Hey y’all, I’m Joy. I’m going to be sharing my weekly grocery shopping adventures with you. I have a family of five that includes my husband, myself, and our three children. Our kids are ages 18 (man child), 15 (man child) and 5 (princess). My husband and I both work full-time and we eat dinner at home 95% of the time.
Our monthly grocery budget is $375.00. We have a few shopping challenges. My husband is allergic to peanuts and monosodium glutamate, and my princess is allergic to tree nuts. We often find that we cannot purchase processed or boxed foods. For this reason, our grocery bill generally runs a little higher with fresh ingredients. Hear me: we still buy Pop-Tarts and such, we just have a hefty produce bill.
Every week I make a menu for the following week. I start this menu by taking a blank weekly menu and writing in any days we will eat away from home, whether that be out to eat, visiting family, church or a social engagement. Then I check my freezer to see what meats we have on hand already. We are meat eaters and have meat at every dinner meal. I fill those meats into a few of the blank days of my menu and then make those meats into meals. After that, I finish off the last remaining days by creating meals in those last empty boxes. My menu is usually something simple to prepare like a grilled meat, baked/sautéed vegetable and a side dish like rice or potatoes. Also, we eat a lot of tacos, because we love them. I make my grocery list and then go and shop my own pantry before I head to Kristin’s website to look for coupons. I also check Publix and Bi-lo’s websites to see what they have on sale.
For this week, our budget was $80.00. My goal is to always have seven meals (unprepared) in our freezer. This keeps me from running back and forth to the store. For the summer, our oldest is away working at camp so that puts me down to four people to feed. We have four days next week when we will eat away from home (all free!). For that reason, this was a good week for me to stock up on some breakfast foods like waffles, sausage, and Toaster Strudel. My kids are not cereal eaters and since I am not home in the mornings, they need quick and easy. I also stocked up on some snacks like granola bars, cereal bars and fruit snacks that can be taken along in the car for some weekend adventures we have planned. I had things like chicken, hamburger meat, shredded cheese and yogurt also included on my list.
I took my list, my $80.00 in cash, coupons and my 15 year old to the grocery store with me. I shopped the sales, used my coupons and my 15 year old man child threw a few extra things into my buggy like Powerades and Pirate’s Booty. My total at check out before the sales were applied and I handed over my coupons was $113.82. The sales and coupons knocked $37.17 off of my bill making my grand total $76.65. I was $3.35 under budget.
My total grocery bill for the month of June to date is $116.65 which puts me at 31% of our monthly grocery budget. This grocery trip put me well into the following week with breakfast foods and a few meals. This should knock my grocery budget down a little for the next week as well.
I’ll be back soon. Have a fun time saving!
