaper at Aldi, then I buy it there. But even the larger bags of frozen fruit from Aldi are not as cheap per pound as the fruit from Costco (trust me, I checked!)
Costco always FEELS very expensive when you go there because it's a lot of money up front. But what's more important than that is the cost per pound, and that's what I pay attention to.