Since this is a new month, I wanted to continue my grocery experiment, but have a clean slate for the budget. I love the beginning of the month…no expenses are on the budget. We completely blew our budget last month on just about everything, but that was officially the last month we could afford to do that. This marks our first month without my income. We don’t know what Ryan will get either since we’re now on his insurance (side note: teacher insurance is the worst!), so we’re keeping it tight. Good thing with all our budgeting is we have plenty on the side if we calculate incorrectly. This is when I love that Ryan refs too.
Back to the grocery budget. I usually shop on Sundays, but it was Labor Day weekend, so I went on Monday (and Tuesday to pick up a few things). Before I shopped, I looked through the store ads and created a meal plan. This way I could see exactly what we needed and figure out where the best places were to purchase items. I price match a lot at Walmart, but Sprouts had a ton of stuff on sale, so I actually went to the store. Lesson learned about that though: I will go to Walmart first, then the other stores. I was at Walmart and saw their avocados $.20 cheaper (they looked great too). Oh well, lesson learned. I also went to Tom Thumb for the ground turkey because Walmart doesn’t have that brand.
I spent $7.00 at Tom Thumb. I spent $10.70 at Sprouts. I spent $72.11 at Walmart. So our total bill this week was $89.81. Not proud of that. I did splurge on some items (egg whites and protein bars). It just means we will have lower bills the following weeks. We budgeted $280 for groceries this month. That’s $70 a week. We’ll see!
Update (9/11/12) - I was going over our budget and realized, we did not spend $72.11 at Walmart liked I stated above. Well, we did, but it was not all for groceries (some was for house and Beckham). We spent $58.97 at Walmart. So our revised total bill for last week was $76.67.
Our menu in a nutshell:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Fruit, Healthy Breakfast Bowl, Ham & Egg Cups
Lunch: Ham & Avocado Sandwich, PBJ, Tuna (I usually have fruit and chips with it)
Dinner:
Monday - parent’s house
Tuesday - Chicken Pesto Sandwich and a salad
Wednesday - Steak, Potatoes, Spinach
Thursday - None (we’re both gone)
Friday - PF Changs Lettuce Wraps
Saturday - Sweet and Smokey Turkey Burgers, Potato Fries, Deviled Eggs
Sunday - Leftovers
If you remember, one of my goals for grocery shopping was to visit the store less often. I’m going to try my hardest to use what we have, even if that means adjusting a recipe.
Click here for all the meal plans, recipes, links, and grocery list. This is how I organize it so I can add it to our “Meal Plans” binder, which helps me when needing an idea for a recipe.
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