Our $70 Grocery Shopping Budget + Menu Plan

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.).

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I’m trying something new this week! Instead of posting a menu plan at the beginning of the week and then sharing my shopping trips throughout the week, I’m sharing what we actually ate and what groceries I bought this week.

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 in these shopping trips that I used to make all of the meals we ate. And  it also means we didn’t use all of these groceries up this week — because some of them will be saved for later weeks!

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. 🙂

Kroger Shopping Trip #1:

• 3 Family-Sized Boxes of Nabisco Ritz Crackers — $1.99 with the Kroger Friday-Saturday Digital Coupon
• 2 boxes of Raisinets — marked down to $0.19 each
• Naked Juice — on closeout for $1.79, used $2/1 coupon — they deducted it down to $1.79 = FREE after coupon
• 4 jars of Yoplait Oui Yogurt — marked down to $2.39 total
• Bananas — marked down to $0.39/lb. = $1.88 total
• Total with tax: $12.46, Got a $3 catalina back

Kroger Shopping Trip #2:

• 1 Kroger Cottage Cheese — $1.89
• 1 Johnsonville Sausage — marked down to $2.29
• 5 packages of Kroger Ground Turkey — marked down to $2.29 each
• 1 package Johnsonville Italian Sausage — marked down to $1.99
• Used $3/$15 meat coupon Kroger mailed to me
• Used $3 catalina earned in shopping trip above
• Total with tax: $12.72

Kroger Shopping Trip #3:

• 1 Salad Kit — marked down to $1.89
• 1 bag of oranges — marked down to $0.99
• 1 bag of peppers — marked down to $0.99
• Oui Yogurt (2-pack) — marked down to $1.19
• 1 dozen eggs — marked down to $1.19
• 1/2 gallon chocolate milk — marked down to $1.39
• Grapes — on sale for $0.88/lb. = $2.15
• 3 cans of Kroger pumpkin — $0.99 each
• 1 gallon milk — $2.69
• King Arthur Flour — $3.89, used $1/1 Kroger Digital Coupon = $2.89
• Oats — $2.49
• Butter — $2.99 when you buy 5 participating items
• 2 bottles Palmolive dish soap — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used 1 $0.50/1 Kroger Digital Coupon
• Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating items, used $2/1 Kroger Digital coupon = FREE after coupon
• 1 bottle Head & Shoulders — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating items, used $1/1 Kroger Digital coupon = $0.99 after coupon
• Total with tax: $29.75

Note: I forgot to buy the second bottle of Palmolive the first time around, so I had to go to customer service and add it to my order to get the $5 off!

Kroger Shopping Trips #4 & #5:

• 1 Kroger cottage cheese — $1.89
• 1 bottle Naked Protein Smoothie — marked down to $1.79 (not pictured; I picked this up for Kathrynne to have for lunch since she can hardly eat anything right now because she just got her expander put in in preparation for getting braces)
• 2 packages of Pitas — marked down to $0.79 each
• 4 dozen Simple Truth eggs — $1.77 with Kroger Friday-Saturday Only Digital coupon
• 1 dozen medium eggs — marked down to $0.49
• 1 Yoplait yogurt — Free with Free Friday coupon
• 2 yogurts — marked down to $0.29 each
• 2 packages of butter — $2.49 each when you buy 5 participating items
• Yo Crunch Yogurt — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
• 2 bottles Simply Lemonade — $0.99 each when you buy 5 participating items
• 1 bag of apples — marked down to $0.99
• Total with tax: $23.71

What We Ate This Week

Breakfasts:

• Cereal, Oatmeal, Baked Oatmeal (from the freezer), Toast/Eggs, Banana Bread with Peanut Butter (Everyone is on their own for breakfast!)

Lunches:

• Hard Boiled Eggs, Avocados, Salad, Banana Bread, Turkey Burgers, Turkey Meatballs with Spaghetti Noodles & Sauce, Leftovers, Apples, Peppers (Jesse & Me)
• Sandwiches, Fruit, Veggies, Granola Bars, Yogurt, Cookies, Capri Sun (For the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)

Snacks:

• Banana Bread, Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, Fruit/Veggies, Hard Boiled Eggs

Dinners:

• Sunday: Leftovers/Fend For Yourself
• Monday: Turkey Burgers, Pickles, Peas, Grapes
• Tuesday: Chipotle (School Spirit Night Fundraiser)
• Wednesday: Pumpkin Waffles, Grapes
• Thursday: Spaghetti Casserole, Steamed Peas
• Friday: Spaghetti Casserole, Banana Bread, Steamed Broccoli (yes, we made enough to have it two nights in a row!)

What I Spent This Week

My grocery week runs from Saturday to Friday. However, I had $11.85 leftover from this past week, so I’m subtracting it from this week’s total.

Total for all these groceries minus the extra grocery money from last week: $66.79

Cashback Earned This Week: 125 points from Fetch Rewards for scanning my receipts

Help me out! Do you like this new format of me sharing my grocery shopping and menu plan? I’d love to hear your honest thoughts!