A Week's Worth of Groceries Experiment...and Help

Updated 8/20 below in red!
I was preparing for my usual grocery run when I came across a great blog about money saving (and tons more) here and I thought I would use her format for grocery shopping/meal planning. It is well organized and neat! I also can share it with you guys each week if I do it this way. My only concern was it taking too long. It actually didn’t and I’m hoping it makes me stick to my list better since it’s more thought out and organized. So this is essentially an experiment. I blew our grocery budget already (yes my tips don’t always work for me either), so I’m curious to see how much this helps me at the store financially.

So I came up with my meal ideas and started typing them out. When I was doing this I thought “oh this will be great for all my teacher friends who are starting back this week. They can just print and go shop!” So hopefully this, not only gives you an idea of how you can plan, but gives you 5 meal ideas and a grocery list.

I don’t know how to link a Word document into my blog (well, I just don’t want to learn right now), so I just copy and pasted it below. It looks SO much better in a document. A few notes to add:
-Bolded items are what I already have at the house
-Prices in parenthesis are price matches since I’ll be shopping at Walmart tomorrow.
-The link to the recipe is below the menu item.

YAY! I LEANED HOW TO INSERT A DOCUMENT. Click here for the menu of meals and grocery list if you want to print the document.

MEALS for Aug
20-26:

Breakfast: Fiber Muffins (already made) and cereal and
coffee. These muffins are AWESOME and make 4 dozen. Click on the name to get the recipe.

Lunch: PBJ and leftovers

Dinner: 5 Meals planned; other 2 nights are leftovers and
dinner out

Taco Soup and Cornbread (makes a huge pot)

Recipe from my friend Amie. Just cook meat/onions and combine
ingredients. I drain and rinse
pinto/black beans.

·
1 pound ground beef or turkey

·
1 chopped onion

·
2 cans pinto beans

·
2 cans Rotel

·
1 can Ranch Style beans

·
1 pkg Zatarains Black Beans and Rice

·
1 can black beans

·
1 can cream style corn

·
1 envelope ranch style dressing mix

·
1 envelope taco seasoning

·
Jiffy cornbread mix

Garlic Chicken and Mac/Cheese (chicken for 2,
macaroni for family size)

http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-garlic-chicken-5478

·
2 chicken
breasts

·
4 garlic
cloves

·
4 tbsp
brown sugar

·
3
teaspoons olive oil

·
2 cups
uncooked noodles (using leftover spirals)

·
¾ cups
Parmesan cheese

·
¾ cup cheddar cheese

·
½ cup skim milk

·
2 egg whites

·
1 T.
Dijon mustard

·
1/4 tsp salt

·
1/4 tsp pepper

·
1 cup finely chopped cauliflower

·
1 16 oz. bag frozen peas

·
1/4 cup
bread crumbs

Buttermilk Pancakes and Eggs and Sausage Links
(pancakes for 4?…may half it, eggs/sausage for 2)

http://www.blissfulanddomestic.com/2012/03/buttermilk-pancakes.html

·
2 cups
flour

·
2 tsp
baking powder

·
1 tsp
baking soda

·
½ tsp
salt

·
3 T.
sugar

·
2 eggs

·
3 cups buttermilk

·
4 T. melted butter

·
6 eggs for scramble

·
Frozen
sausage links in freezer

Foil Chicken (makes 4 servings)

http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/194728/foil-pack-chicken-and-broccoli-dinner-15

·
1 package cornbread stuffing

·
2 chicken
breast pounded out and cut in half

·
4 cups broccoli

·
Real
bacon bits

·
4 T ranch
dressing

·
About 1
cup shredded cheese

Homemade Pizza (makes 2)

Ha! Umm no explanation.

·
2 prepared pizza crusts

·
Spaghetti
sauce

·
4 cups mozz cheese

·
Mushrooms

·
Sausage

·
Green Peppers

·
Can olives

·
¼ cup of onion from taco soup recipe

Beckham:

Already made – Kiwi,
Sweet Potatoes, Squash, Applesauce

Need to make – Carrots,
Mangoes, Pears, Peas, Quinoa

GROCERY LIST:

Canned Items:

2 cans pinto beans

2 cans Rotel

1 can Ranch Style beans

1 can black beans

1 can cream style corn

Canned chopped olives

Pantry Items:

1 pkg Zatarains Black Beans and Rice

1 envelope ranch style dressing mix

1 envelope taco seasoning

Jiffy cornbread mix

Cornbread stuffing

Pizza crust

Chips (both R and O)

Tuna (.69 for Ch of Sea at Kroger)
Earth’s Best Organic Oatmeal (added)

Meat:

1 pound ground beef/turkey

1 pound sausage

Fridge/Freezer
Items:

¾ cup cheddar cheese

skim milk

eggs

2 bags frozen peas

Buttermilk (3 cups)

4 cups mozzarella cheese

Produce:

1 cup cauliflower

Broccoli (1 cup)

Mushrooms

Green pepper

Strawberries (1.99 for 1 lb TTh)

Cantaloupe (.99 TTh)
Bananas (added)
Green Onion (added)
2 Sweet Potatoes (added)

Non-Food Items:

Prenatal Multi-vitamins (removed)

Children’s clock (just look)

CD player (just look)

I just LOVE the last part. She writes her list in categories. I know I’m such a dork, but doesn’t this just make the grocery trip much better already? If you’re like me, you get down to the dairy section and realize you forgot a canned item that you didn’t see on your list when you were down the canned food aisle. That’s so annoying! Most of these items will be close together in the store.

So I’ll update tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday and let you know what my total bill was and if I’ll do this again. Beckham is going with me so I hope this organized list helps with that.

Results: After going to the store, here are my thoughts:

The shopping experience was much faster, and I successfully managed with a 9 month old (during his nap time, I might add). My kid did great, but he’s pretty much awesome. Haha!

The trip total took me about 45 minutes, BUT that is including loading/unloading a child (and making sure all toys and puffs were in place before we entered) and a stupid transaction error on Walmart’s end. The key pad broke after everything was rung up, so I had to purchase the items at another register. Luckily, they didn’t have to rescan everything, but just had to scan my card at another one. It took an extra 5 minutes that I wouldn’t have otherwise used. So about 40 minutes from getting out of the car to pulling out of the parking lot!

I added a few items and took off my Vitamins since I saw I had enough for this week. The items I added/removed are in red above in the list. My TOTAL BILL was $59.14!

Granted, we’ve already gone over budget for groceries this month, I thought that was pretty good for a weekly trip. We didn’t have to get a lot of non-food items like paper towels, soap, etc… so this is probably one of our cheaper trips. I didn’t skimp out on the meals though and am excited to eat each one. I can’t stand when I get to a night of “eating what we have” so we can get rid of it!

The only bad thing about this grocery trip was I forgot ONE stupid thing – an onion. Really?! And it’s for tonight’s meal. Now I will say it was not on my list, but I forgot to copy it from my meals to my grocery list. So here lies one con to this system.

All in all, I WILL be doing this again so I can see how it affects the month’s budget and not just one week. I’ll keep you posted. Things I like about it:

It’s neat
I have all my recipes in one spot (they’re also written on my menu board in the kitchen)
It makes the grocery trip much faster
Oddly, I was able to resist the impulse buys more (not sure why, buy hey, I’ll take it)
I will be able to go back and see previous meal ideas and what I need so it should make the preparing easier too
I can easily find the cost of a meal by just adding up the ingredients since they’re already written down, which will help in the long run financially
And for my insanely dorky side, it was actually fun!

So I hope you can use this for something, whether it’s recipes or to help with grocery shopping!

Bon Appetit!