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 seven. This includes almost all of our breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners + most household products (toiletries, laundry soap, etc.).
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I’m loving getting back into the swing of bargain shopping again! This week, I went to Kroger twice plus Aldi and Big Lots. Here’s what I got…
Kroger Shopping Trip #1:
- Salad Greens — marked down to $1.79
- Greek Salad Kit — marked down to $1.69
- 2 jars peanut butter — $1.50 each
- Peppers — marked down to $0.99
- Grapes — $1.52
- Total with tax: $9.53
I went to another Kroger later in the week and found crazy egg markdowns!
Kroger Shopping Trip #2:
- 5 boxes Kellogg’s cereal — $1.69 each when you buy 6 or more participating items + get $0.75 back from iBotta = $0.94 each after iBotta rebate
- Godiva Pudding — marked down to $0.79
- 2 Yoplait Yogurt 8-packs — marked down to $2.19 each
- 5 blocks/bags cheese — $1.49 each when you buy 6 or more participating items
- 2 Nourish bowls — marked down to $0.99 each
- 3 cans Pringles — $0.99 each when you buy 6 or more participating items
- Capri-Sun — $1.79 when you buy 6 or more participating items
- Dole Spinach — marked down to $0.79
- 2 30-count eggs — marked down to $0.69 each
- Kroger brown eggs — $0.99
- 3 bags avocados — marked down to $0.99 each
- 2 bags nectarines — marked down to $0.99 each
- Milk — $2.59
- Kroger cookies — $1.29, used $1/1 digital coupon = $0.29
- 3 2-lb packs of strawberries — $1.88 each
- Total with tax: $47.22
BigLots Shopping Trip:
- 2 loaves bread — $1.40 each
- 1 pack hot dog buns
- Total with tax: $4.48
ALDI Shopping Trip:
- Oats — $2.39
- 3-lb bag of Fuji Apples — $2.99
- Tortilla Chips — $0.89
- Bananas — $0.89
- Total with tax: $7.64
Total spent on groceries: $68.87
Our Menu Plan This 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.
Dinners:
Sunday — Sausage, Scrambled Eggs, Toast
Monday — Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken, Twice Baked Potatoes, Salad, Grapes
Tuesday — Chicken & Noodles, Oranges, Cheesy Garlic Bread
Wednesday — Sausage/Potatoes/Peppers in the Crockpot, Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Thursday — Breakfast Casserole, Roasted Potatoes, Grapes
Friday — Leftovers, Fruit Salad
Saturday — Peanut Butter & Honey Sandwiches, Strawberries, Pringles (we are taking a short little in-state road trip this weekend to visit my sister and her family who currently live in Johnson City so we’re eating this on the road!)
Question: how often do you usually go to the store?
It just depends from week to week on how much time I have and if I’ll be driving by the store and have time to pop in.
Love this – thank you for sharing as always! We love sausage, potatoes, and onions in the crockpot.
Yay! You’re so welcome. We love sharing ideas that our readers will enjoy! -Jordan, MSM Team
You’ve probably said before, but I’m curious what your plan is for that many avocados.
How do you use them all up before they go bad? Is there a way to make them last longer?
I don’t know if she will do this, but they do freeze. And if you add a little lemon juice they won’t discolor. We mix with salsa and make very easy guacamole or put on salads.
Thanks, Diane!
Once an avocado is ripe or just about ripe you can put it in the fridge which will slow the ripening and decay process allowing you to use it longer. If you use avocados for green smoothies you can also cut them up and freeze them once they are ripe! I hope that helps! -Jordan, MSM Team
Thanks for the tip!
If you refrigerate them, it stops the ripening. So they should last for at least two weeks, possibly longer. We’ll eat them on salads, plain, and maybe make guac, too.
Sounds delicious! Thanks for the tip!
What kinds of stuff do you and your family eat for breakfast and lunch? I love seeing your dinners because it gives me inspiration for my menus!
Both are fend for yourself since it’s summer, but it’s usually cereal or oatmeal for breakfast (unless someone decides to make eggs/toast or something) and lunch is usually sandwiches or snacky type foods or leftovers.
What about the meat you purchase? How do you calculate that into your grocery budget? I don’t see a whole chicken or kielbasa type sausage in the items purchased. Do you spend one whole weeks worth on just meats but from a previous week not shown? Meat is always the most costly item in my budget.
Not sure if you saw the note at the top of the menu, but I practice the “buy ahead” principle — so I buy in bulk when things are on a great sale and then stick in the freezer for later weeks. So meat is part of our $70 budget… the chicken was a marked down purchase from last week that we had in the freezer and the sausage mentioned was all from deals I got either last week or in weeks past. Keep watching and following along and you’ll see more how this works.
You’re lucky your Kroger takes coupons off of Markdowns mine doesn’t.
Ours doesn’t take coupons off of markdowns — but they do take them off of sales or closeouts.
69 cents for 30 eggs each is crazy! We have chickens and that’s cheaper than having chickens!
I KNOW YOU ARE EATING HEALTHY- IT SHOWS! I’M INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU TYPICALLY EAT FOR THE DAY. MANY BLESSING TO YOU AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL FAMILY.
Ha! Well, I don’t know that people would consider what I eat necessarily “healthy” — but I typically eat energy bites for breakfast, oatmeal with fruit for lunch, and a salad with some type of protein and toast for dinner. I also usually have a few snacks of lactation cookies + toast with butter throughout the day, as I’m hungry. And I eat some of the main dish for dinner + other types of things we get on sale, too — such as this week, I’ll probably have scrambled eggs and avocados at some point during the day each day, too. I’ve found that my milk supply stays up when I eat more carbs, so I’m eating lots of them right now. I’m just eating a LOT of calories in general since I’m nursing and working hard to keep my supply as strong as possible. 🙂
Love shopping the Woo Hoo and 99 cent produce specials at Kroger. Really helps my budget. Excellent find on eggs!!!
I think it’s wonderful that you’re now a family of 7, but maybe you should note that 2 are babies (who aren’t even eating the food you buy right now). I’ve noticed many readers seem to get discouraged when their budget isn’t as low as yours, and if someone sees “7 people” without realizing the context, that may continue to happen – and I know that’s not your intention!
I had kept it to 5 people in my description and last week someone told me I needed to change it… so that’s why I changed it! We will be buying diapers for both and formula for Kierstyn in our budget + I’m nursing her, so I realized that I should probably include them since I’m having to eat quite a bit more because of nursing + we will definitely be having diapers/wipes/formula costs.
It is a small world. My grandfather was from Johnson City and my grandmother was from Turkey Town – when it was a mining town and now a park.
There was also a Kroger cash back offer for $.75 on the frosted mini wheats. I think you have to add it before you go, though.
Thanks for that great ip!
I am curious as to when you buy paper products/laundry products/diapers etc. I know you include this in your grocery budget, but I don’t see these in the purchases you share except for the occasional bottle of shampoo… (Unless missed a big purchase at some point??)
Yes, keep watching and you’ll see them. 🙂 We don’t buy many paper products and I usually buy them in bulk whenever there’s a great sale.
So far, we’ve not had to buy anything but wipes for the babies — which I did a few months back when there was a great deal on Pampers wipes. Our friends and some local foster care support places have been super, crazy generous in giving us diapers and our pediatrician gave us quite a bit of formula. So we’re set on diapers for at least two more months, possibly longer!