Grocery Shopping and Meal Plan: January 27-31

Hope you had a great weekend.  Mine was awesome!  Well, Sunday was.  Ryan was home all day and let me have the day off.  I cleaned out Beckham’s closet and packed away all his clothes that didn’t fit anymore.  Did laundry, grocery shopped without a baby, and cleaned some more!  It was great!
If you read last week’s groceries/meal plan you’ll remember I had $25 to spend this week.  Well folks, I did not make the budget!  Stupid $300!!!  I wonder if we budget too small since it is always hard to stay within this, but I have to remember this was basically our budget before little man started eating real food.  His whole milk alone is an extra $25 a month.  I LOVE cooking and baking things, so meals are a big deal around this house. 
These were our groceries this week.  We needed paper towels AND toilet paper, but since I was trying to keep it low, I bought just enough to get us through Thursday.  

The items on the left (blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, and milk) were bought at Kroger ($10.04).  All other items were bought at Wal-Mart (41.94).  In total this week, we spent $51.98.  You might be noticing some “indulging” items on the right.  Yes, I splurged and bought ingredients for a white chocolate raspberry mini bundt cake.  The saying “Do I say, not as I do” is popping into my head right now as I write this post. Those ingredients alone cost $10.  Smart decision? No!  Did it kill our budget? No.  That is the good thing about having no debt…you can be more flexible with your budget!  Plus, since I’m in our budget almost daily, I knew I had some wiggle room, without hurting our overall budget this month.   
Before I get to the menu and total bill, look at this mini bundt cake.  There is a store down the street called Nothing Bundt Cakes and they sell the most delicious bundt cakes.  They’re so expensive though, so I decided to make my own ($4 at store vs. $0.83 homemade).  I asked another food blogger if she could make this cake, since it’s my favorite at the store.  This recipe is from Shay at Mix and Match Mama.  Her recipes rock!  Her bundt cakes are creative.  She’s the sister of Sean Lowe, the Bachelor.  This is how they decorate their cakes in the store (cut a hole in a plastic baggie to ice cake).
 
Ok, so back to the menu and total bill!  Here’s what’s on the menu this week at the Snyders:

• Paper towels ($8-9/8 pick-a-size)
• Toilet paper ($5-6/12 double rolls)
• Organic whole milk ($5.29/gallon)
• Lean ground turkey ($4-5/lb)
• Low sugar/calorie wheat bread ($3.50/loaf)
• A good Prenatal multi-vitamin ($14/30 pills…no, we’re not trying to get pregnant )