I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 grocery budget for our family of five. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).
For live updates, be sure to follow my Instagram Stories. See all posts on my $70 Grocery Budget here.
Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and we will be compensated if you click through and sign up. Read our disclosure policy here.
After going over budget last week, I was super extra careful to make sure to stay in budget — and I ended up being over $10 under budget!
Here’s what I bought:
Kroger Shopping Trip #1:
- Fresh Tulips — marked down to $1
- Flowers — marked down to $1
- Pita Bread — marked down to $0.99
- Organic Ground Beef — marked down to $3.99 per pound
- 2 Pork Roasts — marked down to $4.99 each
- 1 bag of small peppers — marked down to $0.99
- 1 bag of pomegranates — marked down to $0.99
- 1 bag of peppers — marked down to $0.99
- 1 bagged organic salad — marked down to $2.29
- 5 yogurts — marked down to $0.49 each
- High Brew Coffee — free with Free Friday coupon
- Total with tax: $39.01
Psst! Need some help with cutting your grocery budget? Check out my series: 5 Days to a Better Grocery Budget.
It was a rather rough start of the week for me for a lot of reasons and I felt pretty emotionally and physically spent, so finding these flowers marked down to $1 was just the perfect boost of happy for me. And they’ve made me so happy to look at all week long!
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- 6 boxes of Kroger Oatmeal — $1.59 per box, used $0.50/1 digital coupon (may be used up to 5 times in one transaction) + $0.65/1 digital coupon (Best Customer Bonus = $1.07 per box (my kids LOVE these and would eat these every single day for breakfast!)
- 2 Kroger Graham Cracker Crusts — $1.19 per crust, used $0.30/1 digital coupon (may be used up to 5 times in one transaction) = $0.89 after coupon
- 5 boxes of Betty Crocker Cake Mix/Brownie Mix — $1.29 per box, used $0.50/1 digital coupon (may be used up to 5 times in one transaction) = $0.79 per box
- 4 Simple Truth yogurts — marked down to $0.49 each
- 2 bunches of bananas — marked down to $0.39 per pound
- 1 bag of salad — marked down to $1.29
- 1 bag of potatoes — marked down to $0.99
- Total with tax: $19.90
Cashback earned this week: $0.35 from Ibotta for submitting my receipt and buying cake mix and 50 points for submitting my two receipts to Fetch rewards.
Total spent this week: $58.91
What We Ate This Past Week
Note: When you see the meals below, please remember this: I buy ahead often. Which means that when I find a great deal on something I know we’ll use, I buy as much as I can afford in our budget to have on hand.
This means that you aren’t going to see all of the groceries my shopping trip that I used to make all of the meals we ate.
Please also remember that I’m putting this out there and it’s not a perfectly balanced menu. This is just really what we ate — and I hope that it encourages you to see the real-ness and lack of perfection here. ?
Breakfasts:
- Cereal, Oatmeal, Scrambled Eggs with Avocados/Cheese/Salsa, Yogurt, Oatmeal, Hard Boiled Eggs, Banana Bread
Lunches:
- Banana Bread, Cheese/Crackers, Avocados, Salad, Leftovers, Clementines, Cookies & Jesse took the kids out to lunch one day to celebrate the end of school and I went to Panera by myself for lunch on my offline day to plan and read and just soak up some quiet — it was amazing!)
Snacks:
- Yogurt, Cheese/Crackers, Popcorn, Peppers, Cookies
Dinners — we had so little variety in our dinners this week that I’m almost embarrassed to share this and I also realized that we had pork every single night — oops! But here goes…
- Saturday: Dinner out
- Sunday: Fend For Yourself — snack-y food and leftovers
- Monday: Sausage/Potatoes/Peppers in the crock pot, mango, banana bread
- Tuesday: Pork Roast, Scalloped Potatoes, Salad + snacks at a school Christmas Program
- Wednesday: Pork Roast, Salad, Mangoes & Pomegranates
- Thursday: Pork Roast, Twice Baked Potatoes, Salad, Pomegranates
- Friday: Sausage/Potatoes/Peppers in the crock pot, Salad
There you have it! I hope that was helpful and inspiring… or at least caused you to feel a little better about the meals you made for your family this week! 😉
Laura says
I made spaghetti with a $1.50 jar of sauce (I usually use a great recipe from my Italian friend) and $1 box of pasta. Everyone loved it! I forget that things don’t need to be fancy for my family to enjoy it.
Crystal Paine says
I love that!
Mireille says
This week we had meatballs, pizza and chicken nuggets, none from scratch! ?. Been dealing with kids taking turns with the flu the past 2 weeks with baby having it now. Praying tomorrow is the end of it. And having healthier meals plans for this week!
Crystal Paine says
I hope everyone feels better soon!
Mary says
I wish a pork roast would last my family three nights! I’m actually making one today. On another note, I’ve been missing your Wednesday posts! When will you start those up again?
Crystal Paine says
It was two big pork roasts (see my pictures) so that’s why it last longer. Plus, the one night they didn’t eat much because there were a lot of snacks at the Christmas party.
The Wednesday posts were just for this past year. 🙂 I have new word and a bit of a new blogging schedule/plan in 2019 and am not taking Wednesdays off. More on that next week. I’m so glad you enjoyed those posts. I enjoyed getting to do them!
Mel says
With 3 company dinner parties to attend with my husband this week, my kids have been living on pizza. When i do make it to the grocery store this time of year i seem to focus on holiday baking and entertaining and forget that my family still needs real food to eat!
Laura says
I’ve only been following your blog/instagram for little awhile but I just wanted to say thank you for being so real/down to earth and for posting your actual meals you ate. It may seem like a small thing but it helps to see what other “normal” people are eating, as a busy family with 3 kids (4th due next month) I feel so much “Pinterest pressure” to come up with fancy dinners and your blog is a breath of fresh air (not saying your meals aren’t delicious sounding, just meant realistic:)
Crystal Paine says
I’m SO glad that this encourages you! That is my hope in sharing these!
Jennie says
Do you follow a recipe for the sausage, potatoes and peppers in the crockpot?
I’ve fed my family frozen pizza for dinner several times this week. ?
Crystal Paine says
Thanks for making me feel better! And no, no recipe for the crockpot meal… just throw in a little of what we have + some spices and water! 🙂
Melie says
I’m also enjoying tulips this weekend! I found them marked down at Sprouts, and the checker ended up giving them to me for free and told me to grab a second package on my way out the door – they just wanted them gone. 🙂 I love our Sprouts.
Crystal Paine says
That’s amazing!!