So I get all these amazing ideas on Pinterest and try my hand at doing the stuff myself! This time around it was planning my meals for 2 months and buying the groceries for a muuuuuch lower price than one usually would and killing the idea of 10+ trips to the store each month! A lot of the other bloggers I snagged the idea from were feeding families much larger than mine for prices like $250 or $500 per month so my initial budget was to stay under $500 for 2 months!
I started out making a meal list with Kyle(mostly by myself but he threw in a couple meal ideas). We decided that eating out 2-3 times per month would be some what manageable with our new budget and we would eat leftovers one night each week.. So 45 meals was what I would grocery shop for! Here is the list of meals we came up with!
I started out making a meal list with Kyle(mostly by myself but he threw in a couple meal ideas). We decided that eating out 2-3 times per month would be some what manageable with our new budget and we would eat leftovers one night each week.. So 45 meals was what I would grocery shop for! Here is the list of meals we came up with!
Kyle also eats leftovers for "lunch" (3AM) at work so a lot of times there won't be enough leftovers to do that once a week so we'll eat soup or sandwiches or something simple that is always stocked in our pantry.
After I made the meal list, I had to go through the cupboards and see what ingredients I already had before making a grocery list... I'm a food hoarder so I have A LOT of what I need at all times because I stock up when things are on sale. But here is a typed copy of our grocery list..... the written copy is MIA and too sloppy for anyone to understand anyway! (Please acknowledge the fact that we get WIC (judge if you wish but the income guidelines for a family of 5 are close to $50,000 a year and with one person working, we DON'T make that!!!) so quite a few costs are cut on my grocery trips, including milk, some cheese, some bread, cereal, some fruits & veggies, and baby food!) I see that as a big slam dunk because all of those things are big ticket items at check out... But the biggest cost on any trip is MEAT.. and we're fortunate there because we have a freezer full of pork from our pig, Bacon, last year. That stock is pretty much depleted now so next trip will probably cost more than this one did. ($253 for 45 meals doesn't include milk, sandwich cheese, some of the bread, or the crazy amount of Cheerios we eat!)
The grocery list I'm posting was something I typed up yesterday for a friend.. It is not everything I bought for the $253.. I also stocked up on like 15 cans of Progresso Recipe Starters that I found for $.50 per can, bread I got deeply discounted, chips, rice cakes, Flinstones vitamins, and various other snacks I found on really good sales at Big Lots! The Grocery List document is ONLY ingredients for the meals on the list above! I'll post pics of the results of my trip!!!
After I made the meal list, I had to go through the cupboards and see what ingredients I already had before making a grocery list... I'm a food hoarder so I have A LOT of what I need at all times because I stock up when things are on sale. But here is a typed copy of our grocery list..... the written copy is MIA and too sloppy for anyone to understand anyway! (Please acknowledge the fact that we get WIC (judge if you wish but the income guidelines for a family of 5 are close to $50,000 a year and with one person working, we DON'T make that!!!) so quite a few costs are cut on my grocery trips, including milk, some cheese, some bread, cereal, some fruits & veggies, and baby food!) I see that as a big slam dunk because all of those things are big ticket items at check out... But the biggest cost on any trip is MEAT.. and we're fortunate there because we have a freezer full of pork from our pig, Bacon, last year. That stock is pretty much depleted now so next trip will probably cost more than this one did. ($253 for 45 meals doesn't include milk, sandwich cheese, some of the bread, or the crazy amount of Cheerios we eat!)
The grocery list I'm posting was something I typed up yesterday for a friend.. It is not everything I bought for the $253.. I also stocked up on like 15 cans of Progresso Recipe Starters that I found for $.50 per can, bread I got deeply discounted, chips, rice cakes, Flinstones vitamins, and various other snacks I found on really good sales at Big Lots! The Grocery List document is ONLY ingredients for the meals on the list above! I'll post pics of the results of my trip!!!
The trip totaled out with something like 49lbs of meat, 10 bags of tortillas, a bag of dog food 2 dozen english muffins, 5 loaves of bread 4lbs of rice, 15lbs potatoes, 4 bottles of vitamins, 6 bags of chips, 5 protein bars, 2 boxes instant oatmeal, 4 packages of kids travel cereal, 1 bag of honey nut scooters cereal, 2 boxes mac n cheese, and a whole bunch of other random little things I didn't account for originally. The only item I came home without was a corned beef!!!