Over
this summer, with me feeling TERRIBLE because of this pregnancy and
the move, I have been pretty my the worst home maker ever. My house
was never clean, unless people were coming over, and I didn't make a
meal that took more than 6 minutes of prep. We spent SO much money on
groceries and eating out this summer... I'm not even going to write
how much we actually spent because it is just embarrassing.
From
what I can gather from the 5 or 10 minutes I spent on Google trying
to research, I found that the average family of 4 last year in the
States, two adults and two young kids, spends between $500 and $1200
on groceries per month. Since the dollar is basically on par and our
eating habits are so similar to the States in Canada, I'm going with
these numbers. According to last years USDA
Food Plans I
should be spending $537.90 for a thrifty plan and $1045.70 for a
liberal plan.
My
budget on the app on my phone has been set to $500 for groceries
since I started budgeting. I have made that budget in the past... not
this summer. I think we can cut that number down though too with meal
planning and learning sales. I don't know how to sale shop at all
yet. That is step two. Meal planning is step one. When I meal plan, I
generally make my budget. I have never actually crazy, low-cost meal
planned before though. I decided that September was a good start off
point!
So,
last week I made a plan for 13 meals, mostly low-cost and all easy! I
chose to do a 2 week plan because I just don't have the time or
energy to go shopping weekly. I printed out all the meals with
recipes and directions if needed and posted them on my fridge. I went
shopping and spent $149. I stuck to the list pretty closely but did
pick up a few easy quick meals and snacks... like a frozen lasagna,
some chips and sherbert.
I was
a little unsure of how much of some things to buy. For example I have
no idea how much milk we go through in a 2 week people or how much
sour cream we would need for tacos and quesdillas. I figure I might
need to get Jon to grab a few things on his way home from work once
or twice in the next 2 weeks.
Wednesday
I made two Chicken Cauliflower casseroles. One for that night and one
for the freezer. We eat it over rice that I have a bunch of.
Delicious! Not the cheapest meal but I had cauliflower that needed to
be used and a flat of mushroom soup on hand.
Thursday
I made Sweet Potatoe Quesidillas. This is also a meal that I had all
the supplies from previous shops. Tortillas were in the freezer and
the sweet potatoes had to be used.
On
Friday I had a whole fryer chicken in the freezer that needed to be
used so I made a herb roasted chicken that had been marinating since
the night before in the slow cooker over potatoes and carrots. I
whole chicken's are pretty cheap to buy.
Saturday
was a leftover day! No cooking!
Sunday
we had an easy meal day... Jon was cooking :) He chose Chicken Salad
Wraps. It was made with canned chicken which I was hesitant about but
it was really cheap. I gave it a shot and it was really yummy! The
kids even liked it :)
Monday
I made another family favourite, Black Bean and Beef Taco Salad.
Super easy and yummy! At the same time I did all the prep for two
simple Shepherds Pies, everything but the potatoes. I froze one and
left one in the fridge for Jon to finish for Tuesday when I wasn't
going to be home most of the day.
Tuesday,
today, Jon finished the potatoes for the Shepherd's Pie!
Tomorrow
is going to be another leftover meal day! No cooking!
So
far, week one of meal planning is right on target! I have another
week to go to see if these meals and groceries last us. Friday is the
MCC Fair that we usually go out for a Vereniki dinner for, so that
will be our one big eat out meal in the two week period!
I'm
excited about this plan and can actually see it working, as long as I
am diligent! But could I actually cut our groceries to under $300 a
month! I'm going to just go along with this meal planning until I
feel really on top of it before I start sale following and possibly
even couponing! My boss needs to teach me about couponing... her last
two weekly shopping trips cost her $0.19 and $0.25. How the heck did
she do that!??!
3 comments:
That's awesome! Your meals are sooo different than mine! Haha, like I said in my blog post, I really need to expand!
looks good! i'm pleased because I'm relatively on budget according to your USDA link for a low-cost plan. Hurrah! I do weekly meal planning--I do it weekly because in Canada we didn't have a car, and here our fridge is half the size of a 'north american fridge' so I can't buy more than a week at a time anyway. My mum seemed to do it by the month and then by fresh things in between. Sale shopping it made sense to buy huge joints of meat/family packs and freeze them so we always had the beginnings of meals in the house.
One thing that I do is set the amount I want to spend on groceries each week (so in Canada it was always $100 max). If I go over I make a note of it and try to take the money off the following week (not that this has been working well in the UK with the growing rate of inflation...I'm about two week's worth 'in debt' on the grocery tally). If I save money I can put it aside and use it for something particularly delectable. I also tally up my grocery lists in advance, as a rough estimate, to see if I'm likely to go over or if I need to disregard certain luxuries. And now I've been shopping online, so I get a store-estimate before I checkout. But doing it by hand takes time and I can't imagine I'd bother with that in your case!
Katie, I'd love to learn more about your plan, your recipes, and where you found your resources! I am all for a delicious low cost nutritious plan... are you able to share?
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