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A peek at our weekly grocery shopping
Each week I plan on sharing a picture of our cart at each store along with a breakdown on what we bought and what we paid. Thankfully we have zero dietary restrictions or allergies which helps us keep our budget on the low side. We try to stick between $80-90 each week for our family of seven. A lot of times what is on the menu doesn’t directly correlate to what we buy because I like to plan our meals from what we have on hand currently and use our budget to stock up on good buys plus produce and dairy products.
Did you survive Thanksgiving? Is your fridge overflowing with leftovers? We’ve got LOTS of meat but significantly less sides. Thankfully meat can be frozen to be used later. We already used some ham for an egg bake yesterday and we will use more tonight for Cubanos. I’ve made this soup with leftover turkey before and it’s a big hit plus it freezes well also!
It’s a small grocery trip this week because we did the double stock up trip last week. We needed a few small dairy items plus produce, nothing crazy. We spent right around $110 last week out of the max of $180 so technically we had a little less than $70 to spend… but my goal was to stay around $40 this week while grabbing what we needed plus a few extras. Did I do it?
Walmart
Creamer $2.97
Eggs $4.54
Ham $3.00
*submitted receipt to ibotta for any item rebate (-$0.25)
Total: $10.26 after rebates
Cashwise
Chex Cereal 3 @ 2.50 = $7.50
– 2.50 (in store coupon) = $5.00
Sausage Links 4 @ 0.88 = $3.52
Oranges 2.10lb @ 1.68/lb = $3.53
– 3.36 (in store coupon for 2lbs free) = $0.17
Apples 9.39lb @ 1.48/lb = $13.90
Carrots 2 @ 0.77 = $1.54
Ice Cream $3.98
Hash Browns 2 @ 0.98 = $1.96
Cream Cheese 4 @ 0.98 = $3.92
Butter 2 @ 2.22 = $4.44
Total: $38.43
Grocery Total: $48.69
I feel pretty good about what we bought for the money. We bought A LOT of apples but it was too good a price for great apples to pass up. I’m excited that I got Chex cereal for a good price so we can make Reindeer Chow as part of our Countdown to Christmas calendar. We also splurged on the creamer because I found the Reese’s Peanut Butter Creamer at Walmart – special treat!
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Menu Plan
I love menu planning and seeing other’s dinner plans! I’m weird like that 😉 As I’ve shared before, being in the kitchen is my happy place so I love finding meals that are new but I also never forget our favorites! These will link to the author’s original recipe unless it’s my own recipe/creation that I don’t have a link for… yet.
If you need some inspiration for how to create menu plans you can read here where I go into detail about how I make a plan for our food week and here to read how I create our grocery list.
I don’t make specific plans for breakfast and lunch but these are the basics I rotate between while throwing in a few other things for special days or weeks when I have the right ingredients.
Breakfasts: Pancakes, Coffee Cake, Egg Sandwiches, Sausage Balls, Eggs (various ways), English Muffins, Banana Bread, Biscuits and Gravy, Oatmeal, and various types of muffins.
Lunches: Leftovers, PB&J, Meat and Cheese Wraps, Cheese Quesadillas, and Mac ‘n’ Cheese.
Dinners, however, are always planned for since they tend to take the most ingredients and prep time.
Here’s what’s on our menu this week:
Sunday: Turkey Pot Pie – I tend to make extra biscuits and sometimes extra sauce for this because, well, biscuits and gravy! If you have leftover gravy from Thanksgiving this would also work.
Monday: Bean & Cheese Enchiladas – Meatless Monday! Use my homemade refried beans and enchilada sauce to make this an extra frugal meal.
Tuesday: Brown Sugar Ham Rolls – Our ham won’t be sliced as thinly but these are so good that it doesn’t even matter. Our second born loves these and can usually eat four or five at a meal!
Wednesday: Thai Chicken Pizza – It’s a family favorite to break up the repurposed leftovers. If you haven’t given this pizza a try yet you are really missing out!
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Homemade Pizza and Movie Night – pizza crust recipe here and pizza sauce recipe here.
Saturday: Double Crunch Pork Chops – It’s been ages since we’ve had these but my parents left a pork loin with us so we sliced it into 1/2 inch chops that are perfect for this recipe! And that sauce – I’m already drooling!
What’s on your menu this week?
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