Want to see what we bought for this week’s $70 grocery budget? I’m currently challenging myself to stick with a $70 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.
We were in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois until Wednesday evening, so I’m skipping post a menu plan this week because we went out once a day while on vacation and ate the free hotel breakfast in the mornings and then just had one snack-y meal using snacks we brought on the road with us.
But I did go grocery shopping twice, but before I share those trips, I have to share a few food related pictures from our trip.
Wisconsin, we fell in love with you! Also, Silas says that his impression is that everything is FREE in Madison! 😉
But seriously, if you’re looking for a great vacation spot with kids, check out Madison, WI. I’ll be sharing more of our day there and some of the free things we did in a post in a few weeks.
Based upon all of your recommendations, we stopped at the Cheese Chalet and bought cheese curds and then headed to Culver’s for frozen custard. Yum!
I have so many more pictures I could share from our trip, but I save those for future posts. For now, here’s a peek into what groceries we bought last week…
I found a number of closeout prices at Kroger on dried fruit, fruit snacks, and healthy cereal. Since these are closeouts, not markdowns, they qualify for the Buy 5, Get $5 Off deal!
There was only one box left of the Mott’s Fruit Snacks, but I was excited to get it for just $0.37!
Kroger Shopping Trip #1:
- 2 bags Bugles — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
- Veggie Chips — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
- 1 Mott’s Tropical Fruit Snacks — $0.37 when you buy 5 participating items (on closeout)
- 4 boxes of cereal — $1.49 each when you buy 5 participating items
- 2 bags Raisins — on closeout for $1.18 each
- Milk — $2.99
- 2 bags of Chex Mix — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
- 1 bag of papaya — marked down to $0.99
- 2 coconuts — marked down to $0.99
- 2 Colgate toothpastes — $1.99 when you buy 5 participating items (I thought it was going to take the $4/2 Digital coupon off, but instead it took off the $2/1 Digital coupon — lesson learned, either load the coupons on one and a time and don’t load another one until I’ve used one or else buy 3 toothpastes in order to get all 3 free! I could have asked them to take this off my order, but then the coupon already came off and then it would have messed up my Buy 5, Get $5 off deal… I decided to just pay for toothpaste — something I haven’t done in a long time!)
- 2 lbs. of ground turkey — marked down to $2.09 each
- Cheddar brats — marked down to $1.29 each
- Simply Popped — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
- Total with tax: $31.24
I was excited about the bread and bacon Friday-Saturday deals!
Wow! Look at all these Produce Markdowns I found this past week! My eyes sort of bulged out when I saw all of these $0.99 red bags!
I bought 5 packages each (the limit) of bread and bacon and stuck all of them in the freezer to have for summer. I’m thinking the bread will be great for sandwiches or French Toast and the bacon will be great for Breakfast for Dinner nights!
I could barely fit everything into one photo!
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- Orville Redenbacher popcorn — marked down to $0.69
- Oui Petites — marked down to $0.99
- Simple Truth Eggs — $2.79
- 5 loaves of Sara Lee bread — $0.99 each as the Friday-Saturday deal
- 3 big bags of Mom’s Best cereal — on closeout for $1.15 each
- 2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste — $1.99 each when you buy 5 participating items, used $4/2 Digital coupon (it worked today!) = free after coupon
- Palmolive dish soap — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items, used $0.50/1 Digital coupon = $0.49 after coupon
- Veggie Chips — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
- Simply Popped Popcorn — $0.99 when you buy 5 participating items
- 5 packages Kroger bacon — $2.99 each as the Friday-Saturday deal
- 8 bags of marked down produce — $0.99 each
- Total with tax: $41.82
Shopping Trip Totals: $73.06
And yes, I was a bit over-budget (by $3) this week, but I wanted to go ahead and stock up on these deals as I’m going to be out of town Tuesday and Wednesday at a conference and I’ll make sure I’m a few dollars under-budget this coming week.
I just wish we had a Kroger! I live in Nebraska and the only grocery shopping options in a 60-mile radius are Walmart and a local chain called Pac n Save which doesn’t often have better prices, or quality, than Walmart (occasionally they do! but not usually). So I’m kind of limited unless I want to drive pretty far. By which point I’m spending so much gas it’s not worth it!
I have used some of your tips to look out for clearance produce and marked-down meat, which can save a lot. I recently discovered our Walmart carries frozen ground turkey for $1.50 a pound! So we’ve been eating a lot of that. 🙂
I don’t have a smart phone either so a lot of the coupon apps you’ve mentioned aren’t options… but what advice WOULD you have for someone in my situation?
I’d recommend focusing on cooking from scratch, cooking meals with inexpensive ingredients, and seeing if there are other outside the box options (dollar store, local farms, friends who garden, etc.) There are lots of ways to save that don’t involve coupons! And honestly, sometimes just having one store can keep it super easy and simple!
Also, check to see if there are deals online that are cheaper than Walmart. And use coupons at Walmart when you can — if it’s something you are already planning to buy!
What types of dinners do you do? I don’t see much meat usually on your posts.
Have you seen my menu plans? I typically buy between 4-6 pounds of meat each week. For instance, this week, we bought 5 packages of bacon, 2 pounds of ground turkey, and one package of brats — so 8 pounds total. We typically eat between 3-4 pounds of meat each week, so I have a lot of meat in the freezer we can pull from! If you check out my past $70 grocery budget posts, you can see MONTHS of menu plans to get some ideas of what we typically eat: https://moneysavingmom.com/tag/my-70-grocery-budget/
Thanks! I’ll take a look! Meat is my most expensive purchase usually.
I’m bummed that I actually missed the weekly deals at Kroger this week although did find some awesome clearance deals. Question regarding your freezing bread. Do you defrost any special way so it doesn’t get soggy?
Do you post what you’re going to buy, and what coupons/deals you’ll take advantage of before going shopping also?
I don’t usually share before I buy, but I almost always share right after going to the store over on Instagram and Instagram stories. Are you following me there?
What does the reduced produce look like? I feel like it’s already too bad looking at my stores so I never buy it -I’d hate to not use it and waste it!! How do you know what’s good and what’s not?!?
I’d love to read about how you visited Mall of America on a budget because there is nothing cheap about visit MOA in my opinion. Also, do you guys have a preferred brand of hotels you like to stay at when traveling? I know that there must be ways to get good deals on hotels when traveling, I just haven’t figured that knack out yet! 🙂
Well, actually, it can be super cheap if you don’t buy anything! 🙂 We didn’t buy anything there except burgers at Happy Hour at BurgerBurger and a few road trip games at Five Below that we bought for the kids for the trip back. Silas and Kathrynne also decided to go together and buy one of the $8.99 Pick a Brick tubs. But that was it! 🙂
We always just look for the best deals online for hotels that also have breakfasts. You can sometimes find some really great deals on Hotels.com — which is where we usually look.
I’d live info on how u find good hotels
This is so incredible.
So savvy!
My family of three barely stays under $100. I’m a tad embarrassed lol.
-Chris