This past week was another inexpensive one with only $7.57 spent at the store. We now have $8.04 left in our grocery budget for the rest of the month, and you know what? I think we’ll be fine.
We bought a bunch of fruits and vegetables at the start of the month, and we still have a couple of fresh apples, half a bag of brussels sprouts as well as some frozen and canned fruits and vegetables.
We stocked up quite a bit last summer/fall with dry goods and the mini freezers in the garage are still about 3/4 full.
All we’ll really need to buy later this week will be another jug of milk and maybe some bananas… so who knows, maybe we’ll even come in under budget this month. Now that would be exciting!
Local Grocery Store $3.58
Oakhurst milk {it’s SO GOOD!} and a pound of carrots {for soup}.
I’m the only one who drinks milk at our house {and I only use it in my tea or with granola} so a half gallon of milk usually lasts about 10 days. The HH drinks almond milk, which has a really long shelf life and we usually buy 3 or 4 cartons of it every other month or so.
Onions $3.99
It seems like we use onions way more than we used to… maybe we should look into buying a giant bag of them {5 or 10 pounds} the next time we’re at the store.
Here’s a show and tell of the food we ate last week:
Homemade Dutch oven crusty bread. It takes like it came from a bakery, yet only costs about a quarter to make.
The bread is pretty much a staple in our house and I probably have toast with jam on it about 5 times a week for breakfast.
Tuna casserole with a Ritz cracker topping. Remember all those egg noodles I bought last fall? I’ve still got plenty of them in case anyone was wondering. đ
The HH made a batch of lentils with thyme and carrots.
And he roasted some chicken breasts too. Actually he cut up 3 of the chicken breasts we bought the week before at Hannaford {he cut 3 large chicken breasts into 4 pieces each for a total of 12 pieces of chicken!} to make them last a little longer.
With the leftovers from the previous night, one of the things we made were protein bowls {chicken, beans, rice}.
And another pot of chicken soup.
And chicken quesadillas with homemade tortillas.
But I think my favorite thing we made from the chicken leftovers was this potato and spinach and chicken puff pastry tart. Ohh la la. I basically used the same recipe from the ham puff pastry tart I made last fall. I just subbed chicken for the ham, left out the chives and added a little frozen spinach.
Talk about tasty! It’s amazing how many meals you can make from only 3 chicken breasts if you plan ahead a wee bit.
Here’s the menu list I made for this week, hopefully I can stick to it:
- No Knead Dutch Oven Crusty Bread – For toast and grilled cheese sandwiches
- Homemade Granola
- Mel’s Drunken Beans
- Roasted brussels sprouts, potatoes and onions
- Coconut chicken and rice
- Pasta with homemade garlic bread
- Tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches
- Peach Cobbler with Canned Peaches {I totally forgot to make this last week}
So how did YOU do this past week in the food/meal department? Are you doing a pantry/spending challenge for January? How are you doing? Are you sticking to your budget?
Did you make anything exciting? Curious minds want to know.
Here’s to a great {and hopefully warmer} week.
~Mavis
Total Spent This Past Week on Groceries $7.57
- Total Spent in January on Groceries $91.96
- Total Spent on Groceries in 2022 $91.96
Jeanine says
What time do you make your bread (mix it together) then what time do you bake it? I don’t think about it until the timing would be to bake it in the middle of the night. Or can it sit longer then the recipe says?
Carolin says
I often leave the dough to prove in the fridge over night and then let it get back to room temperature for one hour in the morning. In those cases, I do reduce the amount of yeast a bit, since it has had lots of time.
Mavis Butterfield says
I mix everything together around 6pm or so then bake the bread the next morning.
Kate says
You might think about trying this recipe.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/no-knead-crusty-white-bread-recipe
It can sit in the fridge for a week and you only need to pull it out about an hour before. I make it into little rolls all the time to serve with soup.
Carolin says
Oh wow, now I seriously wonder how big your chicken are in Maine đ we would have eaten three breasts in one dinner. But all your food looked really great!
I amazingly stuck mostly to my plan, but still went badly over budget. 75 Dollars were additionally spend on a few chocolates and snacks.
Then we were meant to have Fondue on Friday and I decided to get the kids portion from a discounter instead of the dairy place. Long story short, I did save like 10 USD on the cheese, but spend another 60 on stuff that technically was not on the plan… so lots of room for improvement for the coming weeks đ
We did not even end up eating the Fondue (dairy place was closed b/c of a local holiday) but had an impromptu Raclette instead.
Beth B says
No grocery shopping for me at all last week. I did a big stock up trip on the 13th. We made it a full 3 weeks without any take out, but my husband was craving pizza on Saturday, so we ended up getting a single Little Caesar’s pizza that we ate Saturday night and he had left overs Sunday for lunch. Other than that, it was another wonderful week of homecooked meals including white chicken chili, sheet pan steak potatoes and roasted cauliflower, biscuits and gravy, lemon muffins with lemon curd filling and tortellini pasta bake. Red beans and rice, chicken fried rice, steak tip sandwiches, and teriyaki shrimp and green beans are some of the meals for this week. I’ll have to do another grocery run over the weekend for milk, butter, eggs, chicken and some pantry items.
Brianna says
Lemon muffins with lemon curd filling! Those sound divine.
coco says
Is your $100 a month for new purchases, or do you include the price of the items you’ve stocked up on that you use during the month?
Gail Rosenbaum says
Will you share the recipe for lemon muffins with lemon curd filing?
Beth says
Mavis, as usual your meals look delicious! Your yummy puff pastry item reminds me that puff pastry is hard to come by in my local grocery stores (Boise ID). We are doing an appetizer night almost every Sunday and my husband wanted to make a brie in puff pastry a week ago but I couldnât find any in the two grocery stores near our house. LucKy for us, I found an unopened box of puff pastry in our freezer so we had the brie in puff pastry last night. Other meals we had last week include:
Homemade tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches
Bacon wrapped chicken with roasted potatoes and cauliflower
Bratwurst, sauerkraut, and German potato salad
Fried chicken tenders with macaroni and cheese, veggies, and fruit
Breakfast for dinner- sourdough waffles with ham steak and fruit
Takeout pizza which was just ok
I am making homemade soup each week for our Monday dinner and tonightâs will be clam chowder with homemade sourdough bread and fruit. I ordered a Breville waffle maker which will arrive later this week so I expect breakfast dinner will make it to our weekly rotation for several weeks which is fine with me. I love breakfast for dinner and sourdough discard waffles have become a favorite at our house.
Becky S says
Trader Joe’s has the best puff pastry, IMO. You might check there!
Rosemary Calhoun says
We grocery shop once a week and we go to 3 stores in order to get the best price for the things that we need (luckily they are right near each other so we are not wasting gas to travel to each one). I have noticed that if one store is out of something (like Gatorade â my granddaughterâs favorite), it is also missing in the other stores. When it shows up again, I will buy 2 (canisters of the dry mix) and then hope it will be available when we need to buy it again.
Example: Last week (on Tuesday) I went to Publix to pick up a prescription and noticed that they had restocked the Gatorade mix (we had enough so I didnât get any). On Thursday (just 2 days later) during my regular grocery shopping trip, I checked on the Gatorade mix and the shelves were empty. Thankfully, we still didnât need any but it does make me wonder how many to buy so that we donât run out in the future. This isnât just for Gatorade â it happens on many items. It seems like the food supply issues can create hoarding issues which can then lead to more empty shelves.
Staying within the food budget is a challenge in itself (our food budget for 2 people has to stretch to feed 3 people). But now the challenge is staying within the food budget, and still have âbackupâ items in the pantry in case the store shelves are empty on the items we need. I love a good challenge but this one is starting to get old . . . I miss the days when the store shelves were full . . .
Elle says
Yes, we’ve been eating from the pantry/freezer now for 12 days. 10d ago I did go buy a carton of milk as I needed thread-round trip just 3 miles.
This morning I went to the store at 0545 to get my short list. The downside is I wanted coleslaw mix to make eggroll in a bowl tomorrow and they were out. $ spent on food this month is $107. I’m happy with that. We’re going on a mountain vaca Thursday and I’ll need to buy a few ingredients up there for meals. That will go in our vacation spending category.
Meals:
Spaghetti, ratatouille, It meat (precooked in freezer)
Chili/Cornbread (ratatouille, gr turkey, smoked chilis, gr peppers all from the freezer)
Soft tacos (precooked taco meat in freezer), black bean/corn salsa, spanish rice
Blueberry oatmeal buckwheat pancakes
Sockeye salmon, rice pilaf, steamed carrots
Cauliflower fried rice (frozen christmas ham slices-diced, frozen diced onion)
Leftovers!
Have a terrific week! đ
Jennifer says
Off topic, but I can’t help but feel sorry for all the mounds of plain white rice I see on your plates. My daddy grew up dirt poor in the Low country of SC so beans and rice were a staple and even growing , I knew there would be three things in my kitchen – A lot of beans, a pot of rice and a cake of cornbread. That being said, I have never in my 52 years tasted plain rice without something on it. Didn’t even realize it could be eaten plain. Funny how different we can be.
Mavis Butterfield says
We like to season our rice with butter and a little salt. đ
Laura Z says
Red rice is the best!
Mimi says
I’m digging down to the bottom of the freezer lately, trying to use things up – a January tradition after holiday splurges.
I did restock my bacon supply with some great deals. 12 lbs. of bacon lie in wait, with the last 3 lbs. costing a total of $2.97 ! đ
Mimi
Heidi N. says
Great price on bacon! It is running between $5 & $6 here in Colorado.
Denise T Brandon says
You are doing great on your challenge! Your meals look tasty and interesting ~ I need to try the bread recipe. We have spent $91.00 on groceries this month; we are doing a $100/month grocery budget challenge while we eat of the freezer/pantry/fridge. I think I’m actually going to do $50 for February since it’s a short month, and give myself an opportunity to work on my creativity. I’ll save the “extra” $50 for loss leaders or to fill a gap sometime in the future. I live for challenges of this kind!
Janice says
I had not been to the grocery store since Dec. 23 and had hoped to make it to the end of January by using items in my pantry and freezers. Well, we didn’t quite make it and on January 22 did buy farm eggs, milk and potatoes… for a total of $17.63, I’m happy that’s all we spent to feed two people so far for the month. We’ve been eating lots of soups, turkey pies, home baking and basically working with what we have on hand.
Sandy Cirello says
Mavis,
We made the Tater Tot-Bacon Appetizers and they were YUMMY!! Thanks for posting it!! So Easy To Make!!!
Angie says
Would love your granola recipe!
Deborah says
Is there another way I can cook the crusty bread besides in a Dutch oven with a lid? Mine isnât oven friendly. I do have a large deep cast iron skillet, but no lid.
Brianna says
I put mine just in a cast iron skillet in an oven middle rack and on the bottom rack a long Pyrex with 1-1.5â water (which preheats in the oven). The water makes the bread nice and crusty, no lid needed.