Menu Planning #142

-

Our meals need to be nutritious, clean, flexible, quick and cost effective.
Between our work schedules and after school activities, we need to carefully
plan our meals so that we do not end up ordering out.  We try hard to keep our
total food and household products to under $100.00 per week. 
Goal: $500.00
What did we spend? 
Week 1- $127.66
Meijer: $67.25
Aldi: $23.79
Kroger: $36.62
Rebates: $14.75
IBOTTA: $14.75
Kroger Cash: $11.49
Week 2- $99.63
CVS: $1.92
Kroger: $60.40 
Meijer: $8.36
Aldi: $28.95
Fresh Thyme: $14.67
Rebates: $15.00
IBOTTA: $13.00
Shopkicks: $2.00
Kroger Cash: $9.00
Week 3-  $119.77
Aldi: $71.35
Kroger: $48.42
CVS: $1.08 
CVS: $2.53
Rebate: 
IBOTTA: $10.00
Kroger Cash: $6.25
Shopkicks: 
CVS ECB = $8.00 
Week 4- $89.14
Aldi: $22.35
Kroger: $32.74
Meijer: $34.05
Rebate: 
Week 5- 
Rebate: 
Total:$450.87
Rebate Total: $39.75
Final Total: $411.12
NOTE: Rebate total DOESN’T include Kroger Cash or Refunds because they
will come off of the Kroger Bill automatically the following week.   In addition, I
don’t count CVS as part of the grocery bill because I normally use gift cards
and ECB to get my items for free, so in the end the money is usually to my
benefit.   
Grocery Shopping Tips:    I always like to stock up when prices are rock
bottom.  However, it is really easy to overspend each week.   For example,
prior to the Coronavirus I could pick up a pound of pasta for $0.50 but currently
the prices have been $1.00 or more.    So, when the prices dropped to $0.69
per pound this week, I picked up as many as my budget would allow.    I
wanted more, but I needed to stick to my budget.   Good New- It is on sale
next week too! 
Let’s take a look at what we ate this week. 
Breakfast Options: 
Yogurt
Oatmeal Bake 
Hard Boiled Eggs
Monday
Spanish Chicken
Rice
Broccoli
Tuesday
Pasta
Sausage
Salad
Wednesday
Hamburgers
French Fries
Corn
Thursday
Chinese Take Out
Friday
Pizza
Salad


Saturday
Shrimp Fried Rice
Wonton Soup 


Sunday
Pork Chops
Broccoli/Cauliflower
Watermelon
Salad
This week’s rough plan: 
M- Pasta
T- Quesadilla 
W- Kielbasa
Th- Baked Chicken
F- Hoagies
Sat-  Fish
Sun-  Baked Pasta 

* Indicate that the recipe is a new one for our family.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Frugal Five: #64

-
Image
  The Frugal Five: #64 With inflation on the rise and salaries being unable to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     1- Free Wood Pick-Up My son practiced his driving by going with my husband to pick up free wood this week.   We cut the wood up into different size pieces for use in the fireplace this winter.  Since we kept and process the wood from our fallen trees and were able to pick up this wood, I expect that we will not need to purchase wood for a few years.     2- Gourmet Lunches This is my first week back to work and I need to be prepared.    The alarm is set and I am putting into place several new nightly routines to make my life a little easier in the morning.    One of these routines is to prepare lunches for the week.     This week eggs and block cheese were on sale for a great price, so I took advantage of th
Read more

Frugal Five: 33

-
Image
  The Frugal Five: #33 With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     Last week was a little hard to get anything accomplished, so I needed to give myself grace.   Although I did try to be as frugal as possible, I also needed to keep my life together.     1- Took advantage of Free-bees this week  Wow!  I was able to pick up a 3 lb Butterball boneless breast meat turkey, Cranberry Sauce, Brown Gravy, Jiffy Corn Mix and Bob Evans Breakfast Sausage for FREE.    In addition, I was able to pick up free tissues from Meijers.        All in all, a pretty good week for freebies.  2- Homemade Deli Lunchmeat I was able to pick up a Large Thanksgiving Turkey for $0.45 lb. and I earned a free 3 lb Butterball boneless turkey breast from IBOTTA.  Last week we spent over $14.00 on deli
Read more

The Humble Egg

-
Image
  The Humble Egg Historically eggs are the cheapest type of protein.  However, due to bird flu, the price of eggs can get rather expensive and that is not when we eat a lot of them.     This has happened in the last year in my area, but now eggs have returned to a reasonable price and we can start consuming them on a regular basis again.    ** All egg recipes are linked to the pictures.  Replacing meat with eggs or stretching a meal with eggs, will decrease the overall cost of your meal.  Breakfast Sandwich Our family is always pressed to leave the house in the morning, so having a portable breakfast sandwich available to us is essential to getting a good start to the morning.   That is along with our to-go cup of coffee.   Omelet Making an egg omelet with whatever cheese and vegetables are available for fillings makes a great breakfast or lunch.   We typically will make a three-egg omelet with vegetables (mushrooms, peppers, onions) and cheese (feta, cheddar, American).    My husband
Read more