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Project: Food Budget – Week 6
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Budget: $70.00
Actual: $3.56 (meat market) and $61.50 (Kroger) – totaling $65.06
I’m pretty proud of our spending this week! I bought 2 pounds of chicken last Wednesday or Thursday at a local meat market and that was a savings of $6.82 over what we would have spent on 2 pounds of chicken from Kroger (chicken breasts were $5.19/lb at Kroger, versus $1.99/lb at the meat market). And our spending at Kroger this week was pretty great considering I bought a ton of random things we don’t normally buy – a lot of snack food, mostly. It was time to stock up on the snacks.
My total savings was $18.20 – best yet! I used a lot more coupons this week, too. At Kroger we saved $11.38 from coupons and the Kroger plus card (mostly it was coupons).
Here are our meals this week:
Wednesday (02/15) – Leftover Spinach & Lasagna Rolls
Thursday (02/16) – New England Pot Roast (FINALLY! This has been on the menu for weeks!)
Friday (02/17) – Lentil & Cauliflower Stew, from the Gorgeously Green Diet (didn’t get to it last week)
Saturday (02/18) – Date night! We will probably hit up one of our favorite restaurants, Guru India
Sunday (02/19) – Creamy Carrot & Turnip Stew, from the Gorgeously Green Diet
Monday (02/20) – Random chicken creation with a veggie concoction
Tuesday (02/21) – Breakfast for dinner – Protein Pancakes, turkey bacon and hashbrowns
My coffeehouse spending totaled out to $13.28, so not as great as last week but I’m at least under budget by $1.72!
This past week, I ended up making a recipe I hadn’t gotten to in January for our Sunday dinner (I’d planned for leftovers that day but felt like cooking when it was dinnertime) – Loaded Quinoa Veggie Burgers. They were super delicious and way filling. The recipe said it made four, but it actually made 7 burgers for us so maybe I made them smaller than what they were supposed to be. But that’s okay, because we had leftovers which meant Alex has other options for lunch (and so do I!).
For Valentine’s Day, I wasn’t sure what we would eat and, as it turned out, we ended up having dinner with my parents at a local bistro, Trio. Arguably, Trio is now one of my favorite restaurants in this area. I had the meatloaf, and it was outstanding. Alex had a pizza and he said it was delicious (I tried a bite, and it was!). We shared the banana cream pie for dessert – omg it was to die for. Needless to say, our dinner at Trio definitely kicked the butt of the lentil and cauliflower stew I had originally thought I would make, haha!
Next week will be my last week for tracking grocery spending in February. In March, I plan on doubling a lot of recipes (or just making them as is if they already serve a large amount of people) in preparation for stocking my freezer for when the baby arrives. I don’t want our budget to go down the drain because we don’t feel like cooking and, above all, I really, really, really don’t want to give in to the fast food temptation.
Several weeks ago, I found this awesome freezer meal post by a mom who made these meals around 37 weeks. I will use some of these, but I also figure if I can save a couple portions from each meal we eat from the beginning of March forward I will have TONS of dinner options.
I don’t know what impact this will have on our budget, but for now I’m sticking with the $70 a week and if I have to adjust, then I have to adjust, knowing at least that when the baby is here our spending will probably drastically decrease.
So that’s that! Check out how the other blogs participating in Project: Food Budget did:
- Emily Levenson
- Dairy-Free Cooking
- Test Kitchen Tuesday
- Red Pen Mama
- Acquired Tastes
- Fit Flexitarian
- Warm As Pie
- Katy Rank Lev
- My Inner Healthy
- Little Blue Hen
- xox, b
- Project Food Budget 2.0
- Fresh…A New Chapter
- Two Eggs Over Easy
- That’s Just Me
- Eat Whole Be Vital
- Four Happy Violets
- Naturally {Un}refined
- Pgh Dad
- yogabeautylife
- Charmingly Modern
- naMAMAste
- Six Dollars a Day
- The Gluten-Free Vegan
- What da Health?
- Twice the Twinsanity
*If you want to see my other Project: Food Budget posts, click here! Or to find out where Project: Food Budget came from, click here!*
13 responses to “Project: Food Budget – Week 6”
You are doing so well. I love your menu items too. yum.
I borrowed the gorgeously green book from the library previously, I might have to borrow it again. LOL
Thank you!
Yes, I kept borrowing that book from the library too and ended up receiving it as a gift for Christmas one year and I was so glad! There is a lot of information to take in. She has another book about being Gorgeously Green and that covers ways to green your entire lifestyle. It’s a good book, too, but can be pretty overwhelming.
oh wait, you know, now that you mention it, I think it was the lifestyle Gorgeously Green book, not the cookbook.
I just requested the diet book, so it should be ready to pick up soon. Thanks!
woah! that freezer post you linked to is amazing! i want that to become my goal project at 37 weeks, which coincides exactly with the end of the semester i’m teaching. AND i eat all the things on that list. this is potentially life-improving.
I know, right? When I stumbled upon that post I was like “jackpot!” because the meals are healthy and foods we like eating anyway. Good luck to both of us stocking up our freezers!
Oh how did I miss your paragraph about freezer cooking!? I’m not expecting but her menu can work for anyone!
Another great site for freezer cooking and once a month/week cooking is onceamonthmom – I’ve learned a lot from their tips – I’m still getting the hang of freezer cooking too
Oh and YouTube has some great videos too, including tips.
Thanks for the tips! I’ll have to check those out. I agree that a freezer menu is great for anyone. The few times I’ve stuck leftovers in the freezer from meals we’ve made this month have been major lifesavers when I just haven’t felt like cooking whatever was on the schedule.
I love the idea of stocking up in preparation for the baby! Way to be proactive.
Congrats on staying in budget and saving lots. 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
Wow, I think I am going to have to get on this coupon bandwagon! You did great this week.
We don’t have kids (and don’t plan to) but I still like the freezer living way of life. With only two people, it makes sense to just make full recipes and then freeze what we don’t eat. Eating from the freezer has saved my bacon many a time!
Congrats on your week!
Oh yeah, I really love freezer meals. We don’t have a big freezer, so we will probably have to send the overflow to my parent’s house, haha.
Often when I cook, I try to have some to freeze for later meals. I will have to go check out that list because right now I have two go-to freezer dishes: sauce or soup (usually lentil). Time to expand! We don’t eat meat (except for my husband), but maybe some meatballs would be nice to have to hand for him.
Congrats on staying under budget!
This is our first foray into freezer meals – soup and sauce are great places to start! I’ve also frozen chili and pasta. I actually did make turkey meatballs once for a spaghetti dinner and froze the leftovers and it was great for my husband as a snack or to bring with lunch. We are trying to cut back on meat eating, but probably will never be able to completely cut it out because my husband likes meat.
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