Harbor Greens Market $3.57
This week I found some great deals on produce at our local produce market. Each week they have a few items on sale and if I’m over in that area I try and take advantage of them. 2 pounds of green beans for $1? Yes please!
Albertsons $5.00 for 2 pounds of butter
Fred Meyer $ 5.94 for 3 gallons of milk.
Remember last week when I told you I was going to try and stay under $1,800 {$150 a month} for the year? Well I am SUPER close. So far this year I have spent $1,798.07 on groceries. That only leaves me with $1.93 for the next 9 days. Weeeeeee. I do have $5 Target gift if I need to buy some more milk but I am totally going to try and make it to the finish line without going over $1,800 for the year.
Here are some of the meals I made last week:
Cranberry Bean Soup with leftover chicken. De-lish and even better the next day. I’ll post the recipe in Janaury because there are a few more dessert recipes I want to write about this month.
Steel cut oats with a little brown sugar and milk.
Green beans and baked potatoes. Boring, but tasty.
Big salad night.
I thought I might be coming down with something so I went to bed super early last Wednesday and made the boys a heaping platter of potatoes and ham for dinner before diving under the covers. They loved it.
JJ’s Spiced Applesauce Cake. It goes well will tea. You should try it.
Butternut Squash and Bacon Saute. This was so good I have added it to our Christmas dinner menu.
Do you save your bacon grease? I do.
Sunday breakfast. 
And last but not least, I whipped up a batch of Nutella Filled Cinnamon Rolls.
Simple and homemade was last week’s theme. This week…. it’s all about the desserts and side dishes baby! Yee- Haw. It’s time to break out the stretchy pants.
~Mavis
Total Spent This Week $14.91
Weeks 1-28 Shopping Exclusively at Costco $1,229.25 {$43.90 a week/$175 a month average}
Weeks 29-51 Shopping wherever the heck I want $568.82
Total Spent Year to Date $1798.07
Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.
Tammy says
Cool on meeting your budget.
I’d be interested in knowing the total of free food + groceries (ie, your free Zaycon meat, blogger perks, etc.). It would help people (like me!) who don’t get those free items an idea of a more realistic budget figure.
mama to6 says
I agree….that would be good to know.
I have six kids and struggle with a doable, reasonable grocery budget. I really need to save more money on groceries, but I already implement a lot of saving strategies. I just need to decide on a figure and stick to it. I think right now we spend about $1000 a month for 8 of us. We very rarely eat out.
I get lots of inspiration here and I’m looking forward to getting a garden growing this spring.
Thank you Mavis!
Merry Christmas
. .. .
Mavis Butterfield says
I’ll try and keep track next year. Good idea.
Marcia says
I agree that it would be good to know about the freebies. But it’s only partially useful, because what you eat and where you live are such a huge part of it.
For sure, the Zaycon and other freebies would save a ton of money. But also – eating more beans and less meat, or eating rice, baking bread can help. Also, gardening saves money on groceries, bartering helps too.
Then there are just cheaper places to live. The sales prices in WA are just better than they are in my area of CA – that’s also a big factor.
And of course – eating out too. You can have a low grocery budget but a big eating out budget (I know that’s not the case here!)
Anyway, GOOD LUCK on meeting your goal. My goal for the year was $5200 (2 adults, 2 kids, So Cal, no garden). I’m probably going to come in around $5800 for the year, which is better than $10,500 for last year.
But that DOESN’T count school lunches at $2.50 a day (though my son only ate about 2x week for most of the year).
AND DON’T FORGET to summarize the two halves of the year for “Costco only” and “your normal shopping”. I totally want to see that.
Renay says
Saving bacon grease? Are ya kidding? I am from the South. We saved bacon grease on the stove for frying EVERYTHING! Ahhh, bacon…meat candy!!!! LOL