Real Food on a Budget–Update
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Since I took some time off I have 2 weeks of grocery shopping to update you on. Unfortunately though, I don’t really have a menu for last week, because not only were we not home 2 nights, but I can’t even remember what we ate now! Sad isn’t it?
Alright, so let’s start. For last week, I did my grocery shopping before I left for Veronica’s. If you recall, I spent $59.65 on food and $4.68 on personal items the first week, leaving me with $140.35 left for food and $95.32 left for personal items. You can read the rules of our challenge HERE.
I did my shopping last week at Walmart because I didn’t feel like driving into town. I used 8 coupons (which is the most I’ve used in a LONG time, but nowhere near what I used to do) to save a total of $9.94–the $0.94 is because I broke down and used one of my FREE snickers bars coupons. I admit it. I cheated and ate a candy bar. But guess what? That was the best damn candy bar I’ve had! AND it was FREE.
Some things I bought were TP, Paper towels, cat food, OJ, 2 tubs of greek yogurt, eggs, peaches, bread, kiwis, cottage cheese, bananas, limes, granola, strawberries, peppers, and lettuce.
My total after coupons and with tax was $72.40
Food total–$38.07<—under!! WOOHOO!
Other total–$34.33
I also redeemed $0.75 from the Checkout51 app on tomatoes and bananas.
So at this point I was up to $96.97 for food and $39.01 for others. Looking good!
When I got back into town Sunday evening, hubby and I decided to make ANOTHER trip to Walmart for a few things for camping–and, of course, he springs on me that he needs more razors. Do you have any idea how expensive razors are? They are budget breaking for sure! Of course I had no coupons because I wasn’t prepared he would need them. $10 later, hubby had brand new razors! We only got a few food items to take camping–we decided to get the cold stuff the next day in Corpus Christi.
Food total–$10.16
Other total–$9.67
Now we are at $107.13 for food, and $48.68 for others.
While in Corpus we bought just a few cold things to eat while camping like chicken sausages, yogurt, strawberries and bananas. Of course, I don’t have that receipt. I considered not even counting this trip–because we bought a lot of booze too :)– but that would be cheating! So to the best of my knowledge, we spent around $11 ($4.49 sausage, 4pk yogurt $3.98, $1.75 strawberries, $0.75 bananas)
Food total–$11
Other total–$0 (unless we are counting booze, then we blew our personal budget, but for the blog’s sake, let’s pretend booze is in it’s own separate category)
So we are up to $118.10 for food and still at $48.68 for others.
Geez, are you lost yet?
Alright, so that was the week I missed with the update. Now we can move on to what I spent yesterday and what we are eating THIS week. Nothing like playing catch up.
I went to HEB and Target, and I didn’t use a single coupon! The only reason I went to Target was to check out their meat selection to see what they had marked down. We are finally on the last few packages of chicken and ground beef I stocked up on.
Here’s what we will be eating:
- Monday–Whole chicken in the crock pot (had a whole chicken left over from a stock up in June)
- Tuesday–Quesadillas using left over chicken
- Wednesday–Chef Salad
- Thursday–Spaghetti
- Friday–Steamed rice, chicken and veggies
- Saturday–Veggie Pizza with WW Crust
- Sunday–Burgers, baked potatoes and salad
- For breakfast we are still eating yogurt, granola and fruit, as well as smoothies
- For lunch we are eating leftovers, wraps and PB and J
Total Spent this week:
HEB food-$47.85
HEB other–$13.99
- Submitted $2 Ibotta Rebate on body wash and $0.25 Checkout51 rebate on bananas
*this included spinach, peppers, lettuce, apples, blueberries, cheese, bacon, yogurt, sour cream, bananas, spaghetti, apple juice, tortillas, tortilla chips and body wash
Target food-$21.46
Target other-$30.72
- Submitted $1.50 Ibotta Rebates on milk, juice and bread and $0.50 Checkout51 rebate on milk. (I also used the Cartwheel app to save even more on my milk and bread)
*this included bread, milk, ground beef, chicken breasts, OJ, deodorant and cat food
Grand Total Food–$185.41
Grand Total Other–$91.39
Whew–next week is going to be hard! I have $14.59 to spend on food, and $8.61 to spend on non food items. I’m hoping the yogurt we have will last until the end of July, and that I can get away with just buying eggs, juice, lettuce, cheese and berries for under $15. It’s going to be tough but I bet I can do it!
One thing I have learned, though, is that if I was also having to buy meat every week, and I didn’t have a mini stock pile of dry/bulk items, there is NO way I could stay on budget. At least with it being as crazy as it was the last week and a half. Maybe if I knew we were going to be home every day, and could really plan ahead I could possibly do it. I think, for us, $250 in food would be much more reasonable, as long as we are eating only real foods.
So how does everyone else do it? Obviously they are much more frugal than I am–and they have a hubby that doesn’t spring needs on them last minute. Or they are much more creative in the kitchen to use up what they have on hand. I know that I am not very good at coming up with meals just from what I have in the pantry. Usually there are a few items I am missing.
What is everyone else’s budget and family size? What are you spending each month to feed your families? How do you make sure you stay on track?