In seeing everyone's goals for the grocery budget challenge, I'm in shock by how low some of the numbers are! Can you give me a weekly menu of what you're eating? Is it that you all have huge gardens and get a lot from there? Or is the cost of certain items a lot lower where you are than here?

I would like to know this too. :lol:

anyone? how about just yoru favorite healthy/frugal/tasty meal if you don't want to share the whole shebang ;)

Alright. I'm game, but just to let you know I do not expect to stay under $400 this month. I am eating for two and cooking for winter, so these two things combined, I doubt we will be under my $400 becuase we are eating out pretty much 3 times a week right this second. lol.. cheap eating out. I am a WIZ at that, but still it costs more than making stuff at home.

Ok so our menu for this week is (if we can stick to it, it will cost about $5 total):

Sunday:
Leak and potato soup
crusty bread
romane salad with fresh motz and garden tomatos

(The leaks, romane, and potatoes are from my csa (I trade babysitting ie: free), the tomatos from my garden, crusty bread is a half of a take and bake loaf I bought for the week. Fresh motz is from the costco trip documented on Aug 321st.)

Monday:
Garlic green beans
Crispy Potato Chicken Breasts (I wish there was a "cut" option here so I could add the recipe because this is our FAV chicken recipe ever!)
Mashed Potatoes (or perhaps with a little parm cheese and swiss chard)

(Green beans, swiss chard, and garlic are all from the garden, chicken breast I buy in bulk so they are in the freezer, potatoes are left over from the csa and the soup from Monday)

Tuesday I will need to go shopping. We will need more organic salad greens (romaine was used up on Sunday and lunch Monday) and bread, along with organic potatoes and feta cheese. Total cost estimate will be $12. I will document on challange thread.

Tuesday:
Black bean and cheese enchiladas
Yellow rice
confetti corn

(We already have the black beans, rice, the cheese and the tortillas... Peppers will come from my garden. I will need to pick up corn, but I may just do the 4 for a $1 corn on the cob and cut it off the cob. More nutrition than the canned variety anyway.)

Wed/First day of school dinner:
Depending on tempature, I am going to make mac and cheese or baked potatoes o'gratten with feta and basil... the kids fav dinners. We will eat this with the last of the salad.

Thursday: (Don won't be home so I can make mine and the kids favs that he doesn't like.)
Artichokes with curry dip
Delicata squash with butter
Black bean chili

(Artichokes I bought from Costco (which is on my list for Aug 31st), black beans are from Trader Joes at $.69 a can bought during "stock up" a month ago, frozen beef (if I add any), and the Delicata squash are from a local farm for $1.79 lb... I bought 4 three weeks ago. They needed to cure and so I stored them till now. They are PERFECT now and I am going back to get more asap. These our our fav squash... if you have never tried one I will take a picture and you must go get them. I will even tell you how to cook it... but no kidding... there is no better squash.)

Friday:
Not sure about this day yet.

Snacks and breakfasts...

we are addicted to egg sandwiches and we have tons of cereal right now, so those are our breakfasts. Lately I have been making snack trays for lunch with fresh garden carrot sticks, cucs, and tomatos with ranch dip, along with peanut buttter sandwiches or something of the sort. Snacks are pretzels, gold fish crackers, popcorn and Nature Valley granola bars (also on the costco list for Aug 31st). I may have to buy more eggs (get them from the same farm that I get the squash. They also have doughnuts and goats to feed... so it becomes a whole morning like the farmers market... it is a pretty sweet deal. Selena you should come down and see Latins.... the place is great!) but eggs are only $1.59 a doz for farm fresh eggs. Right now organic peaches are about $2 a lb at the farmers market. I bought a bunch a few days ago (on the grocery tag from Aug 31st) and we will be eating those for snacks and lunch etc. We also have frozen blueberries, applesauce, apples from my dads tree that we eat with crunchy organic peanut butter from Trader Joes (only one box left of the apples... that is amazing to me!!), and of course we have a shake most mornings which includes organic bananas, organic soy milk (bought in bulk while on sale at the co-op), protien powder, nutritional yeast (both bought in bulk from Fred Meyers), and strawberries (frozen from earlier this year and now having to be bought in bulk at Costco... we already had a bag from when I started Applesauce. Didn't have a good strawberry year around here.)

Anyhow... that is our menu for this week. We have everything already for this whole week if we just would not eat out any more... but with Don home for the next two days it will be quite a bit harder. The guy is like a money spending machine. :rolleyes:

Val

Okay, I'll post too. I don't think there is any special key to feeding 6 people well on $300 a month. Just being careful how you spend.

We buy what's on sale and build our menus around good deals. We'll stock up on things if we can so we can have more variety later.

Today was a lazy day, so tonight we had pancakes (from scratch), sausages (bought in bulk), and sliced peaches for supper (bought a huge 25 pound box of jam-quality fruit for $5, and alot of it was just fine for eating as is). It was a big hit. Tomorrow we'll probably have pork chops (bought on sale in bulk and then cut into the sizes we'll eat and frozen), new red potatoes (got 50 pounds last week on sale), and carrots or whatever other vegetable I have on hand.

We drink mainly water. Maybe twice I week I'll make orange juice from frozen concentrate which costs less than $1 for 2 litres (I add an extra can or two of water to fill the jug which means there's less sugar and it goes further and it tastes just fine.) We just eat seasonally. I wouldn't buy something for a certain recipe, I'd adjust the recipe to use what I had on hand. I think it's just the way we look at things.

I buy flour in bulk when it's on sale, like a 22 pound sack. I always have one of whole wheat and one of unbleached white on the go, and we mainly use it for pancakes. We use everything up. I find a way to incorporate leftovers into meals the next day. Leftover potatoes might be fried and stirred into scrambled eggs the next day. Other leftover vegetables would go into a stew or soup or curry.

I stay out of stores. If I just need milk I'll try to go to the corner drugstore that has milk for a decent price so I can get in and out quicker than the big new super Safeway they just put in near us. I don't want to be tempted by good deals if it's stuff we can do without.

I have a shopping list of all the things I ever buy. I circle what we're out of and just get those things. I don't buy granola bars or other snacky things like that unless I happen to find them occasionally at the dollar store or another discount place.

I'm lucky that I know how to cook well from scratch. My Mum and Nana taught me how to cook, but I have taught myself to do even more than they do. Like my Nana has never baked bread and my Mum doesn't hardly do anything from scratch any more (she can afford not to now.)

My family likes cheap meals like meatloaf and spaghetti and chicken drumsticks. We have friends that fish and so we have wild salmon when we can, and that's free. My husband works at a mushroom farm so we build meals around that. Take note of what resources you have available to you. Build meals around them.

I'll think of more. Really, read the articles at www.hillbillyhousewife.com and get the Complete Tightwad Gazette at the library. They explain my methods and mindset really well. LOL.

Kerri

*DONE* Sunday, everyone LOVED the soup... I didn't put mushrooms in it, so my dh declared it the best leek soup I had ever made (picky bastard. lol!) Crusty bread loaf was moldy so I had to make buiskets. No one minded. ;) Salad was a huge hit. Don and Cyan picked off tomatos... Alex picked off motz (crazy child!)

Having this in three threads is confusing. I wonder if we could adjust it to make the menu thread along with the money spending thread... I may move my documentation over there. I will still update here, but I want to be able to look at it all and REALLY see what I am spending, where and why. I want to get on top of the budget and the house this month. Nesting? Maybe. lol...

Kerri~
Where do you store all the bulk items you purchase....I have no where to store a 25 pound sack of flour!

I'm also wondering if the prices where you are are cheaper than here? Like, for instance.....what do you pay for a gallon of milk? If I find it on sale, I can find a gallon for $2.79....but not on sale, it's $4.19 per gallon. If you get organic, it can be as much as $4.99 per half gallon! I buy the non-organic, but no Hormone milk at Whole Foods for $3.29 per gallon....but we easily go thru 2 gallons per week....sometimes 2 1/2 to 3 gallons, depending on what I'm cooking, etc.

Some cheap meals on the menu for this week:

~Bean soup and bread. I'm making it for the first time, making my own vegetable stock out of veggie scraps today which will go in the soup. The scraps were essentially free, most of the veggies and garlic comes from our garden or Grandpa's, the beans are cheap.

~Penne pasta tossed with garlic and oil, spinach, tomatoes and parm. Garlic, spinach and tomatoes from gardens.

~Breakfast for Dinner We get free range, brown eggs from a little old lady down the street for $1/doz so we'll do eggs on bagels or toast, hearty pancakes, waffles, homefries, fruit or smoothies. Filling and cheap.

~Stir Fry with leftover veggies, noodles tofu and a sesame-braggs sauce.

Valerie, where is the leak recipe? I wanna make that :)

And, um.. this is gonna sound dumb.. but I wanna go food shoppng when we come down on Wednesday. I am tired of spending so much money at Albertson's and Safeway for crap. Or at least point me at the Trader Joe's ;) I am going to google Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and see where they are in Tacoma. Daniel eats 4 eggs a day when we are on an egg breakfast kick so cheap eggs is a very good thing!

Oh, and Chloe walked from the Fireplace chair all the way to the coffee table yesterday :D

How early is too early to get there? I was thinking about leaving here at 9 on Wednesday in hopes that I would miss the traffic... or is that too early?

I have the two sacks of flour in my broom closet. LOL.

We pay $3.39 for a gallon of milk usually, although I sometimes cross the border into Washington and pay $2.19 gallon/milk at the gas station! LOL. Eggs are usually about $2.50/dozen but again if I get organized and plan a cross-border trip I can get them for $1 a dozen.

I think many things are cheaper in the US if you know your prices and which places have good deals.

Kerri

How early is too early to get there? I was thinking about leaving here at 9 on Wednesday in hopes that I would miss the traffic... or is that too early?

Cyan has that apt at 9:30 to 10 so starting at 9 will be just about perfect as you will get here just as we get home. :) Of course we can go grocery shopping that day. Sadly though, the closest Trader Joes is in Tacoma at University place, but there is a perk of going up there. There is that discount store off Pacific Ave on the other side of the freeway that sells all the bump and scratch organic foods. This is where I get most of our cereals, snack foods, and teas. I have already been to both this month but I sure can point you in the right direction and we can perhaps go to the farm that day? I need more squash and eggs anyway and the kids would have a BLAST feeding all the critters!

should we meet in town, then? and plan a playdate at your house on another day?

or should I stop being silly and just come and play and ignore the grocery store?

though, no, I really want to take the girls to the farm :D that would be fun :):) where is it? Olympia or somewhere in between?

The farm is a bit south of here. Come by here first and then we will choose what we want to do then. I think we should go to the farm... it is so much fun for the kids. Between getting to meet her K teacher and going to the farm with Anna it will be Cyan's dream day. :D

Forget the grocery until at least you are on your way home. I dont' think I will go with you up there this time. But I would love to show you another time. I can always give you directions to both if you want to go by on your way home. Sound good?

Val

We stock up on spaghetti when it's on sale and our cheap filler meal is spaghetti with tomato sauce (from scratch or on sale in a can) with a big salad from our garden or the local organic farm (cheap right now - lettuce $1.50 for a huge head, for example). We have had it twice this week.

Sunday night we grilled marinated chicken breasts and had those with a huge salad with our friends. Monday and Tuesday were pasta nights. Tonight dh bought deli turkey and we had wraps with those. Sounds $$$ but we only use a couple of slices of turkey per sandwich and the tortillas are huge and cheap - again it is mostly filled with salad and veggies and some cheese.

Breakfast is oatmeal (bought in bulk for 85c/lb and sweetened with maple syrup, homemade yogurt w/maple syrup, or made-from-scratch muffins.

Lunch is leftovers for me, dh buys lunch for $2.50 at work (need to change this, I don't count it at all in our budget and that's $50 a month!!!!) and Katie eats at school for 40c a day, Jake is starting to do this as well. So part of how we do so well is that $66 of our grocery budget is not counted in that $400.

However I added up just what we spend on Jake's special food (eats tons of meat, and eats as much as a large adult, can't tolerate certain foods) and it's about $200 a month JUST to feed him. Yikes.

OK, I'm really trying to make cheaper better meals at home, I work 40+ hours a week outside of home, so the only way I can do this is to be very organized. Monday night, oh I was working, they had frozen pizza, and broccoli, Tues. Chicken on the grill, salad, organic oven fries, Wed. Pinto beans that I cooked for 2 days, green beans, more oven fries (they were on sale) and dinner rolls. Tonight so far I have put potatoes in the crock pot to cook all day and am thawing turky brats, will also make a salad. :)