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.
Well, y’all, I had thought I was about $6 under budget this week… and then I went to add up my receipts and discovered I was actually $1.72 over budget.
Whoops! I realized that I read one receipt as saying I had spent $36 when it actually said I saved $36 and spent $42. Oh well!
I have a little wiggle room in the budget since I’ve been under budget a number of weeks, so it will be okay. But lesson learned: Don’t just glance at your receipt before heading to the store!
(I keep my receipts and then use those to tally how much I’ve spent for the week. I know; that’s ridiculously old fashioned, but it’s usually what works for me. Maybe I should move up to something more sophisticated and techie!! Jesse does track it all in YNAB, but he’s usually a few days behind in tracking and inputting everything, so I usually just go off of my receipts!)
I try to stick as close to the $70 mark as possible — it’s a fun challenge for me PLUS I love getting to show you how it works for our family and the deals that I find!
At any rate, here’s what I bought this week:


Kroger Shopping Trip #1:
- Back to Nature Cookies — on sale for $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items, plus used a $1.50/2 coupon that printed while I was checking out = $3.45 for 5 boxes (my kids were SO excited about these!!)
- Lemon Juice — $2.49
- Alo Juice — Free with free Friday e-coupon
- 2 dozen Happy Eggs — marked down to $2.49 per dozen
- Hillshire Ham — on closeout for $2.09
- Planter’s Peanuts — $2.49 when you buy 5 participating items, plus used $1.50/1 Kroger digital coupon = $0.99
- 1 loaf of bread — marked down to $1.39
- Clementines — $3.99 for a 3-lb bag
- 3 bags of Sweet Potatoes — marked down to $0.99
- 1 bag of grapefruit — marked down to $0.99
- 2 packages of Cheddar Bratwurst — marked down to $1.79 each
- 4 packages of Eckrich sausage — $1.50 each when you buy 5 participating items
- 5 boxes of Simple Popped Popcorn — $1 per box when you buy 5 participating items (plus each box has a free Redbox movie rental code in it!)
- 1 container organic Spring Mix (no romaine!) — marked down to $1.79
- Total with tax: $42.38
Psst! Need some help with cutting your grocery budget? Check out my series: 5 Days to a Better Grocery Budget.

Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- 5 packages Kroger shredded cheese — $0.99 per package with the Kroger digital coupon
- TollHouse Snack Bars — marked down to $1.49 (Silas wanted to buy this to make for our Saturday night family movie night!)
- 4 Dannon yogurts — marked down to $0.49 each (two were eaten before I got a picture taken!)
- 2 Greek Yogurts — marked down to $0.39 each
- 2 big bags of avocados — marked down to $0.99 each
- 1 bag of mangoes — marked down to $0.99
- Total with tax: $12.91
Kroger Shopping Trip #3:
- 3 cartons of Simple Truth Beaten Eggs — marked down to $1.29 each
- 5 boxes of Betty Crocker Potatoes — $1.49 each, used $1/1 Kroger Digital coupon (can be used up to 5 times in one transaction) = $0.49 each after coupons
- 2 4-packs of Noosa yogurt — marked down to $1.99 each
- 2 packages of seasoned Chicken Leg Quarters — marked down to $2.63 and $2.53
- Total with tax: $16.43
Cashback earned this week: $0.10 from Ibotta for submitting my receipt and 284 points for submitting my receipt to Fetch rewards (that’s basically the equivalent of $0.28).
Total spent this week: $71.72
Also, I just had to show you this 52-week Meal Planner that my friend, Erin, from Simple Purposeful Living sent me. 
There’s space to write out your menu and then your shopping list — and then it’s perforated so you can tear it out and take your shopping list with you to the store!

Aldi shoppers, I thought this would make you smile. (And excuse the fact that the meme says “Aldi’s” not Aldi and “grill’s” not grills.)
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, Bacon (from the freezer) Yogurt, Hard Boiled Eggs, Banana Bread
Lunches:
- Hard Boiled Eggs, Banana Bread, Cheese/Crackers, Avocados, Salad, Leftovers (for Jesse & Me)
- Ham Sandwiches, Clementines, Cheese/Crackers, Yogurt, Cookies, Hard Boiled Eggs (for the kids — They are in charge of their own lunches.)
Snacks:
- Yogurt, Cheese/Crackers, Popcorn, Hard Boiled Eggs, Cookies
Dinners:
- Saturday: Dinner out
- Sunday: Fend For Yourself — snack-y food and leftovers
- Monday: Peppers & Sausage over Brown Rice
- Tuesday: Pork Sandwiches, Mashed Sweet Potatoes
- Wednesday: Whole Wheat Pancakes, Bacon, Grapefruit
- Thursday: Turkey Meatballs, Sweet Potato Fries
- Friday: Leftover Turkey Meatballs & Sweet Potato Fries































































This year, at the end of our Christmas tree discussion, they decided they really didn’t want a big Christmas tree (which I honestly was surprised about!). Instead, they asked if we could get little Christmas trees for each of their bedrooms.






